I made my kids pay for the food they took

[piqueen]

Did I go too far?
I took their Christmas money to replace the sweets and treats they took. We do a big shop once a month and I buy all the chocolates/ crisps and other cupboard bits for the month. These are for lunchboxes for the kids, dh and for picnics on the weekend (or pack lunches for days out) , also biscuits and breakfast bars. You know, the good stuff?
I did the shop on the 1st and by the 3rd I thought, the cupboard looked a bit empty on the 3rd (so 2 days) and by the 6th I definitely knew something was up.
The boxes of cereal bars were empty (but still stacked so first glance there is non missing), all the chocolate had gone, the biscuits had been opened and eaten.

me and dh did a big clear out of their room and moved the furniture around. We found all the evidence, evidence which included loads of fridge snacks too. Frubes, cheesestring, baby bell which the wax has got stuck in the carpet.
I was so pissed off i took the kids Xmas money and have been using it to replace the items for DHs lunch only. The kids are having no treats in their lunch and I'm only buying fruit.

The reason we do a big shop is because I don't drive so I get a taxi once a month to keep costs down. (it's cheaper to shop at aldi and pay £10 once a month than shop in sainsburies every week, so I bulk buy aldi and top up at the more expensive shop) The kids have obviously been doing this for some time as there was so much rubbish behind and under the wardrobe.

It's been 2 weeks since I took their money but I feel so guilty. They only get a little bit (it was £40 between them) and they are only 9 and 10 but, also they stole a month's worth of treats for everyone (dh works in a physical job so he gets easy bars he can stick I his pocket, sometimes he is doing a 12 hour shift, very labour intensive and no chance to nip to mcdonalds)

I'm going back and forth between
'actions have consequences' and
'kids will be kids'

I don't even know if the lesson has sunk in because they have been eating loads of fruit instead now which is better but obviously costs more than chocolate bars and the price if everything is going up I'm wondering if I'm being too harsh

Yabu - give the money back
Yanbu - they should pay for the food they took

No more snacks this month but YABU in taking their money too. That's double punishment. Agree that everything should have a consequence whether that be a positive or a negative but not twice that consequence.

Hear hear.

Stop buying so much crap for a start. Fruit?

Op. In what world do you expect a 9 and 10 year old to ignore a giant pantry full of a month’s worth of chocolate and crisps and tempting treats?

Keep the treats out of sight and out of reach if you can. Can you lock the pantry?

Marveling at your own super human discipline. I would have dipped into your pantry myself. That’s why we’re careful to not have too much in the house.

Get a grip. Kids tell lies and attempt to hide the evidence when they know they've done something wrong because they know they will get into trouble, and in this case rightly so, because they have used up all of a scarce resource that was meant to be shared by the whole family, without asking permission. They haven't thought about this because they are young kids who don't undwerstand about limited budgets. This is far from unusual. Sometimes kids egg each other on. They will grow out of it.

'Your kids are sneaking and hiding food. This isn’t normal, healthy behaviour and you need to find out why'

MAYBE, and this is just a guess, maybe it's because their parents pull out the sofas looking for wrappers then make them pay for treats out of their Christmas money when they eat the snacks in the house 🤔🤔

... and maybe that's because the kids have emptied out the boxes of snack bars and left the boxes in situ to hide what they've done. Sneaky behaviour. I would have been pretty annoyed by this. My children are adults now and have turned out remarkably well in spite of having parents who said no at times, and expected our few and simple household rules to be obeyed.

I think that 9 and 10 is old enough to understand that the stock of snacks and treats in the cupboard is for everyone and intended to last the month, and that it is wrong to snaffle it all, @piqueen - so I do not think you were unreasonable to be cross about this. In your place, I might have said natural consequences would be no snacks for them for the rest of the month, but I don't think that making them replace the snacks was unreasonable either. Hopefully it will make them think twice, if they consider doing it again.

I do wonder whether some posters, who have suggested they may be hungry, may be right, and even though this doesn't make it OK for them to eat all the family's snacks for the month, it might be something to talk to them about. If they are genuinely hungry, maybe there needs to be stuff in the house for them to snack on - not the treat stuff, but extra bread for toast, or more fruit - not so much the chocolate/treats, but easy stuff to fill the hollow legs that children and teenagers seem to have!

I do also think the idea of a snack box for each of them is a good one - and when it's gone, it's gone.

Oh that's BS.

Why are people saying you can't 'steal' food from your own home?
Maybe 'steal' isn't the right word, but you can absolutely take more than your fair share of something.
And that is what they have done, they have eaten the things that were benchmarked for the packed lunches of the family as a whole.

As the person who does the meal planning and the food shop, I expect people to ask/run things by me first. Want a cheese snack/Frube? Probably fine, but ask because I'll know if we have enough left to cover the lunches before the next shop or not.
Chocolate bar in the cupboard? I might say crack it open, I might say that actually, that's for some baking I plan to do.

And it works the other way round. If there were snacks in the fridge/cupboard that I hadn't bought I would ask before I touched them, I wouldn't just help myself.

