My child is a thief and a liar.

[toffeesponge]

He is 8. Since reception he has helped himself to food (cooking chocolate, snacks, sweets that may or usually have not been bought for him, my slimfast bars ffs.) I got sick of this so have been hiding the snacks in my room. Today dh went to get the sweets I had allowed the children to buy the other day. Half of ds1's bag was missing. DS1 said he hid them under the tv cabinet and it ripped open when he took them out. This doesn't make sense but is irrelevant. DS2 (the taker) said he hadn't taken any and DS1 said he hadn't had any. We weighed the bag half were missing. Eventually DS2 admitted to taking one then admitted to taking all of the missing ones.

Why would I take what isn't mine he always asks.

My kids do not have a lot of sweets but they get treats aplenty so no need for him to steal. He gets well fed. He says he doesn't know why he takes things and promises he won't again. And he does.

This is not any argument about how it is his house and he shouldn't have to ask to have a food and how you let your children help themselves. This is about a child taking someone elses sweets and then lying about it.

Stuff kept hidden = stuff meant to be found.
Buy sweets/treats one at the time and there will be nothing to pinch.

Have you considered if your child might be addicted. Sugar and highly processed carbs are very addictive (as addictive as cocaine apparently). Perhaps he needs to go cold turkey and have no access to any sweets at all.

Most of us are familiar with that feeling like 1 biscuit is never enough. For some epople, this feeling is x100. he may have a real problem with constant hunger caused by too much sugar.

Your DS sounds like me as a child (not really got it under control as an adult if I'm honest )

I still don't really know why i did it. i would be eaten up with guilt and be so remorseful and swear not to do it again.. but i couldn't help myself. I also never really went without although we didn't have many sweets or treats in the house but i couldn't help myself if there were.

I grew out of it without a downward spiral into an eating disorder (other than still struggling to say no to sweet things!) I think if my parents had sat me down and had a good chat about the same age as your DS, i would like to think it might've helped. They just shouted, i felt guilty etc etc

No magic answer but just so you know its not you - my parents didn't deny me much and i still did it!

Fgs, I thought the child must be shoplifting or something! Do all children not do a bit of this? Esp if one sibling is prone to hoarding and the other scoffs it all immediately? Not sure I ever stole my sister's hoarded treats but I certainly used to rob the press. No idea why even now, but rest assured, it wasn't indicative of a life of crime or massive obesity!

I don't know the situation really, but unless it was really bizarre behaviour I'd be inclined to tone down the rhetoric, stop giving them individual piles of sweets, have house treats and when they are gone, they're gone. My sister and I used to go mad when our brother had scoffed all the chipsticks so be warned this is not a panacea!

Actually, now I think of it my DH still eats all the treats...

I did not say he was a liar and a thief. I told him he has lied before so we can't always believe him. Consequences for his actions.

The point is, he has been told not to take stuff from the cupboard but to ask if he wants something. He knows it is wrong otherwise why would he hide the wrappers and lie about it? He took my tube of smarties I had by my bed, in a bag, and tried to say the cat or his daddy had taken them.

He knows if he owns up I will say I am not happy he has again taken things without asking but that would be the end of it. He has no need to lie.

He has plenty of good food to eat and plenty of baked treats. He is not deprived in anyway at all.

We weighed the sweets as he said he had taken nothing.

No, you can't hold me up to any of my faults as I don't repeat them.

I am sick of being told I am doing it all wrong. He has been taking stuff for fucking years and lying about it. I am sick of it and it is not how I want my child to behave.

I am also not going to the shop every damn day to buy the afternoon snack. I shouldn't have to hide stuff but neither am I driving to the shop every day, He can go without until he learns to do as he is told.

You do seem to get very dramatic about all this.

Yes, we can all agree that your son should not be taking sweets. Of course he shouldn't.

But if your reaction to anything happening in your family that shouldn't be happening is "I just feel like my whole parenting has been shit" then it is going to be difficult for you to stop things from escalating. And particularly hard to stop the lying.

It may be that you need to react in a different way, calmly, with humour perhaps.

Nobody is saying you are a shit parent: all parents have to try different approaches from time to time when something doesn't seem to be working. It doesn't mean we devalue everything we have done, it doesn't mean we have to feel sorry for ourselves either.

