Please, Don't Lock Up the Fridge!

Yes, they may eat all the food in there. Yes, they may be up in the middle of the night munching through your last box of cereal. But please. Don't lock up the fridge!

Thursday, December 29, 2022

Locking the fridge is unfortunately, a very common occurrence in homes with adopted children. The problem is, hoarding and gorging are not born of a desire to overeat or make parents angry or get back at them somehow. It is a reaction to stress.

You might say at this point—what stress? My child has a great life! He gets plenty to eat during the 3 square meals and several snacks that he gets through out the day. He doesn’t NEED to hoard!

In response to that, I am going to diverge for a moment from the specific topic of hoarding to talk about horses.

Why? Because I learned working with horses that the behavior is almost never about what you think it’s about. And it is the same with adopted kids.

Here is an example.

Let’s say you have a horse that freezes and won’t move forward every time you get to a certain place on a favorite trail. You kick and you holler and you even slap him on the butt and he just won’t move. He refuses.

So is the horse stubborn or is he scared?

Most people say he just doesn’t want to move. He gets to a certain point and he is done. And, I guess there are horses for which that would be true.

But for most, there is another issue. You just have to be a good enough detective to figure it out.

If you look around, you may discover that there is an oddly shaped tree in the distance and to the right of the trail. It resembles a bear.

Now, you know it isn’t a bear. But that horse, whose eyes are shaped like fish bowls and can’t necessarily make out that it’s just a tree, thinks he is protecting you and himself by not budging from that spot.

Not only that, his refusal tells you that you haven’t built enough trust with him to be his leader. He feels like he has to be the boss in order to stay alive.

But if you address the oddly shaped tree instead of slapping him and kicking him to go and hollering about how stubborn he is, not only will he eventually move forward on the trail, but you will be one step closer to being his leader.

And that is the goal of every good horseman. The answer to this horse problem isn’t disciplining the horse, it is teaching him to trust you.

Get off the horse. Lead him toward the tree slowly and then turn around and walk away from it. Circle back around toward it and turn around before the horse starts to have a reaction.

Do it again, going a little closer this time and again, turning away from it.

Do this until you are close enough for the horse to be curious about the tree stump. Once he has walked up to it and touched his nose to it and let out his breath like he is sighing you know that, for now at least, he is no longer afraid.

At this point, you can get back on the horse and move on down the trail.

It may have to be repeated on the way back and your trail ride just took a lot longer than you intended but the next time that horse is nervous it may just look to you for leadership instead of refusing to do what you ask.

Do this kind of thing often enough and you will build a relationship with that animal that most people never dream they can have with a horse.

All because you didn’t act like everyone else.

So back to the hoarding child. Is it about the food? Of course not!

It’s about what is missing in his past.

It’s about the trust he still hasn’t built with you.

And you don’t solve that issue by locking up the food and sending him the unintended message that you can’t be trusted.

You see, food—especially sweet food, is related to attachment hormones. Your child most likely had the experience of neglect as a baby. Or, they were in an orphanage where there was a strict schedule.

They didn’t eat when they were hungry, like most babies, but when the orphanage chose to feed them—sometimes after they had cried for a long time.

They were never soothed by a loving adult who came to them when they were hungry and met their need at that moment. So they learned that soothing came as a result of food, not in relationship to a loving adult.

And that often results in hoarding when the brain is under stress. You may even notice that there are certain times of the year when hoarding happens like clockwork.

Times when your child is over-stimulated like during holidays or at the beginning of a new school year. This means they haven’t yet learned how to come to YOU in moments of stress and are instead, going to food to self-soothe.

So what CAN you do?

There are three steps to addressing this issue in a big way and they can be summed up like this-

1. Explain to your child what is happening.
2. Provide healthy foods to them without restriction.
3. Nurture by giving them what they didn’t get when they were an infant.

I go more into detail with the specific techniques in my Adoption Tool Kit.

Sometimes the things I suggest are a bit unorthodox and require more in depth discussions. I have an entire section on food and hoarding in my Tool Kit, along with 4 other common issues parents have with adopted children and I invite you to check it out at www.secretstoconnect.com/adoption-tool-kit

And remember, what you are doing matters and you aren’t in this alone!