My children wouldn't eat anything without running it by me first. When they get to the age when they are home alone I'm sure things will change, but for now it works for us

This.

find the idea of children ‘stealing’ food in their own homes or having to ask before they eat something a bit bizarre tbh

Not all families can afford to have well stocked cupboards full of treats. I grew up in such a house. If we were hungry we were allowed to help ourselves to bread/toast and apples without asking. All other food was accounted for by my mum who managed to meal plan, stretch a budget and leftovers to ensure we had well balanced diets and still had access to chocolate biscuits and ice cream in moderation.

so if one of us had eaten all the eggs or cheese in a snack attack, we’d have ruined that meal plan and potentially left the rest of us hungry.

Well OP says her DH has these snacks because he can't pop to Mcdonalds. If that's the alternative to snacking I'm not sure a healthy and nutrious alternative is being offered.

If OP doesn't want her kids eating lots of junk then stop buying it and replace it with healthy snacks, and look at why her kids are snacking so much. Active kids often eat loads and if they are not provided healthy and filling meals and snacks they will take what is there. My kids are healthy and fit and active. They eat pretty much constantly from when they get home from school or activities to dinner time. If there is only junk available they will eat that, so I ensure there are plenty of healthy things they can eat - fruit, vegetables, wholegrain etc. Not cake. They are eating because they are hungry.

I mean you can but we wouldn’t get involved, and we wouldn’t recommend a parenting course (for this issue alone that is) it wouldn’t meet thresholds so you’d be wasting our time and resources.

Are you Javert from "Les Miserables"? A 9 year old taking cheese is now Jean Valjean?

I fed my DC on lentils, beetroot and okra btw. Literally they could not have eaten healthier, so I am by no means encouraging junk food, but ugh at punishing little children for eating a candy bar while their dad gets to eat them because he earns the money.

I think you need to have a chat with them. First, I'd check that they're not genuinely hungry and if they are, try and address portion sizes. Discuss with them the fact you do a monthly shop and food needs to be stretched out over whole month and that it needs to be split between all of you. Then what your expectations are re: snacks. In our house DD always knew it'd be a a treaty snack in the morning (a couple of biscuits, cereal bar or cake), but in afternoon she could have a piece of fruit. If she was hungry at other times, she used to check what she was allowed to have - usually toast, cheese, veggie sticks, another piece of fruit, bowl cereal.

I certainly remember being greedy and selfish as a child! Sometimes I'm greedy now. As an adult if I ate something that was meant to be shared (like a massive chocolate bar) I'd replace it. That's the responsible thing to do. But certainly yes both adults and kids can be greedy. That's why when a child says they're hungry but when you offer a something healthy they then turn it down and want a chocolate instead! It's just human nature. But to say no child would be greedy or selfish is ridiculous. They're human just like adults.

this is the crux of my issue. they want the fun stuff that are treats. They have loads of good, healthy stuff available but I'd consider eating 3 sweet oranges just as bad as anything else.

The 10 year old blamed the 9 year old and visa versa so that's where we are at. this isn't the first time but this is the worst time. I mean they ate a months worth of cupboard food, sweet stuff! that's loads. and yes they weren't interested much in dinner because they were stuffed like a turkey on Christmas.
I agree its probably a self control problem.
We had a similar problem over Xmas with the chocolates in the tin but once the tin ran out that was it. I noticed the bounties were left so it wasn't 'starvation of minors' that time either 😅

@piqueen you are getting a hard time on here !
Only on mn is someone 'starving' their DCs because they don't let them eat £40 worth of snacks in a few days .

If OP had posted saying her/his DCs had breakfast, dinner at school, tea at home and they also gave them £40 worth of chocolate, crisp, cheeses and yoghurt s/he would be accused of over feeding them and 'think about all the starving children, you should donate to all to food banks'

When I was young we were given a few pounds each week to spend on what ever treats we wanted with the caveat that one item could be shared and one was healthy ( ish ) this usually meant things like a bag of revels/ malteses/ minstrels to share , I often bought ham scraps as the healthy option , my DB bought dariylea triangles. The rest was entirely up to us.
My parents would buy other treat type things but lower 'treat' value so things like shops own brand crisps , plain biscuits ( rich tea , nice , etc ) crispbread , they were still limited to how many we could eat in one day .

Can you do a similar thing op ?

I specifically said that he doesn't have access to shops or fast food at work. That's why he takes food! Some people read what they want to read.

You did the right thing OP

Not sure if anyone said this before as there are many answers.

The "good food" you mentioned or "treats" are actually crap, really bad stuff for their health. So they are getting proper food now. All they want, which is the right thing to do.
I don't buy those "treats", only accationally so we have nothing of that stored in my house. And they dont miss it. Problem solved.

I'm surprised I've not had the social knocking after reading this thread! my kids don't get unlimited access to the kitchen if they're hungry between the 3 meals they have a day they can have fruit, veg sticks or a sandwich! baby bel and frubes are fucking expensive and purchased as something nice to have in a lunchbox. They have a selection of treats they can choose from for dessert after their main meal, i thought that was quite reasonable! As for the issue of taking their money i would probably not have done that the natural punishment was caused by their own actions which is no more treats for the month.

If they took their mothers jewellery and sold it at school, would it not be classed as theft because it came from the home they live in?

The CofL topic is full of posters trying to stretch their food budget as far as possible.

Can people really not understand the upset of a large portion of a shopping trip being consumed thoughtlessly?