Child (10) stealing chocolate. Advice please.

[dabdab]

This has happened on numerous occasions, things I have in the cupboard, and also some of siblings saved sweeties. I do hide things, but dc finds them. Recently an entire bar of chocolate went missing, and we asked dc directly if she had taken it, and she denied it. The wrapper was later found under her bed. She does get pocket money (under £1) weekly and is allowed to spend that on sweets, and there is also very often dessert after meals, so she isn't being denied sweet things. We have spoken to her about it, and said that we don't like it, and want it to stop, it is bad for teeth/health to have to much etc. and that the most upsetting thing is her lying to us because we then feel that we can't trust her. She did listen on this occasion and seemed to take it on board, but next time was alone in the house took things again.
We are not sure how to deal with it. Perhaps it isn't a big deal. I don't want it to lead to casual taking of other things. I don't want her to eat loads more sweets, or for her to feel she needs to take things in secret. I don't want to feel like I need to lock things away, or that she can't be trusted. I also don't want to look for a square of chocolate of an evening and find it gone! How would you approach it?

I was your DC. It started like this, then I started stealing from shops too. I only stopped when my mum sat me down and scared the bejeezus out of me. I think it is a big deal and you must address it sooner rather than later. Good luck :)

Thanks for taking time to respond. What was it that your mum said that scared you, if you don't mind me asking?

My Ds (13.6) does this too and I don't know what the answer is. He eats well and does occasionally get treats though no pocket money...but he hunts out and steals anything I might have put aside for whatever reason and not just treats, but hot cross buns, bread, cereals, hot chocolate, sugar and high juices...I despair.

I don't remember it all, but she did tell me it was a slippery slope, and it starts with little things, and before you know it you are in Deep Shit. I just remember being utterly terrified and knowing that I'd been really, really bad.

This was addressing the stealing from shops thing, rather than at home.

I have had a similar problem with my dd, dabdab. I still haven't found the solution I am afraid, she started at about 9 and is still at it at nearly 12. She has also taken considerable amounts of money from my purse a few times and doesn't seem ready to mend her ways. She is currently banned from the internet and her phone for 'fraping' my Facebook account. It seems to me it is a way of getting at or punishing me, perhaps because of emotional difficulties to do with our family situation and lingering jealousy over her little brother! I think it goes very deep. Not to say that is the same in your case. Maybe she is just a chocaholic!

My dd (7) steals food, we would find wrappers down the back of the sofa. In the end we put a lock on the top of the kitchen door for a couple of weeks to break the cycle. We also had a big talk about stealing food, healthy choices etc. she used to steal food early in the morning before I came downstairs so I promised I would make her a breakfast she liked, bagel and jam or eggs and hash browns. It seemed the thought of missing out on breakfast she lived was enough to stop taking the biscuits or cake. She does still lapse though and I do clamp down on it hard.

I am AMAZED at people describing children taking food from their own kitchen as stealing! Different if it's the chocolate/sweet tin which they have been told they can only have at certain times, but bread products, cereal......???? Stealing, really?

I have 3 teen boys and a baby. The boys have always been encouraged to help them selves to a sandwich if hungry, cereal/toast if up early in the morning etc, it would never occur to me that this is stealing! How can they learn to regulate their food intake if you are controlling everything they eat? Could that be what's making them "steal"? None of my boys are overweight, so they are self regulating.

Agree with oldmum42

Surely the food in the house belongs to everyone, how can it be stealing?

Perhaps stealing was too strong a word - I meant taking things that I didn't want her to take. I don't mind if she helps herself to food if she has eaten a proper meal and is hungry. I do mind if she hasn't eaten much dinner, and then takes chocolate / crisps / treats. You mention self regulation, but left to her own devices, I thinks that she would eat far too much chocolate / sweet things. Oldmum42, are your boys allowed to eat whatever chocolate /biscuits they want? Maybe I am being too controlling about it.
Helpful comment about it being a control thing, 2fedup, I know that dc does have a perception of lack of free time. I will have to think about that one.

