Teenage Son with ADHD Constantly Sneaks Food

If he is eating at night, he is probably hungry. Keep junk food out of the house and let him eat what he wants. I would buy plastic spoons for him to have in his room for snacks. I suspect that he has bigger issues going on and I personally would not make eating at night a focus of my attention.

I don't know if needs for children with ADHD are different dietary wise, but my nephew is living with us right now and he is Skinny, Skinny, Skinny and he eats like there is no tomorrow. He gets up in the middle of the night, at 12 midnight, eats a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and goes back to sleep. Sometimes he eats popcorn, or a bowl of cereal. He otherwise eats healthy but will drink anything that is not locked down and we try to buy healthy drinks and he drinks lots of water. I think this is normal. also, he is 14 and grew about 3 inches in the past year. We attribute it to eating and rest.

Myself and my 14 year old son and my adult daughter all have ADD/ADHD and none of us sneak food. If we're hungry, we eat. However, I don't have rigid rules about what is allowed. If my son wants leftover steak at midnight, he can have it.

What I'm saying, is that you can't blame the ADD on this one. Are you sure his diagnosis is complete? Are positive he's eating enough at dinner? He's going through puberty at this age and will undoubtedly need extra protein and calories. Honestly, there's nothing wrong with a late night heavy snack. Many, many European cultures eat this way. Only in America is food doled out with such timed restrictions.

I suggest your rigid approach to food and late night snacking is contributing to his need to cover up his need for food.

I am super sorry about the silver spoons. Would they possibly be still outside the screened window? It doesn't hurt to take a look. However, they are just spoons in the end. I had all my silver spoons stolen one by one by a cleaning lady. I'm bummed, but life marches on.

S., honestly, there is some other family dynamic going on here. Be honest with yourself and your choices regarding food and consequences. There are absolutely no stiff rules in my home about eating, but my food dinner food is pretty darn tasty, and the kids come running for a healthy meal every time.

Why do you not allow him to eat at night? Is he really "getting up" as you say or is he waiting for you to go to sleep and then having a snack?

Teenagers (especially boys) need a lot of calories. Are you controlling his food intake to the point that he's only "free" to eat what he wants when you're asleep?

Even if he is overweight and should be eating more healthy foods or less calories you are going about this the wrong way. ADHD or not you cannot control everything a teenager puts in his mouth. You're going to have to find a way to help him control himself and decide what's most important. Pick your battles wisely, he will be an adult in less than five years and you will have no control at all.

You can't make a child with ADHD do anything. The best you can do is convince them to make themselves obey.

Let me guess you restricted his access to the everyday flatware so he went outside the box? :)

I remember my mom refusing to buy hamburger because it isn't healthy so I got out her meat grinder and ground up a roast and made hamburgers.

Too many ways to skin a cat and you will never see all the ways, accept that and move on.

Stop making him hide things from you and you will stop losing things.

Like eating in the middle of the night, you think it is unhealthy. Who the heck are you? Have you offered him any proof that it is unhealthy, because the only part of that statement he probably accepts is that you don't think. Have you offered any reasonable solution for when he wakes up hungry for a PB&J and can't get back to sleep unless he has one, other than having a PB&J? Sorry if I wake up wanting X, Y ain't cutting it! Considering there is nothing wrong with making a PB&J in the middle of the night....

Seriously, stop with the "I said so" it holds no weight to someone with ADHD and until you appeal to his logic he is not going to do what you want.
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Bahahahahaha looking at the other answers. No it is perfectly normal for a child who takes meds during the day that make you not want to eat during the day to be very hungry at night. If I had to guess the OP, and who knows, since this is their first post, who they are or if this is real, but my guess is they restrict their dinner to a normal portion not getting they didn't have lunch.

A 13 year old boy in general can eat you out of house and home, even if they do not have ADHD. Ask other moms of boys your sons age and older.

To ban eating when hungry does not make sense. We cannot control their hunger as teenagers.

You just need to make sure you have approved food for these late night snacks. Work with him about what he is allowed. A sandwich, the left overs? But no junk food.. Do not even keep it in the house.

I have known my husband since we were 13. He used to wake up in the middle of the night and eat all of the left overs. Half a pot of stew, A pot of spaghetti, the rest of the meatloaf in half a loaf of bread! A platter of Nachos. I remember his mom being amazed. Keep in mind, he was thin as a rail. He ran track and rode his bike to school .

He does have ADHD and has never taken meds for it. You do realize it is not something he will ever grow out of? As you get older the ADHD and ADD get worse. My husband is an adult with ADHD.

