To be surprised this kid’s parents haven’t been prosecuted?

[AngeloMysterioso]

Teenage boy goes blind after being allowed to eat crap for the best part of a decade (BBC News link)

I mean surely this is tantamount to child abuse, or at the very least neglect? How does a parent allow this to happen? I mean you don’t have to be a nutritionist to know that chips, pringles and white bread aren’t exactly a balanced diet...

Quite Amy, Ds1 can be very fussy always has been but I can persuade him with some cajoling,very different to ds2 who just won't eat something and would just not eat ,due to his complex needs it's a whole different ball game .

When heard this on the radio this morning it reminded me of my child with sensory processing disorder that only eats five things. I went to see a NHS dietitian once who said just eat more fortified cereal, come back in six months but then took us off the books.

Maybe the parents did try to do something but was meet with the kind of response I was? ( mental note to buy multivitamins and minerals as ds has only improved marginally on his own)

Ds2 quite often survives on noodles obviously I'm not happy about this I leave stuff out and as I said upthread he grazes a lot throughout the day which works for him but what works for him won't work for other children with autism and learning disabillitie, s

I also think there must have been something else going on with his sight ,whilst the diet might have contributed I doubt it was the only cause ?

My dd was diagnosed with a severe food aversion aged 2. 8 years on and meals are still a daily nightmare. She's been tube fed and got to the point of a pre op for a peg feed. I've made myself ill trying to get her to eat. So lock me up too, if she's suffered any long term consequences.

I wonder whether OP knows or cares how much hurt this thread has caused. Utter bone-headed ignorant twattery.

Oh god the utter panic when they changed the Muller corner recipe! Thankfully it's been okay but when you child with ARFID and who is a super taster, you can't even eat our because things are the wrong brand. So a favoured brand (of the standard 8 foods) fills me with dread

Favoured brand changing the recipe even!

Pigeon - hopefully she's learned something. I'm ever hopeful

I think @MNHQ need to revive their "This Is My Child" campaign in light of the staggering amount of ignorance and disabilism on the boards lately.

www.mumsnet.com/campaigns/this-is-my-child

This story and this thread both have me on tears.
Fight.....
....every aspect of caring for ds is a fight - accessing support at school, ensuring he gets decent medical care, trying to fight for speech therapy, OT, physio, CAMHS...whilst they are cut cut cut, getting a diagnosis, trying to make sure those supporting him understand a diagnosis we have very little information on, supporting ds through his anxiety, his poor health, his difficulties with communication....Fighting to try and help him with his restricted diet, the very fundamentals of eating to stay alive and grow. It is grinding, grudgingly hard.

Unfortunately i.agree venger people post all.kinds of shite with no.understanding of disability

Personally, I wouldn't have understood the sheer torment that a child not eating or only eating safe food could cause before I experienced it myself. I'm so used to catering to dds rules that when I have to cook for someone else I really struggle (wtf even are spices 😅), I'm almost institutionalised by it.

I hope the OP has learned from this thread, and it's nice to know I'm not alone

hazeyjane who knew keeping a child alive, at a basic food and drink level, could be so fucking hard eh?

I hear you hazey it's exhausting

Awful thread OP, and awful, disablist attitude by you.

Sensory disorders are real, poorly understood and very difficult to overcome even in cases where full support is available, so imagine what it’s like trying to access help in a cash strapped NHS. Exactly the same is true of AFRID. I have a child with AFRID, no one knows why he has it or what caused it. Any bargaining, negotiating, praising, or even a tough attitude results in him not eating anything at all for days. Don’t you think parents of children with eating disorders have tried everything you can think of and then some? If there is some magic way to get e kids to eat please tell me what the fuck it is.

OP I really hope you come back and read this thread to see people's experience if nowt else.

I have just plugged Ds into the machine that will feed him while he sleeps. And you know something? We are the lucky ones because someone listened to us.

