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

Are they hungry? Sounds dodgy to me that they can't just ask for a snack. Seems likely to give them food issues in adulthood.

I'm really puzzled by posters referring to sugary and salty junk as 'food'. If the children were hungry, they'd ask for real food. I suspect they were eating this stuff because (a) it was readily available, and (b) because they are addicted to it.

YABU!!!!! Poor kids 😭. Eating food in your own home is not stealing. They're obviously very hungry.

@piqueen

'Nicking'?

It's not stealing. You need to give your head a wobble. Absolutely wrong, wrong, wrong!

You let them. They discover it makes them feel or actually be sick to eat so many sweets.

That's the natural consequence of eating too many sweets. They learn to self regulate.

If they start doing that all the time and don't self regulate then you stop buying sweets. The consequence is that they ate all the sweets so there aren't any left now.

*You let them. They discover it makes them feel or actually be sick to eat so many sweets.

That's the natural consequence of eating too many sweets. They learn to self regulate*

Either that, or they develop an addiction to sugar. I honestly don't know of any parents in real life who would let their child eat as much sugar as they wanted, at any time (with the possible exception of Easter and Christmas)

If they start doing that all the time and don't self regulate then you stop buying sweets. The consequence is that they ate all the sweets so there aren't any left now

ie, you regulate/restrict what they eat.

@budgiegirl no you restrict what's in the house but they still have free rein over what is within the house.

You are the adult and parent, select your own boundaries and stick with them no matter what others think.

no you restrict what's in the house but they still have free rein over what is within the house

That's just semantics. And I still don't believe you'd allow your kids to eat whatever they want, whenever they want. What if they were eating all the biscuits when you need to save some for packed lunches later in the week, as has happened in the OPs post? Would you really allow your 10 year old to eat, for example, a bowl of cereal, just before dinner? Allow them to ignore all vegetables on their plate in favour of more chips? That's just not normal life. Parents regulate what their children eat, to some degree, all the time. It's a parents job to do so!!

I also can’t see how eating anything in house works. Unless you live alone. If you are a family there will be food and snacks for everyone.
If there’s 3 of us and I buy a pack of 6 kitkats on a Monday then yes I’d expect to be able to eat a kitkat when I fancy one on Wednesday, it’s not on for one person to have eaten 6 kitkats in 2 days leaving other 2 without. If they are hungry have a kitkat and a sandwich not 6 kitkats.
I recall a poster who was worried re teen daughter’s rapid weight gain. She’d stopped buying snacks for whole family but instead teen was baking all sorts of concoctions. The op had flour, eggs etc in for normal meals that were being used up by teen. You can’t stop buying staples as you need to cook meals for the family.
How do you meal plan if anything is fair game. What do you do if you come to make fajitas for all of you for tea and one child has already cooked and eaten all the chicken breasts as a snack after school.
Op has made it clear the children get a packed lunch, after school snack eg crackers & cheese and a cooked evening meal. Seems very normal set up to me. I wouldn’t want a child eating lots of packaged snacks on top of that.

What if it didn't work?

Well I guess we will never know. We have a fully stocked snack cupboard and DC (younger than OPs) can help themselves and do not need to hide the evidence. They don't eat everything in one go, because they have understood that there will always be snacks, but also that those are treats and not dinner. I wouldn't expect a 2-year old to grap the concept, but 10yo should.
Worked the same when I was growing up. If some items were for a specific recipe, parents would just tell us that - not 'you're stealing food!!'

Yanbu!
Kids get away with murder these days teach them a lesson.
I don’t wonder why kids are so rude when parents let them do what they want.
Set clear boundaries from here on in with snacks too though.
I tell my dads little ones which cupboards are out of bounds.
As for the person saying they don’t eat enough what rubbish.
Obesity in kids is as bad as adults and I see plenty of it.
Healthy snacks will only benefit them, you made the right decision.
They shouldn’t be allowed to constantly gorge, it’s your responsibility to keep your kids healthy and it sounds like your doing that.
Good decisions made mama ❤️

My kids always eat all the treats… it’s just what kids do isn’t it? Maybe they are just hungry if there eating fruit now instead. I think its harsh you take there money sorry but I do. I don’t buy many snacks for the house but always leave bananas and things like that out and if there hungry they take but if I left snacks they would take them first

I think the issue is as much about the conversations you havevir have not had with them regarding sating all the snacks!

1. Explain the ince a month trip as you did to us, tell them why their actions have messed this up
2. Ensure they understand why dad needs stuff for his lunch box
3. Discuss with them why they decided to take things and hide the evidence

• hungry?
• just fancied them?
• etc etc

1. Explain that the consequence if their actions is no snacks until you go shopping again

...and as you have done it now, that's they pay for replacement snacks for dad

1. Suggest ways they could earn some money back

Ie involve them in the family routines, make them responsible, help them to see and understand consequences,encourage open and honest discussion not secretiveness!