But your sons hunger will eventually taper off.. Usually around 22 years old. But this is typical of young men.

The throwing away silverware? Is that because he thought you would see the dirty silverware in the sink?

Have you actually told him how much each Sterling Silver Spoon costs? Have him call around to different jewelry stores and price the company, the pattern and type of spoon. It will make his head spin.

Could it be a passive aggressive expression against you for your attitude towards him and his late night eating?

Could it be he just is a teen boy and not thinking straight? Is pretty clueless about money and how much things costs? I do not know many men in general who could tell you how much flatware costs.

My husbands mom has always acted very disappointed in my sweet husband. He cannot control the ADHD. He was born this way. My husband has always felt guilty that he was not "Normal" (his own words).. His mother has admitted she had resentment that he could not be "Fixed"..

YOU need to make sure you are getting the therapy and an education about how to help your son, not just punish him.

HE will need tools to figure out to handle his needs.

MY husband has zero sense of time. Through modern technology it has helped him work this out.. Online calendar. Cell phone alarms, Ipad timers.. Strict schedules with times and dates that HE sets up himself..

He has also learned to ask for help. i have learned never to brow beat him for asking, but instead to just help him without comment. I do observe what it seems he needs and to make him aware of my observations without any judgement.

I don't think this is a discipline issue, it's a mental health issue. He's not doing this to be defiant, he's doing this for some other reason. Figure out the reason. Is he on medication? I know that many ADHD medications cause loss of appetite during the day, when they are in the body. If he's on medication, is it possible that he's not eating enough during the day when the medication is in his system and then when it wears off at night, the hunger and cravings hit? Is he overweight? If he's not overweight, then I would let him snack on whatever he wants whenever he wants at first, as a way of making the hiding stop. Kids his age grow A LOT and eat A LOT. They can handle the fat and calories in things like PB and chocolate just fine. The way you're treating this right now you're making it about control and secrecy and shame, which are not healthy approaches to dealing with food. If he is overweight, then you need to find a better way of dealing with this as well.

When our bodies get the nutrients we need, we don't have overwhelming cravings. If he's craving things like PB and chocolate, there is something off in how his body is processing food. Work on that.

I don't think you need to work on discipline, I think you need to find a counselor who is familiar with both ADHD and adolescent eating disorders - if the counselor you're working with can't handle that (honestly, who tells a 13 year old boy to snack on veggies?) then find a new one. You need to remove the secrecy and shame from the equation and find out why he is so hungry at night. Look at whether or not he's eating enough during the day or not. If he's not hungry enough during the day to really eat what he needs to due to medication, perhaps you could switch him to a shorter-acting medication that would wear off sooner and allow him to have a hearty snack (there's nothing wrong with a PB&J sandwich on whole grain bread with natural peanut butter and all fruit jam) before bed.

As for the spoons, I can only recommend that you set a value on them and find a way for him to work off that value in extra chores. But really, I think you need to understand how awful your child is feeling and problem solve from that angle.

Does your son take medication for the adhd? If he does the problem is that the adhd meds shut down his hunger while they are working. and it comes back with a vengence about 10:30 or 11. your setting him up to fail by not addressing it. you don't need discipline / punishment for the food part of it you need to work out a better feeding schedule. My son is 18 now but we went through this when he was about 10 or 11. Talk to him and ask what he would like to have as snack. is he eating big meals before going to bed at night? how about a big peanut butter and jelly snack. can you make him a plate from dinner that he can heat up when he is hungry? give him a big breakfast before taking the pill. There does need to be a consequence for throwing a way the silver but do you really have real silver in your silverware drawer? or did he get in the holiday silverware to use it so you wouldn't notice it missing? that part is just weird. I myself would get some individual containers and make him some peanut butter cups (good protein by the way) that he can grab one each night with some crackers or a spoon and it not be a punishment. don't turn food into a battle ground it causes problems in so many other parts of your lives that this one is not a battle you should engage in.

hm.
there are lots of potential bigger issues here, ones that might require bigger consequences or counseling.
but i'd start smaller. rather than sticking to your guns on 'night snacking is unhealthy', maybe just grant the possibility that he IS actually hungry. is he obese? he's certainly at the age where eating like a young wolf kicks in.
i think i'd work WITH him on creating a small, sensible array of food that he CAN consume in the middle of the night if he wakes up starving. making things possible generally has a better outcome than just forbidding. if you lock up the silver spoons and all the food, you'll just make him more desperate and creative.
i think i'd cultivate mindfulness and cooperation by sitting down with him and working out what will make him reasonably content, and that you can live with. maybe some whole grain animal crackers, greek yogurt, string cheese wrapped in a slice of lunch meat, or hard-boiled eggs. tell him that if he wants peanut butter on his crackers, he should keep it to a tablespoon or two per snack. and make sure this stuff is easily available to him.
he's a teenager. it's time for him to start taking charge of his own actions, and certainly to be aware of his own nutritional needs and triggers. rather than approach it as a discipline and control issue on your end, give him the reins and responsibility, while still maintaining veto power.
good luck, mama!
khairete
S.

