Dear Diane,
My 11-year-old daughter has always loved her food, but I’ve recently discovered that she’s squirrelling away snacks while no-one is looking, and eating them on her own behind closed doors. I’ve talked to her about it, and she’s certainly not short of food during mealtimes, but she gets really defensive and says she’s being picked on. She’s recently moved to an intermediate and while it’s a big school, she is settling down so there doesn’t seem to be any reason this habit has got so much worse. How do I deal with it, as it’s going on behind my back?
Katy, by email
Dear Katy,
The question is not so much how to deal with the behaviour, but how to deal with it without shaming or blaming your daughter. It is likely that the squirrelling is about her need to eat more food and a greater variety than what seems acceptable in your home. The odds are that she eats for comfort, to ease boredom, to avoid difficult tasks and is a way of distracting herself from what is really bothering her. So what is a parent to do? Firstly – and counter-intuitively – I would find out what food she likes to hide away and make it available to her in the kitchen any time she needs it. The odds are that she is struggling with the demands of a new school, new friends and new expectations.
To look into this, try and create opportunities to ask questions such as:
• Has today been an easy day or a hard day?
• How is school this year compared with last year?
• What sorts of things are making school hard?
• What’s the worst thing that happened today?
By taking away the shame and blame around food and creating situations which make it acceptable to talk about the tough stuff, you then give her alternatives to the behaviour she has chosen
