To feel really let down by DDs and niece spending £13 on chocolate?

[Plipplops]

I have DDs (9 and 10) and had my niece (10) for a sleepover last night. Over dinner last night had a conversation about how important it is to eat healthily. DDs aren't keen at all on veg but are slowly slowly getting better (niece is way better but her mum doesn't like her having sweets etc. as she had dental problems when she was younger).

This morning they've asked to go to the café in the village (first sunny day in ages). I said yes, that they could have a small cake (cupcake) and a drink, not a massive slice of cake, and gave them £20 as I didn't have anything smaller.

They've got back and admitted they had 5 chocolate bars and a small piece of cake between them, plus a milkshake each (so drink laden with sugar). DD2 says she just had the cake and didn't finish it, plus 2 bites of chocolate. So DD1 and niece have had 2+ chocolate bars each, plus sugary drink?!?

I feel really let down. They all know better, I feel like they've really abused my trust. DD1 obviously feels bad - has come home and apologised, I asked if she thinks she made good choices and she's said no. Not sure what to do now (we were probably going to go to the beach but I sort of feel like they need to just tidy their rooms and feel guilty for most of the day). AIBU?

My view may be clouded as I live in a rough part of London, but I'm a bit shocked you'd let primary school aged children out to a cafe by themselves if I'm honest

Sadly I think you are right and that your view is somewhat clouded. I wouldn't think twice about it where I live. It's a perfectly normal thing.
( I live in the North West of the UK in the Ribble Valley)

It's also an awful lot of money to give 3 children for a drink and a cake each
Not normally, we used to give our kids that if we had nothing else in and ask him to nip to the local co op for milk and bread sometimes

Like others on this thread, my mum made sweets into this huge taboo and would make comments about how I didn't need any more food, or how greedy I was.

The result was I stole sweets and biscuits from the kitchen as often as I could without getting caught, I spent every penny of my pocket money on sweets and then by the time I was old enough to get a part time job, I was gaining 1-2 dress sizes a year until I was a size 22 in my last year of secondary school.

I still suffer terribly with food issues and I do partly blame my mum.

I had a parent figure like you for a short while, always trying to dictate but not actually bothering to supervise. We (me and her own kids) absolutely fucking hated her and loved nothing better than doing things we knew she would disapprove of. Most of them went way beyond eating too much sugar. I won't even begin to tell you the shit we used to get up to which we hid from her or lied about because, believe you me, you would shit a brick and never let your DC out of you sight again.

Saying all that, even she wouldn't have gone nuts over a couple of bars of chocolate and a milkshake once and she used to keep the bog roll in a "special" cupboard so you had to go to her every time you needed the toilet, at which point she'd tear off two pieces and hand them to you.

She made our lives a misery but she's old and alone now which is comeuppance in my view.

Poor kid having to apologise to you for being a kid. Bet it's fun and games in your house

Children have a naturally good gauge on their own appetites, provided a range of food is provided for them, including healthy food

This is rubbish IMO. If this were the case, no children exposed to a reasonable diet would get fat, and they do! I have one child who is excellent at gauging her own appetite, regulating sweet food and just not being fussed about it, she's slim. I have one who struggles enormously to do that type of regulation- even as a tiny child at a birthday party she'd have three slices of cake, and she's having to learn, the hard way, that if you eat three slices of cake and too many treats and that extra biscuit and those large fun size bags of sweets, and large portions of pasta, you get fat. It isn't an inbuilt regulatory mechanism else half or more of the UK wouldn't be fat!

I agree guilt and punishment has no place here. Instructions- 'I'm giving you £20 but can you just get one treat thing each?' would be better. It's fine to model sensible treat eating, or talk about it, we all face the same choices, adults too!

My kids overspent on everything aged 10 though, now they have an allowance, they choose more wisely.

On a lighter note I would laughingly tell mine to remember to bring cake back for Mum next time! And smile whilst knowing they probably feel a bit bleaurgh right now from eating too much.

It's a one off and a learning curve for you all. It isn't worth the stress.

YABU and really mean to want them to spend their day feeling guilty about it.

I think the theory about children being better at gauging their own appetite doesn’t fly if the food is very sweet or very salty. They tend to overeat sweet / salty things I think, just like adults do.

@Nicknacky and @notacooldad it's heartening to know there are still places in the UK where it's ok for children to be out by themselves! Where I grew up it would have been fine......we now live in Peckham near the Old Kent Road and there's no way on earth my boys would be out by themselves at that age

I should really move

But back to the original point, it's just a bit of cakey cake OP, don't sweat it!

That’s a pity stick it is only recently that she has started going out herself but that’s down to me worrying people would think I was irresponsible!

They are just children, and still quite young. I’d be more disturbed had they not had cakes and milkshake.
If you can’t have the occasional surgery treat at 10 when can you?

What did you think/ expect they would/ should have spent the money on, OP?

