Solution for preventing DD helping herself to food

[Munder]

She is clearly helping herself to food and eating it in secret. She's been getting noticibly bigger too :(

How do I fix this?

I'm considering locks for one of our cupboards in the kitchen.

She is allowed and snack when she comes home from school but her dad needs to go back to work in the office upstairs so can't monitor the kitchen all the time.

Help!

*How do I fix this tactfully?

She does bugger all exercise except for what she does at school - gym, outdoor learning, and occasional gym after school club*

You don’t mention her weight or what she eats.

You buy healthy food only.

You need to get her active. Challenge her to try a new activity every month, cheerleading, cycling, dance, martial arts, trampolining, gymnastics- doesn’t even have to be very physical, it’s more getting her out the house so she doesn’t get bored and eat. Archery, fencing- get her to write a list of things to try.

Get her cooking and preparing food- again it’s time consuming making it rather than eating. My ds got a chocolate melter thing for christmas- uses a candle below a bowl. By the time he’s melted chocolate, washed and chopped fruit, dipped and left in the fridge to set, there’s only time to have one or two before dinner, if at all.

You need to carry on applying what you learned on the program you did.
It's difficult but you/ the parents have to be her self discipline.
You say she neither gained nor lost weight on the program. That is good- that is usually the goal of such programmes for children. The aim is not to 'diet' and lose weight but to maintain weight whilst their height increases so it all comes out in the wash, so to speak, whilst learning new habits.
Refocus on everything you learned- healthy foods, healthy lifestyles, portion control ( get digital scales and weigh out a cereal portion, a rice portion, a pasta portion- you'll be surprised how small it is!), limiting snacks, healthier alternatives etc.
All the best.

Get DH, who does the scho run, to get a healthy sandwich ready for her when she comes in

But why not Jellyfish?
Meal times are a social convention and often not suited to growing children.
Does it matter if a hungry child has a healthy meal when they get in from school, then has a small supper before bed?
It is the total amount and content that matters.

Would she eat a bowl of veggie soup when she came in from school. It could really help with a feeling of fullness to get her through that risky time.

I think she probably needs to go to an activity or somewhere she is supervised after school because I would say she is eating out of boredom.
She needs a distraction.

She needs a substantial snack when she gets home from school. Not 100
Calorie packs. Think a small meal with a mix of protein and carbs. You can make dinner portions a little smaller to compensate if necessary.

If she is not a picky eater, have lots of cut up fruit and veggies ready. Make those free access.

Up her activity. Sign her up for something. We require our very non-sporty dd born of two very non-sporty parents to have a “sport” at all times. Sport is loosely defined. It just has to be a physical activity, currently she does dance twice a week.

No problem if she has a small supper before bed but if the family eat a substantial dinner at 6ish, as we do, then a sandwich last 4 is excessive.

She's 8- her source of food and activities comes from her parents, there's no real autonomy here. Do you need to be doing or organising more activities if you're concerned? She cones home from school, is on her own while dad works, then what activities do you all do together?

Oh fuck sake. She is 8 years old. She needs looked after. It really is that simple.

Can she not go after school club? If she’s coming home and sitting alone until you and husband she’s bored, so using food as comfort.

Stop buying snacks, we have become obsessed with them! My dd almost 7 eats a lot when bored. I’ve stopped buying crisps, chocolate, biscuits and crap snacks and she’s slimmed down. Now the nicer weather is here try and get out more, walking is great and kids spend too much time sitting.

I suspect she is bored when she gets home from school. Could her dad sit with her and do reading/homework/tables practice/making the next school fancy dress costume? Just something to engage her. I imagine she will want some sort of snack though, as school lunches aren't particularly large, or filling. If DH picks her up, could he take a healthy snack to eat on the way home, so that she might be feeling full when she actually gets home?

I wonder if waiting for dinner at 6 is too long for her.
When mine were young teens they got home from school about 5pm and would immediately demolish soup or pasta/salad, go out again to football or swimming or do homework, then have a sandwich or beans on toast later. The family dinner at 6 or 7 didn't work for us. I appreciate she is only 8, but she might be going through a growth spurt.
I never had time to cook in the evenings during the week because I was either working or transporting kids, so I cooked in bulk at weekends. DH was never home before 8.30.
I was doing meals for the grandparents too for their freezer, so I had a bit of a production line going.