My children at a slightly younger age went through a phase of writing on things they shouldn't be writing on and then blaming each other. It wasn't a good thing, and we all knew it was wrong. But the more I stepped up the pressure the worse the problem got. When I stepped away and focused on other things it gradually wore off and eventually they forgot all about it.

What I needed to be aware of there was not that I was wrong about the undesirability of scribbling of walls: I wasn't wrong. But when this became such a major issue that it became how we thought about each other, then I was wrong. I needed to react and then forget. Not let us become that family.

My dd used to do this. At 8 she ate an entire bag of mini aeros and then swore up and down it was not her even though the wrappers were under the bed.

My ds2 sometimes takes biscuits upstairs in his pockets to eat in bed.

I don't know, I understand that the lying is an issue. But in my case, obviously I told her it was wrong and not to do it but I tend to think its quite a normal, small child thing to do.

Ds1 used to eat all of his sweets in one go and it used to drive him crazy that dd saved her so he did sometimes sneak them out of her drawer and eat them.
He doesn't do it anymore.

It seems like this has become a huge issue, the weighing of the sweets, how utterly furious you are.
I guess I didn't think it deserved so much, I don't know, heartache and effort, for something that i think is a relatively minor, normal, small child thing to do.

Do they really have sweets every day as an afternoon snack? Stop that for a start!

Buy them a small pack of sweets on the way back from school once a week. Encourage both to eat them there and then (better for teeth than eating one or two over a longer period of time anyway).

Bananas or milk if they're still hungry.

Agree you're making this far more of an issue than it really should be. Presume you're also on a diet given your stock of slim-fast bars? Could it be that your relationship to food isn't that good and you're projecting onto your kids? Sorry if that's way off mark.

it sounds like you have a bad relationship with food, particularly sweets tbh, and as if sweets are hidden round the house as forbidden fruit, as it were

dont buy them

i think it is you that will find this most difficult, not him, tbh

Guilty of acting wrong so things escalate, definitely and I am working on that.

Of course they don't have sweets every day, they don't even have them every week. I am also taking about him taking biscuits, fruit bars, things like that.

For me it is as much, if not more, about him not doing as we asked as a lot of the time he doesn't. You let the odd thing go when it isn't all the time. With us it is most of the time it feels they don't do as they are told.

When he says he is hungry between meals we offer fruit, toast, bread and butter or milk. He then strops that we always offer fruit and says that milk isn't a food. We suggest if he doesn't want any of the stuff offered he isn't hungry. He says that isn't it. I know he just wants something treaty!

mercibucket - quite happy never to buy sweets again. I never eat them (other than the odd chocolate bar but I don't class chocolate as sweets) but I also know I have a problem that I see giving my children a treat item as = love and I know that it wrong and need to stop that. I also never had treats so want my children to have them.

It is the issue of taking without asking and then lying about it that I want to stop. I never deny them food, wouldn't let them have crisps five minutes before tea but that isn't really denying them.

Currently baking chocolate muffins which I will decorate with chocolate, shiny balls and mini sparklers for bonfire night so they really don't go without!

Of course he wants something treaty he's a kid! Hell I'm 45 and I want something treaty!

Seriously, don't buy biscuits, crisps, sweets, fruit bars (really - they are sweets in all but name). There is no need to have any of that in the house.

titchy - not on a diet now. The bars were from ages ago.

I feel like I am trying to do the right thing (teach my child not to take without asking or lie) and yet I am in the wrong. That is where the feeling like I am doing it wrong from.

Attention = love, not food treats. Your last post is quite revealing actually.

yes, i thought it would be something like that, it sounds like there is a lot of emotion tied up in food in your family.
ds1 is a pita as well for nagging constantly for sugary stuff so i do sympathise
honestly, just get rid of all the 'treats' and concept of food as treat
home baking sounds fab, you could maybe batch freeze (hard to enjoy a frozen cake lok) and leave it as that for the treat part of life
i do that noe

tbh i would eat all the chocolate in the house - it calls to me

more work for me to do with my emotions! I will do it though. Once I get it that they aren't me and aren't having anything like my life I will be fine and more importantly they will be.

Thanks all.