I think I’d be secretly disappointed that they admitted to me that they had not followed my instructions 😉.

Milkshakes are a better option than juice or fizzy drinks and they were hardly going to order tea or coffee.

KurriKurri

This kind of thing is why DS does not go on errands but DD does. That and the four hour round trip to the corner shop because it's next to the park!

Oh come on now, they are on a fun sleepover, who eats healthily on a sleepover?? And then you give them loads of money for cake, of course they bought lots. As long as they eat healthily most of the time, the occasional bit of sugary wickedness won't hurt them!

It's the holidays.They're kids.Let them live a little.It's not like they went out and spent the money on a bottle of cider and 20 Rothmans.They had chocolate and a milkshake fgs! I feel sorry for them if you're making them feel so much guilt over that.I get that you want them to eat healthily but the occasional treat/binge won't hurt and you making a big thing of this will do more damage than good and could cause them to have food issues in the future.

sort of feel like they need to just tidy their rooms and feel guilty for most of the day

That kind of discipline is just not considered appropriate any more. It might just about be reasonable for something really big, where they deliberately repeated an action, knowing it was very wrong (and it'd probably need to be dangerous too for it to be a reasonable punishment). Otherwise it smacks of trying to break their spirit, and make them feel they're awful people.
My DM used to do that kind of thing, for small misdemeanors, and it gave me a sense of hopelessness (being in terrible trouble, parents too disgusted to want to see me, with nothing I could do to fix it...) which its taken half my life to shake off again.

When I was little mum didn't let me eat a certain thing and always claimed It was becauE I'm allergic to it. I wasn't,it was just a really crap snack.
So I did what any normal(NOT) child would do if they wanted thw treat and had no money...hang around kids that had it and ate the bits off the floor that they dropped.

I’m a bit confused what it is exactly you think they did wrong?

You told them they could have a drink and a small cake, not a big slice.

They had a drink - a milkshake. There’s just as much sugar in anything else except water. I’d rather they had a milkshake than a calipso or whatever.

None of them had a big slice of cake

One had a small cake & the other 2 had small chocolate bars. They must have been malteseer bunnies or Freddo type things to get all of that for £13.

It doesn’t sound excessive to me.

They ‘admitted’ what they had, it shows there are some food issues in your house that you need to sort out. At their ages they should not be feeling guilty about food, including chocolate & ice cream etc

The very boring conversation you had last night wouldn’t have entered their thoughts while enjoying being allowed to go out to a cafe on their own in the rare bit of sunshine we’ve had in ages.

Whatever your food issues are, you have to get them sorted out and not pass them in to your DD’s (& niece) 🌷

It wouldn't bother me particularly, though I wouldn't be buying them anything else to snack on today. They need go go to the beach to run off all those calories.

Mind you, I have a daughter, skinny as a rake, and brought up in a healthy-minded but far more relaxed household, who took significantly more money to Germany and came back with what looked like the entire contents of a chocolate shop in her suitcase (some for her family and friends but most for her). She was 17 at the time. I was mildly horrified at how much money had been spent purely on chocolate, but not particularly bothered either. I'm pretty laissez faire, I guess.

This kind of thing is why DS does not go on errands but DD does. That and the four hour round trip to the corner shop because it's next to the park!
My DM used to give me a time to be back by, because of this issue. I realised tho, that if my watch were slow, it would excuse me being late....so as soon as I left, I used to set my watch 10 mins slow to get some extra time . They were a bit mystified about my watch losing time so badly, but they never did figure out why!

Another one whose parents were terribly restrictive with sweets when i was a child and there were all sorts of value judgments about 'good' and 'bad' food plus lots of mandatory exercise ( much of which i didn't enjoy at the time). Result: anorexia and bulimia from age 15 to my late 20s. Some lingering health complications.

Don't stigmatise food. Offer a varied range of tempting but healthy foods, don't get uptight about treats or weight, encourage exercise in a way that is actually fun for your child.

I don't blame my parents especially ( I'm broadly fine now, eat healthily, exercise well, am a good weight etc etc) but my relationship with food was needlessly complex for a long time.

I hate to say this, OP, but once they get to secondary school age, they will definitely be buying and eating things you may not always approve of. My DD is 14 and she knows what healthy eating looks like - and her meals at home are healthy - but I have had to have conversations with her on many occasions about one treat being ok but not 2 or 3 in a day, every day! I could just not give her any money for school but I'd rather she learnt to exercise some self-control and in any case, if she spends all her school money by Tuesday, there's no more for the week!
In your position, I wouldn't punish your DDs - you've said you're disappointed and in future, you might want to go along to supervise or set a spending limit. At nearly 50, I still have days when I eat too much chocolate or drink too much wine, so I figure that I can cut my DD some slack sometimes

we were probably going to go to the beach but I sort of feel like they need to just tidy their rooms and feel guilty for most of the day

No wonder people grow up with hang ups about food.