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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To tell DS either eat what is here or go hungry?

98 replies

TheLadyEvenstar · 18/05/2011 16:52

Last week sweetcorn was great this week he hates it
yesterday he wanted Pizza, today I have been lazy accomadating and ordered him a pizza for dinner.

Ham, cheese mushroom and sweetorn.

He is refusing point blank to eat it. AIBU to tell him thats all there is and he either eats it or goes hungry?

He is 12 and yes he has AS but I refuse to pander to his every whim.

OP posts:
Original poster
TheLadyEvenstar · 18/05/2011 18:28

which is why DP stays here on a Friday and Sunday so I can go out.

OP posts:
campion · 18/05/2011 18:35

Yes, TLE, I do see what you mean but if it results in all-out battle I think I would move the goalposts occasionally. Depends if you can stand it.
A 3 year old can be easily 'fobbed off' with an explanation sometimes without coming to harm and, as he gets older, he will work out that DS1 is different. They just do.

beesimo · 18/05/2011 18:38

Maypole1

Hear Hear I agree with you entirely!

Original poster
TheLadyEvenstar · 18/05/2011 18:44

I have decided to stick to my guns. He has learnt to push the right buttons to get his way and he needs to learn this is not going to work anymore.

There is no reason for him to not eat the pizza other than pure stubborness.

I am going to read up more on AS and seek help from the professionals - wish me luck there eh?

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lljkk · 18/05/2011 18:46

Call me soft but if he were mine I'd pander (a little) to him. At least offer up a simple alternative (like cheese on toast). Not eating makes some people irrational; AS means he's already prone to what seems like irrational behaviour; don't need to make it worse.

Oblomov · 18/05/2011 18:49

I have the opposite problem of a possibler AS ds1(7) who is permanently hungry and always asking for food.
But you have my sympathy becasue we can all appreciate the 'persnickityness of AS', where something that was o.k. sudenly isn't.

Original poster
TheLadyEvenstar · 18/05/2011 18:50

Can we swap Ob? I have DS2 who eats anything and everything and DS1 who is so fussy I want to scream!

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Piglet28 · 18/05/2011 18:52

YANBU - I do exactly the same with my much younger DS, eat it or go hungry!

Oblomov · 18/05/2011 18:55

If I told you how much thta kid ests you would be shocked. it is tiring finding enough for him. sure he has worms. GP says no !!
Can appreciate how hard fussiness is though.

Original poster
TheLadyEvenstar · 18/05/2011 18:55

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH he is now eating the fucking pizza without taking the fucking sweetcorn off !!!!!!!!!!!

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Original poster
TheLadyEvenstar · 18/05/2011 18:55

excuse my last post!!!!

OP posts:
colditz · 18/05/2011 19:13

I understand. I have just mashed a delicious bolognaise with a fork for both my children (ds2 initially claiming that he is "allergict" to bolognaise)

but that is as far as I will go. I will hide the vegetables whilst they watch if the look of the vegetables being very chunky and visible upsets them. I won't provide a non-vegetablised alternative. I like vegetables, and I cook, therefore the food has veg in it.

Ds1 has texture issues, but I figured this out a while ago and will mash with a fork for him, as this can make all sorts of things palatable. ds2 doesn't have ASD and merely hiding the veg from his view can solve most of his whining.

Dinner time is always low pressure in this house, as most older posters will know I don't do "Sit there until it's gone" and am very much against feeding a child against his appetite, but neither will I fanny around trying to tempt an obviously not particularly hungry child.

Original poster
TheLadyEvenstar · 18/05/2011 19:16

Colditz I could learn a lot from you!!

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MrsPoyser · 18/05/2011 19:25

I also have a ds with AS. He does need rules. He doesn't always like them, but he gets used to them and is much less anxious generally when provided with a structured environment. I also think, at least in his case, that becoming a functional adult means learning to cope with rules, and pizza is a pretty safe thing to learn on. So our food rules: No short-order cooking. I cook what I fancy and everyone has to try at least one mouthful of everything (even if they think they know they don't like it). After that, eat just as much as you please but there are no alternatives, and you can't move onto pudding unless I think you've eaten a reasonable amount of your main course. Of course he didn't like having rules imposed at first but he lives much more comfortably within them now they're established. I'd stick to your guns - decide what the rules are, impose them, and then relax about everything else.

(And we got no support either - lots of reading and eventually learning to trust that he is an individual and we are trying to help him function in a world he finds difficult. Sometimes that means insisting that he behave as if he understands that other people have rights and preferences too.)

colditz · 18/05/2011 19:30

"Sometimes that means insisting that he behave as if he understands that other people have rights and preferences too."

^^^^^

YES YES YES

Chandon · 18/05/2011 19:34

yabu for having sweetcorn put on a pizzaGrin, it does NOT belong there.

In the whole of Italy you will not find a pizza with sweetcorn, pineaple, kebabmeat or spicy meatballs or coronation chicken or other horrors

Just leave him hungry today, and from now on order margarita!