Keep only approved food in the house. Don't try to lock food up or restrict the food.

There's clearly a compulsion going on rather than disobedience. What you're describing is a compulsion, which he can't control. It's an impulse, which he can't control. That means that he needs help. He needs discipline in the form of teaching, not punishment.

Silverware can be replaced... your son can not.

I would look into getting help from a pediatric neurologist and a nutritionist that can help you with the Feingold Diet.

DO you realize exactly how much food teenage boys need? Teenage boys eat non stop all day long. They are going through puberty, growth spurts, etc. An apple when he's starving isn't going to cut it. You wouldn't have the silverware problem if they child was just allowed to eat and didn't have to sneak it.

Your counselor doesn't live in your house and is likely NOT hungry the way your teenage son is. Stop denying your son food. Start baking bran muffins made with applesauce to make them have some softness and taste. Bake oatmeal cookies instead of chocolate chip. Don't buy what you don't want him to eat. BUT buy him plenty TO eat. The boy is hungry. You've never been a boy - you don't know what they're stomachs are like. I swear, when my son went off to college, our food big was cut in half. I didn't even realize that he drank so much milk! And he's NOT fat, mom.

You talk about the health consequences, but what you are either forgetting or totally ignoring is that there are HUGE consequences to your part here in depriving this child of food. You are setting him up for an eating disorder. He may end up weighing 300 pounds because his emotional state will be that he's always afraid of being hungry, so he'll stuff himself. And I'm sorry to be so blunt, but it will be YOUR fault. Teenage boys do not just eat fruit, vegetables and toast. They need REAL protein and not just food for teenage girls or models on a diet. Start giving him some food that will hold his stomach. Stop buying peanut butter for a while and give him real food that requires some work on YOUR part. When this child isn't hungry anymore, he won't be as apt to lie to you and sneak around trying to hoard food.

There's nothing wrong with peanut butter or PB&J's, by the way. You CAN buy lower fat and lower calorie peanut butter, you know. The peanut butter has good protein, tastes good, and it helps to curb his hunger.

Have him do cleanup projects around the house and yard work - twice for each spoon he threw away so that he learns the value of money. Look up online how much this silver costs so that he can SEE what he did. Otherwise, nothing you do or say will matter because to him, it's just SPOONS.

Is he on meds? What does he eat for the day? I am doing a food chart with my 5 year old. I just want to make sure he gets all the nutrients he needs per day. My son is a heavy eater for breakfast and lunch.. and it dwindles out by dinner. But I make sure his foods and snacks all equal out what he needs for the entire day.

One of the reasons I do not want to put my son on meds at this time is the appetitie suppression, Maybe your son when he is resting and things are calm he feels his hunger pains more, and that happens to be druing the night?

PB & Jelley is not the worst thing to eat. I had several a night when I was nursing.. It is a great mix of grains, carbs and protein.

Gorging during the night is not good, however if it is because he is not eating during the day ... I think you need to find the root of night eating and work it from that angle. With a son with ADHD, I have learned what that do is not always in defiance, it has more to do with impulse control. If you are told no.. you want it even more. I had that experience when I was pregnant, I had JD and could not eat sweets etc.. I craved them even more because I "could not" have them.

I think your approach might be better angled to get to the root of it, other than trying to put a bandaid on it.

good luck

So, if he's waking up this hungry why isn't he getting fed before he goes to bed?

Our grandson's meds can make him suddenly starving and there's nothing we can do until he has food. He's kicking and hitting and screaming he's hungry at the top of his lungs.

If he's hungry he should get food. He needs to come wake you up and get you to fix him something. My grandson won't eat all day. He nibbles and when it's bedtime he fights going to bed because "he's HUNGRY!!!!" so we plan for this by starting him to bed half an hour early. Then we go to the kitchen and he gets a meal.

It might be a TV dinner, left over pizza, something like that. We don't pull out the griddle and make pancakes and bacon or anything like that. We make him a meal of something on hand.

