Goldilocks and Sugar ... A Prayer

My daughter is addicted to sugar. She wants it all the time. When Goldilocks was brought to us at the tender age of 20 months, she was severely malnourished by her birth parents. We were told by social workers that, instead of baby formula, she had been given Mountain Dew through the bottle since infancy and was never given any baby food. She had a serious Pica Disorder, eating wood, metal, and many other non-food items. In our home, she would eat only a very limited diet. Basically, she ate green beans, peanut butter, and candy. It took time, but slowly we started building her appetite to a more well-rounded diet.

While she now eats a well-balanced diet, she has never escaped her need for sugar. Now that she is older and has more freedom, this has become a growing problem in our home. She sneaks sugar, whether it be five scoops put in her tea whenever I'm not looking or sneaking handfuls of mints into her room to suck on at night. She comes up with illnesses to try to convince me that she needs cough medicine and begs for cough drops (even spicy Halls). Once, when she was around four years old, she downed a whole bottle of infant Tylenol. When she was younger, we were actually on a first name basis with Poison Control!

Goldilocks' most recent exploit is sneaking her brother's chewable digestive enzymes. She ate about 30 pills in the last few days. This most recent desire for sugar seems scarier to me than past sneaks. For one thing, these enzymes are MEDICATION that was not meant for her. She wanted the sugar so badly that it was worth the risk of taking a medication that was not for her and that she did not know how much she could safely take!

Furthermore, it worries my Mother's heart. How many more years do we have before her addictive personality will choose alcohol or drugs (as her birth mother did) instead of sugar? Even if that is not her future, diabetes may well be. She was diagnosed pre-diabetic when we got her as a 20 month old.

My prayer for Goldilocks is that she will grow strong and healthy...that she will overcome her body and mind's desire for sugar...that her addictive ways will lead her to nothing more alarming. My prayer is to see my little girl grow up to be all that she can be. Sometimes it feels like I am battling against her for her very own existence. She does so many foolish and impulsive things that she could kill herself one day with her choices.

Dear God, please protect her and guide me in how to raise this very complicated child.

Blessings,
Dawn