WWYD in regards to tackling this behaviour?

[TitsalinaBumSquash]

I'm a bit desperate for some suggestions/advice please.

I have 5&7yo DSs, both are very young for their age.
We have an ongoing problem with them stealing food.
They both eat a lot during the day, healthy diets and they are both active little boys with good height/weight ratios.
A typical day for them is.

Breakfast - cereal with a piece of fruit.

Mid morning - the school provide fruit.

Lunch - example would be 2 chicken fajitas, salad, biscuit, fruit. (they often get seconds too)

Home time - usually toast, bread and butter, I've lolly on a very hot day.

Dinner - roast chicken, potatoes, sweetcorn, peas and gravy.

These areal big portions and are always eaten.

But yet every morning if my back is turned to get dressed, sort something out the room or the same in the evening, if I'm tidying elsewhere they will be in the cupboards/fridge taking whatever they can find, cheese, bread, yoghurt (we removed all sweet treats)
And they just gorge mindlessly on it all.

I have removed all privileges, computers, tv, outings, sweets, anything they consider a treat and we have discussed over and and over that they have no reason to be stealing the food, they aren't hungry and what they are doing is considered stealing and is wrong. I have spoken to the school about this today.

Apart from this there is no major behaviour issues, they have the usual childish moments where they fight but nothing out of the ordinary. They get plenty of attention and are allowed out to play. They have regular contact wih their father and they adore DP.
Also so I'm not drip feeding DS1 has cystic fibrosis so we do a lot ohm hospital stuff but this something he has done since he was 2 so nothing new or different for them.

I know this doesn't sound like a lot, or a big thing but it's just the scale of it, this morning whilst getting dressed they had a whole pack of mini cereal boxes and had opened them and hidden them to eat while I was getting dressed.
I can't afford to keep doing this and I have run out of ways to explain/discipline them for doing it.

Food has always been everything to DS1 and I think some of that has rubbed off on DS2, they inhale food at the rate of knots and will always take more, ask for more if possible, I don't know where this has come from, they have NEVER been denied food and no one around them has food issues.
Maybe I should change things around and give a reward for not doing it on a sticker chart or something?
Any ideas greatly appreciated please.

Not sure that I have anything that would count as advice - bound to be some qualified people on here. One thing that did occur to me is that breakfast doesn't sound very filling. This would be fine for my DS - but he is small and has never been that into food. I wonder if more at the beginning might help? Good luck with advice from more qualified people.

There are some positive and negative things you could do.

On the positive side, you could try a reward chart/ marbles in the jar approach. You could also give them responsibility for some of the food management. Let them think of some things they'd like to eat then go shopping for the components. Let them do some age-appropriate cooking (they should both be able to use small knives to cut things by this age, with supervision). They can be helped to feel that they are participating in the feeding of the family.

On the negative side you can punish them. Dock their pocket money by an amount every time they steal. If they take cereal from the cupboard then they miss the next meal. If the week's cheese disappears then there's no more cheese, end of story, until next week.

I think punishing them is quite pointless. Does not teach them anything, least of all being in charge of their eating behaviour (which, after all, is probably what you would like them to have once you are no longer the one filling the cupboards for them?). Are you saying they would gorge themselves up to the point of vomiting? I find it a little dubious that they would BOTH have some sort of severe eating disorder (but of course cannot completely rule this out if there is reason to think so). But in that case they need medical treatment, not punishing.
Explain to them calmly about healthy eating, including binge eating. Ask them if they feel genuinely hungry or do it for fun. Then try leaving them the stuff you are ok with them eating, and see what happens. Let them stuff themselves once - just relax, they cannot harm themselves more than start feeling sick by having this eating spree once.

I have two DS also aged 7 and 9, they eat lots. For breakfast they will happily munch their way through three bowls of cereal, they have compote for break at 10.30 and then get a three course meal in the school canteen. When they get home they will probably eat a piece of fruit or a yoghurt, then have a big dinner and always have a dessert of some kind, yoghurt, ice cream etc.

When not at school they are horrors for snacking, but I really do think it's a boy thing, my solution has been to provide healthy snacks, so there is fruit, yoghurt and sometimes bread, the deal is I go shopping twice a week, if you choose to eat everything that I've bought within 12 hours of it entering the house then tough, that's it you have to wait until I go to the shops again. I buy one packet of biscuits a week and once it's gone, it's gone. Same with the yoghurts, 12 yoghurts to do snacks and desserts, once they've been eaten tough.

It's worked, DS1 is an absolute apple fiend and he would eat a kilo a day if I let him he now counts out however many I buy and divides them up for himself to make sure they last until the next shopping day.

I used to think DS2 was being helpful by helping me put the shopping away, no he was just checking out what I'd bought and whereabouts in the cupboard it went.

To stop the stealing and hiding of food, maybe you could make certain foods available to them all the time, I do it with fruit and yoghurt (unless of course they're greedy like I said before) they can eat them when they want on the proviso that dinners are always eaten. This works for us in our house.

Thought I must reply to this because I posted on here myself about six weeks ago regarding my almost six year old ds1. I started to consider him to be a compulsive eater and had inadvertently become very controlling with food e.g monitered all his eating, didn't let him have seconds because I felt he'd eaten enough. Looking back, the situation had become unhealthy and I think, if continued, would be a big "issue" for him in the long term.

Anyway, someone on here recommended a book called your child's weight: helping without harming. The gist of it is you decide the what, when and where of eating, the child decides how much, so if you do lasagne for dinner, they eat as much as they like til they feel they've had enough.

Although I can't say things are perfect yet, ds1 isn't asking for food quite as much and before he would eat his meals like a starved animal, he now eats in a more civilised fashion. I really recommend the book.

I think it's really sad for you to say they're stealing food. You say they're a normal weight / height ratio - they're growing boys, and are presumably hungry still. My youngest is a stick, but since he was small he's always had an enormous breakfast - much more than cereal and fruit. Can you have food that they can help themselves to - bread, fruit etc - and some that they can only have if they ask?

I think you're setting yourself up for problems in the future if you continue to discipline them for helping themselves to food.

Actually that's what I do, ds1 is allowed to help himself to fruit, yogurt or rice cakes and has to ask for other stuff. I understand what you're doing, but I think with kids if they think they are being controlled, they then have to overcompensate ie stealing food. Once you let go a bit, they will probably be less interested in food. They will likely go overboard and stuff themselves at the beginning, but once they know the controls have gone, they can relax.

When I started letting ds1 eat as much as he wanted at meal times, he would eat far more than I liked/he needed to, but I just sat there and let him get on with it (with clenched teeth). He has now started leaving food behind, only asking for two bowls of cereal instead of three.

I think if they're both healthy weights and active there's not too much of a problem. I'd try not to make such an issue of it as my 8yr old son does exactly the same thing but he is overweight, has been since a baby. Since it was made an 'issue' it's got worse and consequently his weight has increased. Eating seems to be a comfort for him and a hobby!! The only advise i can give is hide or don't buy the unhealthy stuff and keep them active!! Good luck :)

How do you know they aren't hungry?