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My 14-year-old adopted daughter turned to me aghast. “Why are you trying to make me fail?” she asked. “Why are you accusing me of trying to make you fail Lyn,” I asked softly. “If I had not given you the cinnamon rolls what would you have done?”
“I would have waited until nobody was looking and I would have stolen them,” she actually responded honestly.
“Well Lyn, when you take things without asking, your parents don’t trust you. I don’t like what not trusting you does to our relationship. Therefore, I want you to have all the sugar you want so you are not tempted to sneak it,” I explained.
“But you know when I eat sugar I can’t do my work right, I do it all wrong because I can’t concentrate,” she was getting increasingly agitated.
“Yes Lyn, I know that you cannot do your schoolwork or your household chores correctly when you eat too much sugar. The problem is that you won’t eat sugar in moderation. You can’t seem to stop yourself when you start and you eat way too much. If you could eat one popsicle or one cinnamon role you would probably be fine. When you don’t eat too much sugar, you can do fourth grade schoolwork just fine. On too much sugar, you fail every assignment. You are 14 Lyn, the question is do you want to pass fourth grade or not.”
Lyn thought for a minute before she answered and again seemed to be answering honestly. “Well, I do want to pass fourth grade because I only have four years of school left. I really think that I need at least to pass the seventh grade to be able to live on my own. But, I also want sugar and I can’t seem to control myself. I don’t think about the consequences when I am doing it.”
“Well, I am glad you are being honest about it, Lyn. It is going to be your decision though how you choose to live your life. Unfortunately, the choices you are making today can impact your future life,” I explained.
The next day we had an appointment with Lyn’s psychiatrist. She explained the problems she was having to him. He asked her if she was afraid to grow up. He suggested that maybe she just wanted to stay with her parents forever. She denied wanting that. He told her that because she was a teenager and as big as an adult she was able to make her own choices. He repeated most of what I had told her.
When our children are as big as we are, we cannot control their thoughts and actions nor can we really make them do anything. Lyn is going to have to choose the kind of life she wants. We have set an example and given her the tools and information that she needs. That is all we can do as parents.
Photo Credit Julia Fuller 2006
Judy Blume wrote Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. Stevia and splenda are great in cinnamon rolls. Lyn is 14 and in Fourth grade? A psychiatrist is the only other one asking questions to help her reflect and or pause for her life ahead? Argh. I’m sad more people aren’t around “in the know.” Family seems less involved than the past even though perhaps shuffling their kids around to more activities.
Sugar addiction is a real issue. Why have the sugar in your home at all? I know as an adult with sugar issues, that in order for ME to control my intake, I can’t have the sugar in my house at all. If my child were a sugar addict, as a parent, I would remove it from the home. If your child were an alcoholic, would you keep beer in the fridge? It’s the same type of addiction.
Lucy
Oh please, you cannot compare alcohol with sugar – for one, alcohol and 14 yo’s are an illegal combination!! While we try very hard to control how much sugar our kids have, if a child is determined to get it, they will – anyhow, anyway. It’s not Julia’s fault that Lyn is getting too much sugar. She’s not an only child for goodness sake. It could just as easily be salt she’s craving or maybe a non-edible thing (which would be way worse). Most kids with FASD have no impulse control at all or so little it’s a miracle when we see it.
Julia – I think it was really great that you were so calm with Lyn and let her know that you are here to help her. That you recognize what she needs, but that SHE needs to learn to control herself and learn to listen to signals from her body (eg – I ate this and now I can’t concentrate, I shouldn’t eat that much again). It may not ever happen, or happen too rarely, but SHE is the one who will suffer the consequences. I certainly would make her think of overdoing it as a personal challenge (my kids would go nuts indefinitely if I said they could eat all they want) but I wouldn’t keep dwelling on her poor choices. The only reason this is such an issue for you (and me) is that we care so much about their success – way more than they care.
People should not keep making assumptions about our kids, you are only giving them one part of the story – Lyn has many difficulties and to judge someone based on one short post is just silly.
I have heard very similar storylines from our daughter. Once she told me that I wanted her to fail . . . when exactly the opposite is true !! Lately I have taken to asking her, after various incidents, what happened exactly? I find her re-writing of the event and her skewed interpretation of motivations and messages to be alarming. I can explain what REALLY happened until I am blue in the face, but she sticks by what she perceives to be the truth — usually that she is mistreated and misunderstood and people are out to get her. Not sure what this means for her future — but I’m pretty sure nothing good. — Rachel
I think keeping sugar in one’s home when a child has an issues with it makes no sense. That does not mean I discount all the good parenting Julie does. I just think it’s wrong not to recognize sugar addiction as a real addiction. And so what if she has other kids. If her child were allergic to peanuts she wouldn’t feed her other kids peanut butter. I think keeping sugar out of the house is a reasonable thing to do.
Lucy
This is the first time I have been on this site. I was really struck by this particular issue and the comments/suggestions that were made. We have four children in our household and have had similar issues with our fifteen year old foster-son. He has been in our family for eleven years now and has FAS among other issues. From living with his many “hoarding and behavior” problems, I would say that removing the sugar from your home will not solve the problem as she will likely just replace it with something else.
We have been through the damaging of property, stealing, telling of untruths, aggressiveness towards others, bullying, etc. You name it we have probably been there.
The problem for you and your child is that in removing the behavior ie. the sugar, you are just putting on bandaid on the issue. She will just turn to something else. When we tried removing all the items that our child was hoarding, he just resorted to something else. You can’t keep removing everything…
You need to seek advice on how to change the behavior or “go” with it.
I am going to try the advice of a small sealed container with food in it. If we can’t stop the behavior, perhaps we can control it.
Leslie