- but he's got to want to change
25 Feb 2010 Martin is also highly articulate and thinking – but perhaps more articulate than thinking. He is small for his age but looks all-of-a-piece: just generally young for his age. This is often a problem for teenage boys. They grow at such different rates, some spurt while some have steady growth; some grow at eleven, others not till fifteen. Martin is small, but his father didn’t grow till he was 18 and at 14, he seems to be fine with it.
Martin has a big problem with eating. It all started when he was a baby and vomited a lot. He then had a very bad bout of gastro-enteritis which confirmed for both the toddler Martin and his Mum that he couldn’t eat a wide range of foods. She thought, not unreasonably, that it was better for him to eat something than nothing and increasingly allowed to him to restrict his diet. Unfortunately, this coincided with his age. The dietician was telling us last week that babies will try everything but from the age of one, for about eighteen months, become incredibly picky. This is reasonable in that it protects the newly mobile toddler from all sorts of dangerous stuff. If parents persist to offer all sorts of food during and after, the child is likely to grow up eating a range of food stuffs.
Unfortunately, Martin and his mother both agreed that many foods might make him sick and increasingly he ate fewer and fewer items until now, at 14, he eats bread and chips and peanut butter. Which is better than without the peanut butter, but not a good diet. It stops all sorts of activities for him – he doesn’t go to friends’ houses or camping with Scouts, and the family can only go out to eat if chips are available. Curiously, Martin is a good cook, although he doesn’t taste what he has made.
His Mum is worried that he won’t try new foods and today we talked around this. He wouldn’t try the ketchup I had in a sachet in my drawer, nor would he think of trying bolognaise – a family favourite. So we had the conversation about how much he wants things to be different. There is a very old joke: how many psychologists does it take to change a lightbulb? Only One, but the lightbulb has to really want to change. If Martin doesn’t want things to be different, it is pointless to try and help him.
He says he does. So we have an agreement, based on research that says we have to try new foods at least seven times to know whether we like them [before that we are confused by texture, smell and memory etc]. Martin will try two new foods of his choice every day until his next appointment. If he does, next time I shall hypnotise him. He’s very keen to be hypnotised and I’m happy to do this. If he doesn’t keep to his side of the bargain, perhaps he will just have to go away until it all matters enough for him to take the risk he feels new foods pose.
Martin has a big problem with eating. It all started when he was a baby and vomited a lot. He then had a very bad bout of gastro-enteritis which confirmed for both the toddler Martin and his Mum that he couldn’t eat a wide range of foods. She thought, not unreasonably, that it was better for him to eat something than nothing and increasingly allowed to him to restrict his diet. Unfortunately, this coincided with his age. The dietician was telling us last week that babies will try everything but from the age of one, for about eighteen months, become incredibly picky. This is reasonable in that it protects the newly mobile toddler from all sorts of dangerous stuff. If parents persist to offer all sorts of food during and after, the child is likely to grow up eating a range of food stuffs.
Unfortunately, Martin and his mother both agreed that many foods might make him sick and increasingly he ate fewer and fewer items until now, at 14, he eats bread and chips and peanut butter. Which is better than without the peanut butter, but not a good diet. It stops all sorts of activities for him – he doesn’t go to friends’ houses or camping with Scouts, and the family can only go out to eat if chips are available. Curiously, Martin is a good cook, although he doesn’t taste what he has made.
His Mum is worried that he won’t try new foods and today we talked around this. He wouldn’t try the ketchup I had in a sachet in my drawer, nor would he think of trying bolognaise – a family favourite. So we had the conversation about how much he wants things to be different. There is a very old joke: how many psychologists does it take to change a lightbulb? Only One, but the lightbulb has to really want to change. If Martin doesn’t want things to be different, it is pointless to try and help him.
He says he does. So we have an agreement, based on research that says we have to try new foods at least seven times to know whether we like them [before that we are confused by texture, smell and memory etc]. Martin will try two new foods of his choice every day until his next appointment. If he does, next time I shall hypnotise him. He’s very keen to be hypnotised and I’m happy to do this. If he doesn’t keep to his side of the bargain, perhaps he will just have to go away until it all matters enough for him to take the risk he feels new foods pose.