To think it is weird/ controlling to make your children ask for food?

[RevoltingPeasant]

This is not a thread about a thread, but rather inspired by comments made on a couple of threads over the last few weeks.

Disclaimer: I don't have children yet.

Recently, I have seen a bunch of people saying things like, 'My children don't snack between meals' or 'In my house, children don't take food, they have to ask first'. (The latter comment was about a 13yo.)

Maybe because I am not a mum yet, but I find this hugely draconian and controlling. I don't mean young children: obviously a 4yo is going to eat all the chocolate buttons she can get her grubby mitts on. And I don't mean letting DCs eat whatever they want, whenever. But I have seen people saying that kids of 11-12-13-14 have to ask before getting a snack - I am at this.

When I was 10+ yo, I'd just get a snack if I wanted one. If I started eating lots of crisps/ cake, my mum would've told me no - but the idea that you have to go and beg permission before grabbing a piece of toast or some raisins is just weird and really icky to me!

AIBU?

I didn't have to ask - from when I was big enough to help myself anyway. If my dad bought something in the shopping I was allowed to have it.

I don't have teenagers but unless ds1 has a major personality shift before he hits 13 there is no way I could allow him free access to food.

The child is a bottomless pit of epic proportions and would stuff food in his face 24/7 if allowed (and not just junk, he's been known to walk around with an apple in each hand.... we had to revoke the 'You can take fruit whenever you're hungry' rule after that)

I still had to ask permission at 10/13... when I was older I helped myself, but by then I was cooking for myself a lot too and buying my own munchies

DD is 6 and asks still we're not big on snacks unless they are healthy so she usually gets unless she's just had dinner/tea then its a case of no you can wait a bit and let your tum settle.

when i was a teenager well 12/13 i helped myself then checked in with my mum what i'd taken and i think i'll be the same as long as im kept up to date with whats getting ate for the shopping list and keeping up with DCs growth spurts and tastes changing.

my cousins were never allowed to eat inbetween set meals but had a drawer in the fridge filled with sweets, cupboards groaning with cereals and biscuits that were once in a blue moon treats. i still remember sneaking 2 digestives and my cousins told on me because they were so scared they'd get smacked. my aunty is a forceful woman who smacked them and screeched for the least little thing even homework time used to scare the pants off of me. if their spelling was wrong smack if they didnt do their maths in their head smack and they were only about 6 or 7 at the time the poor mites.

surely it depends on how old the children are and also what food you're talking about? I certainly wouldn't leave a jar of sweets out on the kitchen top if I had children of any age. Nor would I let children under about 9 go and help themself at random to everything. But I think there comes a point where you have to trust them, up to a point, at least to help themself to staples (fruit, bread etc).

YABU.

Children don't have the necessary self control or common sense to know what to eat and when. Ours boys ask (age 9 and 11) and depending how far we are from a meal we tell them to wait or to take a piece of fruit. I dont want them just snacking on biscuits, fizzy drinks and sweets. It is a bad habit for children to get into - leads to obesity, patterns of unhealthy eating and poor diet.

I put a limited amount out each day in their pile and they can have what they want. When its gone though its gone. I have to do this as i have 3 and they would eat the whole lot in one go.

I didnt used to hide the fruit but dd1 would get through a whole net of satsumas in one night. Now i just a limited amount out in the bowl which they can help themselves to.

I agree with the OP that it is controlling to make a child (well, of about 8, 9 years plus) ask for food. There is a sense of independence to be derived from being able to prepare a bit of toast or make a bowl of cereal. I was certainly able to get my own snacks at that age.

What ISN'T controlling though, is parents supervising what the child eats. Of course if they are going to spoil a meal or consume copious amounts of crap then the parent has every right to intervene and tell the child to put the banana/ biscuits/ bread away!

The only friend of mine growing up who had to ask for drinks or snacks was massively emotionally abused, ended up with mental health problems and signed up to join the army the minute she left school to get away from her SM.

Also, don't you just love it when you go to get those cooked chicken pieces to make a meal with, only to discover that they have vanished into a sandwich?

When I was 10+ yo, I'd just get a snack if I wanted one. If I started eating lots of crisps/ cake, my mum would've told me no

so your mum was controlling as she said "no" or would have said no

what is the difference?

If you are on a tight budget, letting a teen eat as many yoghurts as they like can mean there are no yoghurts left for the rest of the family- and no money to buy them with either. And even if the money is there, it is not nice to be the last person to come home from school and find that all the snacks are gone. My 11yo would happily eat the entire family supply of yoghurts, leaving nothing for his sister, and then turn up his nose at his dinner. Or if I buy 3 days worth of cakes, the two of them could eat it all in one go and noone would get any cake the next day.

