mnmomUSA
1494431981
You are the parent of an 11 year old. At that age, you are in control. What would you do if your child wanted to do something else that was dangerous or life threatening? What if your child had cancer and wished to not take medicine which made them violently ill, but also treated the cancer? Not taking it would not be an option, period. Just would.not.be.an.option. You'd use every parenting tool at your disposal to make it happen. My child was 13 when she fell ill. Our team immediately advised us to resume feeding her "normally" for her. What this meant in practice was that she was "allowed' only her HISTORICAL likes/dislikes in food, which in our case were very limited (she never liked orange juice, for example), and EVERYTHING else was back on the table in normal rotation. Note that by the time she was diagnosed, the ED "allowed" food lists was very short: brussel sprouts, oatmeal, apples, broth, campbells tomato soup made with water....and similar. Well, you can't get them healthy with that list of foods. LOL. So, it was gone. Day one. Meal one. And, it stayed gone. She was told that she needed to finish the meal fully. Leaving ANY food was reason to have to drink a Boost Plus. Leaving more than 1/2, then it was two Boost Plus. Didn't want to drink the Boost Plus? Too bad. Refused to do it? She was told she would be tube fed. Now, we never had to get that far in practice (the closest I got was collecting my purse and car keys to drive her to the hospital to get a tube inserted....after calling her team to alert them we were on our way), but I was 100% committed to doing it if I had to, and she knew it. At first, this is a terrible, ugly battle....I don't mean to mislead you about that. But, after a few days, she saw that resistance was futile, and that she WAS going to get the calories in, one way or another as not eating was simply NOT an option. Things calmed down somewhat...and as her brain healed over the coming months, she became quite compliant. Others here have had great success in framing it as "life starts when you eat." Want to go to school, want to use your cell phone, want to hang out with friends....well, you have to eat first. Period. No negotiation, no backing down. Every kid has currency. Find it. Use it. As for her googling and researching things, that only happens if she has access to the internet. Turn it off for her. In my router, it is easier to "block" devices from access the internet. Or take the device away. You get your device back when you eat.
D, age 18, first diagnosed March 20, 2013, RAN, at age 13 Hospitalized 3 weeks for medical stability. FBT at home since. UCSD Multi-family Intensive June 2015. We've arrived on the other side. :-) D at college and doing great!