Advice please - re early morning food and money stealing.

[TitsalinaBumSquash]

Can anyone advise me on this please.

Firstly I will just put that stealing is a strong word and probably the wrong but I can't think of anything better at the moment.

My kids are 6 and 4, and every single morning they are getting up early, sneaking into the kitchen, scaling the cupboards and taking all the 'treat' food and hiding in their beds.
They are well fed children, they are not doing this out of hunger but greed. They literately pile crisps, chocolate and sweets high. I am emptying out the cupboard and not buying treats any more, lunch will now be just a sandwich and fruit.
How do I punish them over this? Every morning for weeks they do it, get told off and then do it again the next day!

Also they do it to money, this morning they have climbed all over the furniture to get to the money box and emptied it out, again under their pillow on their bed. They don't NEED money, I buy everything for them.

I don't know how to deal with his but it is getting to be to much every single morning.

No treat food kept in the house, no money box (keep it in your room) - and get up with them, if you can't trust them not to scale the furniture. You need to break this habit by supervision before you can tackle what you do when they are alone, IMO.

I think you are doing the right thing not getting 'treat' food anymore. If it's not there they can't take it.

Re the money, can you get one of those lockable boxes and put it in there? They wouldn't be able to get it out then so you have removed the temptation so to speak.

My lo likes to take money from my purse so I have to put it where he can't see/get it.

Hopefully that will help!

I think you need to get up with them

I do wake up with them usually.
I am a heavy sleeper, they have learnt how to sneak and be really quiet.

My kids are the same age and they have tried this a couple of times. I always used to get up with them but then recently at the weekends I have stayed in bed until 8 and let them have the tv on downstairs. Last weekend I came down and they were both grinning away looking very pleased with themselves. Turns out they'd found a big box of cookies I had hidden in a high up cupboard and scoffed the lot! I do think it's my fault as I should have had healthy options ready for them and I am trying to get them to be more independent so I wasn't too hard on them. The other evening whilst I was getting the bath ready my 4 year old came wandering up the stairs eating an icelolly - I went mad and threw it into the sink downstairs. He'd just had his dinner, some of his easter egg and a bowl of icecream on half an hour earlier. I hope he's got the message that he can't do this but I'm doubtful. I think your're right to stop buying the treats and that's what I'm also intending on doing. Your children sound very like my own and I do find it quite funny how they work as a little tag team. I can hear mine sometimes saying 'quick she's coming she's going to be mad' and then I'm thinking what now are they up to. If I'm being totally honest I remember doing the exact same things with my brothers!

only when it was my brothers and me there wasn't always any nice treats in the house so I remember we used to eat spoonfuls of drinking chocolate powder, sugar cubes, orange vitamins (they tasted like sweets!). I also remember us finding a bottle of lemonade and having a big swig only to find out it wasn't lemonade but seriously strong potcheen (irish homemade whisky!). How did we survive our childhood! Very happy memories though!

Saintfrank I remember having teaspoons of citric acid (for wine making....but it also tasted like acid drops!), some cream my mum had frozen - I thought it was going to taste like ice cream but it didn't. And my parents kept turps in an old lemonade bottle on the top of the kitchen cupboards. My brother and I never touched it but one morning a friend of theirs who had stayed over took a swig (he was probably stilled drunk from the night before) and had to go to hospital

We did the frozen cream as well ProvincialLady! My dad used to have turps on the go in washing up bowls and other containers in the shed or the garden as he was always doing some sort of DIY. My lil bro once fell back was pushed by me and sat in a bowl of it. I always remember as when he took his shorts off he had 2 red splat circles on his bum. I think my dad just yelled at us to keep away from his stuff and my brother got to sit in a luke warm bath for a few hours!

My teenagers would not help themselves to food from the kitchen without asking first and my 4 year old is not allowed in the kitchen (for safety reasons).

At 4 and 6 yrs they should be old enough to understand that they should not be "scaling the cupboards" to steal. I would sit them down and tell them that it's not going to happen and then come down hard on them if they do it again.

You could hide all the food and money in the house but what happens if they then want to use your makeup or re decorate the living room. If you don't want them to do it tell them so and enforce it. No should mean no.

I know - I'm hard.