@Madamum18 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
finally someone taking some sense!!!

Kid will be kids! Yeah, but they should also be capable of learning the boundaries. I'm not sure taking all their Christmas money was the answer, but I'd be bloody furious too. I don't believe that just because a child lives in the house they can help themselves to whatever they want when they want.
Some posters on here seem to equate stealing snacks with not having enough to eat, or there is an underlying problem. That is a load of twaddle.

The kids will have taken the snacks purely because they wanted to. Pure mischief and defiance, nothing more.

YANBU. I’ve had to do the same with my LG.
She’s been given treats then helped herself to more later on when she’d eaten plenty!
Our issue started during covid lockdowns. DD could earn a reward each day if she completed her work & what she could earn was based on how much she completed & how many arguments it took to get said work completed. Rewards ranged from movie night to sweet treats to trip to beach for a social distanced walk - once we could go further a field -, slime, Pokémon cards or art supplies.
More often than not she earned nothing because she chose to watch YouTube instead of doing her school work but that was her choice & that choice had a consequence.

Going forward make a snack box up for each child - one with a lock only you & the specific child has code for will stop them taking each other’s - & if they eat them all they get no more treat snacks for the rest of the month.
Kids struggle to regulate their intake & sugar is addictive so they have to learn the hard way to control themselves.
Clearly right now giving them free access to everything is not working so give them free access to their own stash then only they are effected if they eat it all in a week.

Yeah my kids get plenty of real food but have a sweet tooth like all kids, they can have a full meal and pudding and still have off with all the sweets… sweets do not equal real food nor in kids does it represent not being fed enough.. they will eat a full multi pack of kitkats in 5 mins… I was same as a kid be full of “real” food but still have much room for sweets and treats. It’s a hard lesson but kids need taught how to eat things in moderation… do you not remember being a kid? All that growing they eat a lot!! Especially teens! You don’t seem to get real life kids… 🤦‍♀️

This was horrible to read 😭 poor kids.

"And as for thse saying you must be starving them and food shouldn't be restricted. Get a grip! Only on MN would you find people saying your kids should be able to each as much junk as they like!"

At last! The voice of reason!

We knew better than to take food from the cupboard without asking; we didn't do the shopping, plan the menu, know the budget or pay for it. My kids were brought up similarly. It's basic manners to ask if you can have something. You wouldn't go to a friend's house and raid their food cupboard without asking!

The fact that the evidence was hidden meant those kids knew they were doing something wrong. You don't eat sweets to satisfy hunger.

The OP didn't ask you all to judge her shopping habits, by the way; how quickly you gave unsolicited advice!

I would certainly have made sure a lesson was learned; if, on second thoughts, I thought the punishment was too harsh, I would have given a later modification (eg, kids have half the money back by Easter, if lesson learned...)

Lunch of a sandwich, crisps, a yoghurt, an apple, banana and a Twix is not much to be going on with for a growing boy, aged 11. The apple and Twix have little food value, only the bread and banana are carbohydrates, and the only protein is a bit of ham. He is about to start a growth spurt. He should have more for lunch - about double, I should think (but cut the Twix and give him some real chocolate).

My friend has an open fridge & cupboard policy then complains that her 6 yr old eats everything nice in the 1st week after she has been shopping. She then complains that said child does her head in whining for treats, when there m me are none left because he ate them all, so she shares hers with him. No consequence there so making a rod for her own back.
I told her to remove the help yourself policy & take back control of the food in the house.
He isn’t starving, he isn’t deprived but he can’t regulate his food intake at 6yrs old leading to conflict in the house.
In my house we ask before taking. If we don’t ask it is stealing.

No. I've seen some very regimented and frankly over controlling parenting that has damaged children. OP has wisely sought the opinions of others in an effort to learn.

No way. That is just raising kids with poor manners and a massive sense of entitlement that they can take whatever they want, whoever it belongs to, as long whatever it is is situated in their house.

Lazy parenting.

Bloody hell! Yeah tell them off maybe, explain you shop to a budget, but they’re not in prison, or are they? Didn’t you ever raid the biscuit tin?? Secondly, why are you buying so much crap food? The odd chocolate bar, or biscuit is fine, but cheese strings, horrid rubber cheese, buy a block of real cheese and cut it up. You can wrap it in grease proof paper. Crisps every day? Sweets every day? Not good, think of their health. A hard boiled egg is a good snack. Home made banana ice cream, flap jacks are filling, anyway I won’t go on about that, they are growing kids and I think you have been too hard. Maybe they just need proper sustaining bigger meals. Give them their Christmas money back!!! So mean!