Hello, I am just about sure that the secret eating is related to ADD. I have a similar problem with my eight year old son. Believe me, I could have written your post myself. I have also discovered empty breakfast bar wrappers, empty cookie containers, potato chips, cereal on the bathroom floor and the ilk all over the place. He has eaten two ENTIRE boxes of ice cream sandwiches.

There are a lot of foods I refuse to purchase now because I figure if he is going to eat everything as soon as it hits the shelf, let it be something with some nutritional value attached. Oh yeah, we also have the additional challenge of his mother being narcoleptic. Every time she falls asleep, which is frequent with narcolepsy, he turns into PACMAN.

I also have discovered that he is eating the brown sugar out of the container. I suspected this before so I taped up the container and put a thread on the edge to see if it would be broken the next time I used the sugar. Sure enough, the thread was broken and the tape was haphazardly reapplied. He also lied about eating it. The lying is a chronic issue with him and the storytelling to get out of trouble would be hilarious if it did not worry me so much about what he might do in the future.

The only reason that we have not locked up the pantry is because the apartment building we live in does not allow us to drill holes in the wall. We have not been able to figure out a way to curb this issue and because I work full-time, and she falls asleep frequently, there is no way he can be supervised every single minute of the day.

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I was just reading your dilemmas with your ADD/ADHD children sneaking food. It reminded me of this "Ask the Expert" article where Dr. Larry Silver answered a parent question similar to yours. Take a look and see if this helps: http://www.additudemag.com/q&a/ask_the_add_medical_expert/1334.html

I would recommend talking to your children's doctors about this new symptom as well.

Penny W., ADDitudemag.com & ADDConnect.com Community Moderator ADHD Momma to Luke, age 7 creator of the Website {a mom's view of ADHD} @ http://adhdmomma.blogspot.com

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I have always associated my son's (soon to be 11) secret eating with ADHD, but I had always thought of it as I do most of his ADHD quirks, individual to him. It's oddly comforting to read it's not unique to my son. As I think back I realize I did this too, but I really only did it with junk food and always blamed it on my mothers well intended but over the top control over what I ate. Maybe I have some helpful advice. I stopped trying to hide and lock away food about a year ago, I've also stopped punishing him when he does do it. I get my anger in check because it's only going to fuel his oppositional/defiant nature. When it happens ( I find a whole open loaf of bread stale under the couch for example) I tell him it's ok if he wants a piece or even two, but the rest of us would like some too so please close it and leave it where it belongs. I also point out that crumbs and hidden open food attract bugs and mice (which he is afraid of). It still happens but it's become far less of a norm and my grocery bill has shrunk.

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My son (8) does the same thing. Just this morning I found an open jar of peanut butter with a spoon in it beside his pillow. He was sound asleep with PB all over his face! The problem is that he's on Concerta and, while it's been a life saver as far as helping him focus and settle down, he has absolutely no appetite while it's in his system. I give him a good, healthy, protein filled breakfast before he takes his meds. He doesn't eat all day long at school and then usually eats a decent dinner if we eat late enough. The thing is that he's then starving once the meds are out of his system and that usually coincides with bed time........it's like he just cannot get enough to eat. I try to give him snacks that will be filling and healthy but it doesn't really seem to matter. He'll wake up in the middle of the night and raid the pantry, eating everything and anything he can find. This then leads to him not getting enough sleep and being tired, irritable and very difficult the next morning. The only good thing to come of this is that he has finally started to gain a little weight-he's 8 and weighs 45 pounds. I went to an ADHD seminar at Duke and the psychiatrist that lead the seminar said that, while it goes against instict to let kids eat at all hours, ADHD kids need to be allowed to eat when they ARE hungry. Anyone figured out how to do this without disrupting sleep (his AND mine) and without attracting ants and whatever other kinds of bugs come to investigate the wrappers and peanut butter covered spoons hidden throughout his room??

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I don't know what to do with my daughter she sneaks food in the middle of the night also. We have tried to explain to her that it will attract roaches and rats. We actually had a rat because of the food, but she still does it. She also takes Concerta. She does fine at school but home is a different story. I live with her father's mother and she is pretty fed up with her mouth and not listening, i am to but she is my daughter and i love her. She tells us no, she doesn't have to do it, so i don't care, I don't want to live here anymore, and u name it and she does it. She also lies alot. Nothing really works i've tried everything. She takes and uses things that do not belong to her and she knows they are not hers but she does not care. If anyone has any advice i sure would love to hear it.

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We have gone through the same thing here with my ten year old daughter. I have tried to talk to her, set up incentives and now just feel like I police the kitchen and her room for old food or bags. I don't know what else to do. I'm also looking for answers but am so comforted by hearing she's "normal" for this behavior.

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Hi all! As I continue to read your posts in this thread, I am noticing more mentions of defiance. This overview of Oppositional Defiance Disorder (ODD), "Oppositional Defiance Disorder and AD/HD," (http://www.additudemag.com/adhd/article/587.html) may be helpful to some of you. It contains the definition of ODD and its "symptoms" as well as links to some articles on handling defiance in your child.

Hang in there!

Penny W., ADDitudemag.com & ADDConnect.com Community Moderator, ADHD Momma to Luke, age 7, creator of the Website {a mom's view of ADHD} @http://adhdmomma.blogspot.com

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I have a 15 year old daughter who has gained weight (she weighs about 190 now) and when I went into her room a few days ago, I found empty soda cans and wrappers in her dresser. I am trying to work with her to loose weight as she also has IBD. The more stressed she gets......the more she eats. What should I do?

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OMG!! It's like as if your all talking about my son. He is the same way. We also had to put a lock on the pantry in order to keep him out of it. He would literally eat EVERYTHING in site. I would blame him for not eating enough at supper time but there were times when he would have to BIG helping and said he was full. Then we would hear him in the middle of the night going downstairs and opening the pantry or the fridge. We would find wrappers, half eaten muffins, cereal boxes, uncooked pasta, cheese, even a half a gallon of ice cream that was already spoiled under his bed.You all have no idea how "healing" finding this site has been for me. I felt so ALONE for such a long time. Like no one knew what I was going thru and then God lead me to this site. I am sitting here with tears running down my face because now I know that i'm not the ONLY one that is going through this with their child. I can finally come to a place where I can put down what it is that I am going through and know that there is someone out there that DOES understand where i'm coming from and can relate. For such a long time people thought that my son was "a bad kid" and they didnt' want "their child" to play with my son because they didn't want them to pick up his "bad habits". It got to the point that one of my neighbors was saying that my son was on a path straight to jail. This was a GROWN woman. That tore me apart because I knew that my son was a good boy. He just couldn't help it. What hurt the most was that I found out that their son also had ADHD just not as severe as my son's. I thank God for bringing me here. Take care and God bless all of you.

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