DS is a greedy porker -help!!

[shimmy21]

Seriously asking for advice here. Ds is 8 and is incredibly greedy for sweets, icecreams, cakes etc and I just don't know how to handle it.

By greedy I mean he will lie, steal or beg and plead pitifully and continuously to get to the sweeties. We are not sweet fascists and although we try to eat fairly healthily the kids are allowed to buy sweets with their pocket money once a week and the odd piece of chocolate, biscuits, icecreams or puddings usually find their way into our diet most days so we are not depriving him of goodies. He also has a collosal appetite for junk food and although we don't often eat it, will get through more than most adults. Needless to say he doesn't have the same appetite for healthy home cooked food but will eat plenty and normally. He has started to develop a pot belly and fat face. Food has never been an issue for me (nor has weight) and I'm very conscious of not making an issue about it for him but what do I do? If I try to stick to our agreed limits it turns into an issue every day of me saying no and him begging, pleading and crying. I'm terrified that when I can no longer control his diet he will explode!!!

Advice please, please, please

Seriously don't know how to cope with his continual begging, pleading and downright dishonesty about sweets (this is the only issue where he has ever lied to me).

What does he say if you ask him why he lied? Could you reason with him?

At eight you could have a serious conversation about his health, teeth, weight etc and maybe get him to come up with a plan that he thinks is reasonable (ie what he thinks is a decent amount of sweet stuff) and negotiate from there.

I'm so damned reasonable it hurts!!

He says he can't stop himself I can't accept it but there's not a very good abswer to it either

So what does he think is a reasonable amount, given the health implications? Would you consider asking him?
It does sound a difficult problem tbh.

Also, have you tried asking him how he feels when he eats sweets? Maybe look for an emotional root to it?

like the negotiating idea, aloha and have tried the health/ teeth route with little effect!

I guess I might have to budge about about what I think is reasonable to compromise though...

Better than the whinging and stealing though!
Seriously, I may have a similar problem with my ds who is only three atm but lives for cakes and sweets. So I have given it some though from that perspective.

I'm sure its a very common problem. Maybe other families aren't so uptight about it as me!

My other strategy is to make sure he is physically as active as possibe. Difficult when he is a computer game addict but he does do a lot of sporty activites too so I guess there's hope!

It's a difficult one because you don't want him to get a complex at that age but equally if he puts on weight now it will be really hard to shift.

I would suggest radical action - ie stop buying biscuits and sweets, then he can't steal them and if they are not there he can't have them. You could still eat a sweet pudding every day and go out for the occasional junk food meal or something but it would limit any sweet stuff between meals. He could buy some sweets with his own money each week.

Actually I tend not to buy biscuits and sweets but they still seem to be all around! e.g. visitors came last week and brought us a big box of chocs, friend came to tea yesterday so I bought biscuits in her honour. The issue at the moment is the blasted icecream van jingling outside our house every day. I think he knows he's got a good customer!

How many icecreams a week is normal???

think this was gillian mckeiths idea but seems a good one - have a goodie box and fill it with all the sweets he is allowed for the week (excluding puddings of course but keep them in mind when deciding how many to put in the box). then give him the box and tell him its up to him how/when he eats them but there are no more til the following week.

my ds is 6 and can easily eat more than me (and i eat a lot). i have given him permission to eat as much fruit as he likes, whenever he likes and it seems to be working. i think the fact that he gets the sweetness from the fruit stops him craving sweet junk so much.

like the box idea gg. It's actually pretty much what we do now really -this is your lot for the week sort of thing and I do the fruit thing too. We always have a low level fruit bowl full of a variety of fruit that the kids can have whenever they want. Unfortunately doesn't seem to have the same appeal!

i know what you mean about the appeal, it took a few weeks of refusing other snacks before he got the idea that was all he could have, but it does work now. rather expensive tho as my three are a bit like a plague of locusts when they get going!