Craving Peanut Butter is craving protein.

Craving chips is craving an instant resolution to his hunger. Put the chips and other stuff like that in a special tub and keep that in a different room. We moved a dorm size fridge into our room to keep pop, candy, cupcakes, pie, anything like that where we don't want the kids to gorge themselves on it. We keep it where they don't have access.

But in this case, your son is hungry, he needs food.
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Why not have an adult put a baby monitor in the kitchen where he can't see it and have it turned up in your bedroom so it will wake you up. Then you can come in and cook him something to eat.

If he's not hungry but just playing in the food then why not give him something to knock him out during the night.

Get him to take a sleep aid that will knock him out. Our grandson's psychiatrist gives us a PRN med that will put him out. Their body's don't react to meds like normal kids so the psychiatrist knows which ones will work with an ADHD kiddo.

Our grandson will go through phases where he'll be bouncing off the walls until 3-4 in the morning so on these occasions we can give him a mild sleep aid.

As for the silverware, he's acting out by taking away something that is important to you because you are "taking away" something that is important to him. Food.

I don't understand why you just don't go pick it up from outside. Soap works. It kills germs and makes things clean.

So stop.

He's hungry, he's a kid that is hungry and getting into trouble for eating. That's crazy. He needs to eat. Feed him and when you hear him up in the middle of the night go fix him something, sit down and eat with him or just sit and visit. It could be a very special time for the both of you.

I don't really know anything about ADHD in kids/teens, but I do know that at this age, their appetites can be enormous just because of growing. Have you addressed this with his doctor, just to make sure there isn't something else going on? You mention him having a counselor - have you discussed this with them?

Something like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich really wouldn't bother me as much as a entire bag of chocolate chips, which is all sugar. Maybe if he has an allowance, you could make him pay you back for the stuff he has eaten?

If he can't have it, don't have it in the house. Pretty simple. My son's ADHD diet has some restrictions food wise as well, we simply do not keep them in the house. IF you feel there are things you MUST keep in the house then it's time to invest in locks I guess. I am guessing maybe there is some forbidden fruit yearning going on or is there a coupling of ODD involved? My 6yr old son can eat one of certain foods - he is aware and respectful and there are many foods he can eat a TON of all day long. I do not think food is a battle you want in your house.

20 silver spoons you inherited? Why does he have such easy access to those? He'll have to mow a lot of lawns to buy you a new set of fine silver....

Can you give him plastic spoons? Show him what he should be using to eat peanut butter?

For discipline - maybe write an essay on why it's bad to throw silver spoons out the window?

Welcome to MamaPedia!!

Plastic. Also have only healthy snacks in the house.

Punish him for the good silver, bit not for the food. Have a talking to him about the dishonesty and the sneaking, not about the food.

Teen boys are trash compactors, seriously! Is he over weight? If not, then let him eat.

ADD: I don't have a kid on meds, but since other moms do and they are all saying you need to find out if it's his meds that are causing the hunger, then do it. Just because you don't get hungry at night doesn't mean he doesn't. And I really don't get why you think PBJ is not healthy... Stop trying to fight with him and figure this out. If he is constantly hungry, HELP HIM.

Why would a kid have access to heirloom spoons?

ORIGINAL: Honestly, this behavior doesn't seem normal at all. I would want to rule out any physical/psychological issues before resorting to discipline. Something seems off, and better to make sure his meds are correct, his brain is working right, and rule out deeper issues. Puberty can make a kid's body react differently to medication, and differently in general. Rule that stuff out first.

I have to agree that 13yo, especially boys, have VORACIOUS appetities because of all the growing they're doing. I haven't gotten to this stage yet (my son is 6.5), but I remember watching my twin nephews from ages 10-17, and my sister was always complaining about how much they were eating.

I didn't read all the other responses, so I don't know if this has already been suggested, but have you tried limiting how much "junk" food you have available? I don't see anything wrong with PB&J; better than chocolate chips for me any day! Put the sugary foods or foods that you don't want him to have in a locked cabinet, but maybe have more realistic expectations as to his actual appetite. You may be surprised to learn that he's eating all this food BECAUSE you don't want him to. I would try to teach him how to eat more healthy, so you won't worry so much about his choices :)

As for the spoons, the cost of replacement would come out of ANY money he earns or gets for birthday and Christmas. I have a feeling this also comes from his feeling the need to sneak food. I'd be tempted to teach him how to quietly wash the spoons instead of chucking them out the window! hehe