I also used to be ravenous when I finished school at that age. I would sneak into the kitchen and grab the biscuit bars used for school lunches. And a few years later when I walked home myself, I was buying at least couple of chocolate bars several days a week. But as I was naturally very skinny it wasn't noticeable except on my teeth - .

I would so very much second the idea of having a full meal ready for her dad to heat up when she gets in. That would make it routine to eat decent food when she's hungry at that time, and a meal so she feels like she's had enough (one tin of soup would not have cut it for me, I'd have been back scavenging for Trios at the next opportunity, just maybe one or two fewer). That might mean that when she is old enough to be making her own way home from school she considers other stuff apart from chocolate - if it seems normal to her to get some kind of salad pot thing instead and doesn't exclusively browse the chocolate, sweets and crisps. It just didn't used to cross my mind to look at anything else.

Get rid of processed snacks, instead have hummus, carrot sticks, cucumber, fruit as snacks, perhaps ryvita and cream cheese, toast if needed. I'm terrible, if nice snacks are there I eat them - impulse control is hard.

As for general exercise, do activities together, start during parkrun as a family at her pace, there's lots of kids her age at ours, go hiking, cycling etc

She's a bit young to be just left on her own. The temptation of Easter eggs etc along with probable hunger after school and boredom are all contributing to this.

You need to stop giving her adult ‘diet’ snacks - they are not filling (and usually full of rubbish too).

Some ideas to try:
Fruit salad.
Veggie sticks and dips.
Salad wrap.
Cheese and crackers.

And someone needs to spend time with her straight after school- if you are both working what about wrap around care ?

Is she on her own at home for an hour after school?

I don't do any exercise. We've no time in the evenings. There is also toddler DD (who is the complete opposite with food and some days seems like she barely eats.

Both DP and I work full time. I work shifts.

We sign her up to everything going at the school but these after school clubs run for only blocks at a time.

So the work life balance is weighted more towards work. I couldn't have my kid signed up to a different class each night because there is no time.

We do prioritise cooking and spend time on this only for 8yo DD to complain about it and toddler DD not eating it at all. Then we've to wash up after.

Yeh we're struggling to focus on us more, but I don't see it changing.

What I found with mine is that they would not eats school dinner or a packed lunch so of course they would be ‘starving’ when they got in as they’d eaten nothing since breakfast.

Tea time was 5 o’clock so they would want to eat something ‘instant’ and didn’t want anything healthy or to wait for anything to be cooked, they wanted kit kats etc!

Obviously this was the cause of upset and tension so in the end I brought forward tea time for them so that I would have tea more or less ready for when they came in.

Then later that evening they would have a light supper if they still felt hungry.

Doing it that way stopped all the upset and knocked the snacking of junk food on its head.

Have I read this right? She's coming home after school and being left on her own for an hour and then being expected to wait until 6pm for her dinner?! No bloody wonder the poor girl is snaffling Kitkats, she's probably bloody starving!

She needs to be having her dinner at about 4pm-5pm.

^ tea time was originally 6 o’clock not 5.

She’s v young to be left completely unsupervised for an hour.

Make her a packed lunch for tea after school or a hot meal that can be given soon after she gets in.

She’s doesn’t have to wait until 6 to eat.

Keep the unhealthy snacks out of her way

But mainly, if there is no one to look after her properly, pay for childcare.

Thanks for suggestions of snacks--I'll write this down.

She's on her own downstairs, dad is upstairs in the office. He works from home. He's on calls with colleague's a lot.

Toddler DD in private nursery until I'm finished. Just thought I'd put that out there before I'm accused of child neglect

Rice cakes instead of crisps and biscuits. A small bowl of healthy cereal when she gets in if she’s waiting hours for the evening meal. Chopped strawberries, filling and low calorie. Hummus with celery or carrots.