Original poster
TheLadyEvenstar · 18/05/2011 19:41

MrsPoyser and Colditz can you be my mentors please? can you help me learn??

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cricketballs · 18/05/2011 20:14

MrsPoyser - 100% agree with you, that is how we have brought our AS DS up as at some point he will have to life in the big wide world and therefore we need to ensure that he understands rules are there for him to follow. Whilst it has not been easy (infact bloody heartbreaking at times) to deal with the fights/screams/tantrums/conflicts etc etc that occurs when something does not go with his way of thinking it is a fact of life that at some point he will have to deal with issues that are not to his way of thinking and if we pander too much then how are we teaching him to deal with life in general

stickytoffeepud · 18/05/2011 20:19

eat it or leave it, thems the choices

janeybo · 18/05/2011 20:35

With my two 6 & 7 only I ever make one meal eat it or leave it.

If they choose the latter option I give them cereal at bed time as couldn't stand them to go to bed hungry and i like them to at least try new & different foods, which they do. They both have different tastes but are both fairly good eaters with healthy appetites.

However, with your ds having AS I would discuss with him why he has gone off sweetcorn and listen to what he says. If it sounds reasonable and you are able to accommodate his requests in your situation personally I would try to ( even if it means taking sweetcorn off & giving it back to him personally i would do so for quiet life). AS can be very frustrating for both them & you.

Original poster
TheLadyEvenstar · 18/05/2011 20:42

Sorry will be back in a bit to answer need to soak my feet after 45 minute walk with mad pup lol

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MrsPoyser · 18/05/2011 21:18

Oh gosh, you can't know how odd it is to think that I seem as if I know anything about parenting kids with ASD. It's been two years since diagnosis and we're still making it up as we go along. I suppose one thing I've learnt (which, like everything else, may apply only to my particular family) is that, even more than with most kids, it's not my job to make him like me all the time. It's my job to raise someone who will be able to fulfil his potential in the long term, and that often means making him angry or uncomfortable and then helping him to find ways of dealing with anger and discomfort. He has huge strengths and is spectacularly bright in many ways, and I don't want him to end up limited by poor social skills and impulse control. I think once we got our heads around the idea that he needs to learn things that come naturally to other people, but he can and does learn and we can and do teach, it all got easier and I didn't have to remind myself to see him an individual first and a person with ASD second. FWIW, he is often great company and I don't see the ASD as a 'problem' or a 'disadvantage' any more, just an oblique, and very interesting, approach to the world.

Original poster
TheLadyEvenstar · 18/05/2011 21:51

I think thats where I am going wrong MrsPoyser for so long he has been DS1 who is "naughty" and I have been "The Mum who is over anxious, over protective, and always stressed and worrying" this is what the Dr's classed us as.

Then DS1 got referred to the YOT youth outreach team formerly youth intervention team, and CAMHS because he got mixed up with a "group" of kids at school throwing stones at windows. CAMHS referred to SS who agreed with me that there was more to this than him just being naughty. I pushed via my GP for further assessment. Who then referred to yet another agency for the assessment.

The initial assessment took place in October 2010, we were then referred to the Social communications team who carried out further assessment in February 2011. The outcome was DS1 has Aspergers, Sensory Issues, ODD and as we already knew RAS.

So all of a sudden instead of me coming on MN (yes this is where I did all my moaning and begging for help although that was not always obvious) moaning about his behaviour, I came on and thanked the ladies here who for many a year had been trying to tell me there was more to it.

Now I have gone through the guilt - could I have done anything to prevent it?
I have gone through the anger of "why my boy"
and many other stages.

I think what has buggered my brain so much is that when my mum told DS1's ex yr6 teacher - who is a trained psychologist, she said " I thought TLES knew that he was and thats why she was always fighting his corner. It is so obvious" well then why did nobody ever tell me FFS!!!

Anyway I ramble too much.

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MrsPoyser · 18/05/2011 22:20

But you did do all those things, you did fight his corner, and you did a get diagnosis. I guess part of the problem is that, until you get it, you think a diagnosis will begin to solve the problems, but it's just a new name for them. How does he feel about the diagnosis? Can you talk to him about what it means and what you can all do now? My ds was 5 when he was diagnosed (my cousin's an ed. psych. and pushed us along much sooner than I would have gone otherwise) but we've always talked about people having different kinds of minds and responding to the world in different ways that need different strategies.
I suppose I'm thinking that you sound exhausted and embattled, and maybe if you can get him at least to think about this as a collaboration between you and him, it might feel less desperate all round. Or maybe not - I don't know anything about parenting teens...

Original poster
TheLadyEvenstar · 18/05/2011 22:33

I am totally exhausted.

This is going to sound so wrong but I have to say it. I look forward to when DP comes up as it means I can escape for a while. Like tonight I went and took the pup for a long walk just so I could clear my head.

I do love them but I am so tired of what seems to be a constant battle zone.

I want DS to spend time with us but he comes in and goes straight to his bedroom and I don't see him until dinner time and then he goes back there.

I don't know if I am doing the right things but I am just trying to do my best.

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