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He was never in an actual eating disorder program. We signed him up for one and then when we arrived they switched him to a behavioral program. He was a little angel there. He only got in trouble once and that was just to see if they would follow through. They did not even address eating. The advice I got to keep feeing him came from a feeding clinic. It's a little different than an eating disorder clinic. It's more for kids who don't eat becuase they had tubes when they were little and so never learned. My friend had her daughter enrolled and while she was there she called me and one of thier people was able to talk to me. I am not sure of the origin of the eating problems for him. From his records he was fine until right after he turned five. The records indicate that it started as an attempt to get attention and then it became a game between him and two girls. The three of them were the most advanced of the kids in thier unit. One girl now has a tube, all three ended up hospitalized. They saw a psychologist and they had St. Nick talk to them. The problems he has seem to be that he can eat when he wants to. The deal is that when he gets stressed (any change in schedule or dad out of town, etc) he will stop eating, and then it's really hard for him to get started back up once things are back to normal. It becomes habit. We have tried to give him something else to do when he is stressed, but that has not worked. So far the only thing that will jump start him back to eating is the forcing him. The problem is that right now I can't do that with him having to get up early for school. I simply don't have the time to devote to him that I did this summer when he finally started to gain weight. I have found an eating disorder clinic that will take him. But I really think that we need to deal with the attachment and trauma and oppositional issues first. Then if the eating is still an issue, we can try the eating disorder program. I don't think the eating disorder clinic would work right now. It's in another state and they only have the parents involved for one week of the two months the child is there. I don't think this would help with attachment. It might help with some of his other issues, but I am thinking him being away that long would hurt attachment. What do you guys think? I will also ask the psychiatrist next week.
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