He is 9 and has been on a downward spiral for 4 years. He weighs the same as your average 5 year old. He wears 2-3 underpants even though he is the height of a 7/8 year old. His picture from first day of reception made me cry today because of how “normal” he looked weight wise.

Thankfully last year a consultant listened to us and he had a peg fitted 3 months ago. I hate it. I hate that he needs it. But I also love it because it means the fact he has eaten an apple an egg and a packet of crisps all day thankfully doesn’t matter.

He still isn’t gaining weight but we can work on that. He is getting nourishment.

My 16 year old is high functioning autistic and eats an extremely restricted diet, but I'm lucky because he is high functioning enough to understand the implications of a diet as rigid as he would like. He would love to exist on nothing but toast, bread and butter, cake and yoghurt drinks. But he will now eat apples, raw carrots, cereal with milk, cheese sandwiches with cucumber and lettuce, and occasionally chicken. He also willingly takes supplements in tablet form. But this has taken years, with no outside help. There was a time when he became so underweight due to his extreme restricted diet that he was shivering constantly even on a warm day, I begged and begged and pushed for help, but nothing was available apart from social services becoming involved.
You have no idea OP, just how frightening and heartbreaking it is to know that this child that you took so much care to feed a complete diet cooked from scratch from toddler years, is now slowly sliding away.

No one who doesn’t have a child with such an aversion to most foods can really understand how it impacts your whole family life. Eating out anywhere is very difficult. We can never stay in hotels or anywhere that isn’t self-catering as DS can’t eat anything. If we go away for a couple of days I have to take puréed frozen food. If we go away for longer, I have to take my own saucepans / steamers / blender because any slight difference in the way I prepare his meals and will be noticed. Any difference in the colour / texture/ taste of the 3 puréed meals he has in rotation will result in the food being disguarded.

My child has been like this since he was born. He refused solids until he was over 12 months. He refused all liquids apart from breast milk till he was over 2. People who believe that eventually the child will become so hungry or thirsty that they will eat or drink can not be familiar with how ASD / sensory processing disorders can affect a child’s relationship with nourishment.

And all the time I'm petrified of setting of his anxieties. He is under the CAHMS for suicidal thoughts as well. I can not just push food into his mouth. I wish I could say to him that if he doesn't eat his veg there will be nothing else. He'd just starve himself again.

As complex as my sons needs are and they are very complex ,his diet isn't so restrictive that it impacts as much as some people's children for this I'm greatful and he is growing albeit much slower than his peers people really should ,nt comment on things they nothing about .

My nephew is the same. Won’t entertain fruit or veg. Believe it when I say we’ve tried. However what do you do. With the best will and intentions in the world.
You can’t physically force it down them, can you.

You can’t make them feel any worse than they already do, op. Imagine the immense guilt they must be feeling

I know this won’t help for everyone and my DD does not have autism but food chaining is a technique that really helped us so I am going to explain it for the people who it might help. She would eat breaded chicken nuggets as one of her few foods so one day I gave her turkey nuggets and she was okay with them because they tasted and looked pretty similar. After a while I gave her a breaded chicken escalop which was the same taste but a different size and she coped okay. I didn’t make a thing out of it, just did it. This was slowly over time. You have to be patient. One day she had a pork schnitzel in a restaurant and liked it because it was breaded. Trying new things often happens much more easily outside the home. I did the same chaining technique with sliced chicken, sliced turkey and sliced ham. Once she had got used to the taste of these different things I eventually went on to chicken sausages and pork sausages. I have never achieved beef but that’s okay. I also recently gave her scampi which she now likes even though she thinks she hates fish. Because it is breaded it is okay but eventually I think she will eat prawns. She also now eats all kinds of chicken, without breadcrumbs. This has taken years, not months, but you can see how it works. You have to make small deviations over a long period of time without being pushy or insistent. I know this won’t help severe cases but I hope it helps someone.

We can eat out as a family thankfully. Well as long as it is McDonalds (fish fingers only)* or Pizza Hut.

*He will eat no other fish fingers.