Mine can have as much toast as they like, but anything else I would like them to check with the person who is catering: dh and I also check with each other. I would find it very annoying if dh came home and scoffed the ham I was planning to cook dinner with, and I don't suppose he'd be delighted if I ate all the chocolates leaving nothing for him. I don't consider it an infringement of my human rights to ask dh "were you planning to use that brie for anything?" If that is supervising, so be it. We cannot afford unlimited amounts of food, and due to work we can't make more than 2 weekly shopping trips.

I've got one that's a bottomless pit and will eat until we run out of food and one that would happily live on crisps and biscuits and skip meals, so they have to ask.

I don't say no to fruit, unless I want it for something (fruit salad or something) or it's literally minutes to a meal.

I don't mind them having the odd biscuit or packet of crisps, but not endless amounts - and one has a tendency to try to feed all her friends, which again I don't mind occasionally, but not every five minutes.

If they ask for something and the answer is no, they get a reason...dinner will be ready in ... you've had two of them already today, have something else, that sort of thing.

I suppose it is a bit controlling, but isn't that the point of parenting?

Nope, not weird or controlling at all in my house.

DD2 has Prader-Willi Syndrome so access to food is severely restricted and rationed.

Therefore DDs 1 and 3 aren't allowed free reign in the kitchen - they have to ask for food, some of which may be locked away.

I also don't like the idea of them grazing all day every day in an open kitchen, I do like to have an idea of what they're eating and how much. I rarely say no to them unless it's nearly a mealtime, or they're just eating out of boredom but I do like to have an idea of what's going into them.

I appreciate that most families don't have as good an "excuse" as we do to control food!

I can't say I've ever really thought about this, my children tend to just naturally ask, and then help themselves. I think they ask because they know I don't want them snacking right before dinner's ready, or because if they want to take a youghurt and it's the last one, they know it won't be there for their lunchbox the next day. They also tend to prefer their fruit chopped up, so they often ask me to do that if they want fruit because they know I'd want to watch that they were holding a knife properly before they took it to a mango.

It's not a big deal, and it's certainly not controlling. It's more about considering the other people in the house. Like if I wanted to eat the last of the ham in a sandwich, I'd ask dh if he was planning on having it in his packed lunch the next day or if he was planning on having lunch out. It's just being polite and not acting selfishly.

Asking for drinks and snacks doesn't equal emotional abuse noir, so I'm not sure why you've added that example.

Getting your DC to ask before they take food is supervising them, so instead of saying no when they've helped themselves you say whether they can have it before, bit confused about that bit of your post as well.

Yes, great 'excuse' Sidge

Tho, seriously, I have read an article on that recently, and it does sound very hard to deal with.

snacking isn't all its cracked up to be

YABU. As well as all the reasons regarding not spoiling meals or helping them develop healthy snacking habits it's common courtesy to ask, isn't it? I'm a creaky middle-aged woman now and wouldn't dream of strolling into my parents' house and helping myself to their cupboard contents. Might do the old 'anyone fancy a cup of tea?' trick to wangle a biscuit out of them, mind you. :)

Fifis, do you find your DC eat everything you've put out for them? So they're eating stuff they maybe wouldn't do else?

tyabulah - "I suppose it is a bit controlling, but isn't that the point of parenting?"

Agreed. Far too much of a 'do as you please' attitude in society about everything. Just because you want something, just because you can, does not mean you should. That rule is something all children need to learn. They can't learn it by themselves. Parents have to learn to say NO more often.

I always asked my mum before eating anything even as a teen, it's polite to the person who buys / prepares the food and didn't do me any harm, I don't think it's controlling and neither do my kids, even now at 16 my son would snack on noodles biscuits crisps if I gave him free reign and then decide he didn't want dinner, I certainly don't think letting my 8 year old make himself toast or sandwiches in between meals would help his independence

YABU

My two (10 and 7) have to ask if they want food. They usually want something at the wrong time and more often than not of the wrong sort and I don't just want them helping themselves to crap, 30 minutes before tea, or at all actually.

Mine don't want toast or raisins though. They want sweets or biscuits and I get to say when they can have those. I usually allow them sometime too but again, I get to chose how much because DS1 especially wouldn't know when to stop.

I wish they would stop asking for drinks though. They know what they can and can't drink and we rarely have fizzy drinks in the house so that isn't an issue. I think they think that if they ask, I will provide. They are both old enough to get it themselves!

Agent - Most of the time there is stuff left. I usually just put out a few peices of fruit, a yogurt, crisps and a packet of biscuits in the barrell. Once they are gone they are gone.

I started doing it as they were just grazing if i left it all out. I would find half eaten things wasted.

My 3 are all underweight but i am skinny and they have a dad who is 9 stone. I had problems with the middle dd being very underweight. She was a few ounces off being classed as malnutrioned. She had to have a high fat diet when she was a toddler.