By the way - I couldn't post for 2 days but the poster who said about was he addicted, when I saw it in Threads I'm On I thought you said was he adopted!!!

I can understand OP why this upsets you, food and feeding your family are emotive subjects. I would also get upset and angry if one of my kids was taking from the other, and then lying about it. My dd1 is a bit sneaky sometimes, I heard her in the kitchen last night opening a pack of biscuits and asked her about it this morning. I'm now starting to feel I shouldn't have even raised this issue with her but let it go. Tbh she's always seemed addicted/obsessed about treats and wanting "something crunchy from the cupboard". She sounds just like your son when I suggest she eats fruit if she's hungry, I'm made to feel that I'm denying her air to breathe. My youngest couldn't care less and would empty the fruit bowl with pleasure. I've also suspected that her lunch gets chucked at school, well the healthy bits anyway, and I find crisp/sweet wrappers in her blazer pocket. She's 13 btw.

I find this issue difficult as well, I can't let her have free-rein otherwise she'd eat shit all day but if I try to "coach" her am I making her obsessed with junk food??

He does have a reason to lie, he wants your approval and thinks you don't approve of him taking stuff. It is quite short-sighted then to lie, but he is 8. Fwiw my own mum would still lie to avoid confrontation - she's 60.

WRT 'How to Talk' I second that recommendation - it does feel false at first but it does become second nature with practice.

WRT that your distrust of him is the consequence of his action, I think it worth reconsidering what you communicate to him. If you communicate absolute trust (you don't have to feel it) he is more likely to feel happy in himself, valued by you and sure you think well enough of him to give him what he wants or asks for. I think treating him like he's a sneaky liar will contribute to him acting like one.

WRT food 'taking' - it all.sounds a bit like you are very much in control and don't trust your children to self regulate. If you keep a good pantry, why not let them help themselves when they feel like it, without asking? This is our strategy and it doesn't end in endless rejected dinners in favour of snacks because children do self-regulate. I just wonder if he is a touch resentful of having to ask to get food? And suspects you think he doesn't deserve the yummy things he wants?

Your last paragraph is not making sense to me but I know it is my issue so will reread until it does, Sparklyboots. I suppose my children have always asked before they take food but it isn't something I have implemented as such but since DS2 has been taking stuff (older siblings never have) I have said to ask first.

They don't need to lie. I would say I am sad you have taken without asking but that would be all. It is the lying that makes me sad.

I lied when in foster homes as would have been in a lot of trouble for owning up. I would be less cross about the "crime" as pleased they owned up. I wouldn't have got that lee way. Am I making lying worse than it is? .

My kids are buggers for raiding the cupboards for anything vaguely treatlike.

I solved this by not keeping biscuits, cakes, buns, crisps, chocolate, etc etc in the house. It simply isn't available. They get a treat once a week and really look forward to their friday treat.

There's fruit and yoghurt a plenty and in all honesty - we don't miss it because it's not stuff that anybody needs.

It is an option.

I have bought strawberries for after school and might look at Friday trip to the tuck shop or taking some crisps and then just stick purely to fruit or crackers for after school. School finishes at 4 but tea isn't ready until 5 and when the youngest has had lunch at 12.30 he is hungry at 4.

I would say I'm sad you have taken without asking I know this may seem like an innocuous comment from your point of view, but it's often terrifying for children to feel responsible for their parents' feelings - in fact anyone held responsible for someone else's feelings can end up.feeling manipulated. When he lies, it is possible he is trying to avoid your feeling of sadness. Is it possible to name practical and rational reasons for why he must ask rather than take food? E.g. "I had planned for you/your brother to have that at x time. If I don't know it's gone, I can't make other plans". You could ask him to help you to solve the problem - by choosing something else to eat at the named time, or finding an alternative for his brother. But taking the emotional heat out of the situation would probably help him to feel more able to be open with you.

I have been thinking about this and the food is being taken early in the morning before DH and I are up. He is having whatever it is then watching tv until DH appears and then having breakfast.

I think that in trying to do the right thing I have been doing it all wrong. I need to find some instincts and stop thinking about what has happened in the past, doing the wrong thing, wondering what MNters would say and just stop blooming worrying about the future and concentrate on the here and now.

Muffins made. Look awesome. DS2's eyes are going to pop out of his head .