I think those comments were more aimed at me dabdab. And I do consider it stealing in my household. I have an exceptionally small budget and my children are not starving, so to find that my lunch (bread or buns) has gone can be very upsetting because I know I can't always just nip off and buy another loaf. My Ds will eat a massive portion of breakfast cereal and leave nothing for his sister. In my eyes that is totally unfair on any of us. Whilst I would go hungry in order to feed my kids, I shouldn't have to.

No, Dabdab, the boys are not allowed Choc/cake when ever they want, they were told from an early age sweet treats had to be asked for/offered, but from about 3 1/2 or 4, each was capable of making a sandwich or bowl of cereal if hungry or up early........ if they were doing that close to a meal time I would ask them if they were SURE they wanted that, as dinner would be in 40 min (or what ever). Some times they would still make the sandwich, sometimes not, I'd give a much smaller dinner portion if they did, so it did make them think about it (Am I really hungry or can I wait).

Yes SOLO, I was aiming my comment at other posters including yourself, and now I feel a bit , as I don't really have to think about my food spending, and wasn't really putting my self in the shoes of someone who is on a very tight budget, sorry.
Do you have a freezer? Just wondering if your DS could be given a loaf, frozen (doesn't take long for a couple of slices to defrost), and a jar of peanut butter (or jam), and told this is his, for occasional snacks if hungry on the understanding that other stuff is left alone..... teens boys do get hungry IME!

I am cheif shopper, budgeter, and main cook, so I jolly well DO expect people to ask before helping themselves to stuff. Things like fruit and crumpets/toast/homemade soup etc are always available as snacks for hungry teenagers but I did used to get rather upset when DS consumed a lb of sausages and 2 eggs for breakfast, and have 6 between meal sandwiches/day that meant he got through a lb of ham in 2 days. I had to have many words with him.

Similarly, from their earliest age they have not been allowed to snarf down crisps and sweets as snacks, only as occasional special treats. SO I would not expect them to be pinching stuff like chocolate from cupboards, no, even though I know for sure that my children do and have done in the past. They are emphatically NOT freely available, they know that. Who can actually afford to let their children run through piles of sweets and crisps these days, even if you didn't mind them eating those things in the first place? Tbh I told my children they were paying for their own fillings if they insisted on eating sweets all the time. They do not have any fillings.

I think it is definitely time for a serious in-depth chat with DD about budgeting, tooth decay, adequate nutrition and honesty. ime it may not help much but she might think twice about taking stuff without permission.

Oldmum apology accepted :). I hadn't thought of putting something in the freezer allocated to him; what a good idea! thanks!! I did do that (not the freezer) with the high juice a few months ago as he was getting through a whole bottle within one or two days and there was none for poor Dd, so I gave him a bottle of it with his name on it and date and told him it had to last him x amount of time, usually 7-10 days. I also had to mark Dd's bottle everytime I gave her a drink so that he didn't pinch hers. When Tesco put the price up 50% though, I stopped buying it and they drank water or tea.
Ds also takes from my Mums kitchen; she too is less than pleased!

I did this

it stopped when my parents stopped buying sweet stuff. then I started acquiring money by any means possible (baby sitting mainly, but occasionally from purses left lying around...)

I did it because we didn't have sweets in our house unless it was a treat, and my sister (who is diabetic) got chcolate or sweets everytime we did anything outdoors, like a family walk or day out - but the rest of us didn't.

I think the only real solution is to lock chocolate and other treat food that you want to safeguard, away. Preferably not in a cupboard with a pickable lock

speak to her about it, and ask why she does it, and if she says she is always hungry for chocolate, can you discuss a daily allowance? maybe a small bar or square of choc after dinner, or some choc biscuit when she gets home from school? or a weekly allowance of sweet stuff that she gets on a weekend, and it has to last her all week - this would definitely encourage self regulation!!

We have had a serious talk, but unfortunately it has not really taken effect. I really really don't want to have to lock things away. It is an interesting idea to give a 'weekly allowance' of sweet things, did you mean something like 1 weeks worth of chocolate? The thing is, I would then feel that I would need to treat the other siblings in the same way, and I would like to encourage them to eat less.
When she spends her pocket money on sweets on the weekend, it is all gone in about 10 minutes, whereby her sister saves hers, which creates a temptation (even though she tries to hide it!). Often after dinner there is a biscuit or a piece of cake. Maybe I should change it and just give them all 1 square of dark chocolate instead. I feel like I need to do something radical. Maybe every time something is discovered missing, money is deducted from her pocket money?

I don't know what the answer is. My brother used to help himself to whatever he wanted at home (including money). It was very frustrating when nothing was done about it and I was even told "prove it". All I can say is that he is now works in law enforcement and has right wing views about criminals. Maybe you should limit the number of treats in the house and once their gone their gone. My mother adopted this policy after finding that they were all gone after 1 day.

I did this too.

Iirc it was about being bored, it was a bit exciting as it was naughty, and I was like an addict with sugar, and thought it was worth the risk.

I just craved chocolate and sweets.

I was always hungry.

I stopped when I was about 14 and I had enough "clothes money" to spend on sweets.

When I was 18 I stopped being so keen on sugar. Now I rarely have it....

Maybe it is just that growing children crave sugar? A biological thing?

One thing that stood out for me in your OP (obviously, apart from the important bits!) was that she gets under £1 pocket money a week. That doesn't sound like much, to me, for a ten year old. I'm sure I was getting about £1 a week at something like eight, and that's back in the mid nineties. £1 wouldn't buy you many sweets these days - not that you necessarily want her spending it all on sweets, mind, but considering this has got to the point of her taking things from you and denying it, I think there is probably an element of control in there as well as possibly some other stuff, more than simply her wanting sweet things.

I don't know if this is an option for you, financially, but perhaps you could try upping her pocket money yet reducing the amount of sweet things in the house? Maybe with all DC if they are amenable, so you're basically saying, "Okay, you can have as many sweet things as your budget will allow, and you can choose what they are, but once you've bought and eaten them, that's it." If you're not buying them there will be no way for her to steal them and she'll have to learn to self-regulate. Might have to keep an eye on her siblings' things for a while though!

I remember reading something a while ago (can't remember if it was on here or somewhere else) about someone who was stealing from her parents, money I think, and they sat her down and said they were very sorry, they had realised that obviously if she felt the need to steal they weren't giving her enough money, so they doubled her pocket money. Apparently she felt incredibly guilty and never stole again! Dunno if I'd have the confidence to try that one myself, heh.

Oh and yes, absolutely, if the stealing continues (whether you do anything else about it or not) let her know that any time anything goes missing, money will be deducted from her pocket money - as much as the thing cost. If it costs more than her weekly amount then she loses all of it (but don't bother cutting into the following week as well, that will just make her resentful and lose sight of the point). Make that very clear to her, but don't speak about it to her siblings (in case one of them decides that's a great opportunity to nick something and then blame it on her because mum will automatically think it's her). Making her pay back for it is a natural consequence.

When I found sweet wrappers hidden under DS's bed I was perplexed,and just assumed he was being lazy, but when I questioned him about it he burst into tears and said he was hiding the wrappers from me, as he thought I would be cross that he had them. I asked why, he said "because the sweet jar is so high up, I thought I wasn't allowed any", so I moved the sweet jar to the counter where he can easily reach it and told him fromnow on he didn't have to sneak the sweets or hide the wrappers,he could help himself to them between noon and 5pm.

I hadn't meant to make the sweets seem forbidden by putting the jar high up, but to DS he perceived it as forbidden for this reason, poor boy.

I don't think my situation is the same as a lot of the stories here, but for DS, that was what worked (but he wasn't exactly over-eating them, or taking too much, or not cinsidering others etc. etc. and he would never eat teh last of anything without asking, and has a habit of asking before he eats something even though I usually say yes)

I wouldn't call that 'stealing' - it's very different from taking things from shops IMO. Most kids would help themselves to sweets if they know where they are - and a lot of adults too!
My way of dealing with it is to only buy a limited amount of sweets that are meant to be eaten in one go, so when there's none left, that's it. Or I hide them really, really well.

My DS was doing this too. What helped was letting him know how much of what he could eat in a day and let him sort himself out whenever he wanted. Outside of meals he's allowed

1 sweet

2 dairy
2 fruit
1 starchy

and I try to keep a variety of things on hand so he can make his own choices. It's one year on and hasn't happened since.