Advice please - 8 yr old boy stealing food!

[biscuitlover]

I'm at my wits end and need some advice please! My DS has been for a while taking food from the kitchen without asking. He's quite cunning about it and takes things when he goes to the bathroom on a morning before anyone gets up (we have a downstairs bathroom which you go through the kitchen to get to ). He always denies taking anything even though we find wrappers and crumbs in his room. It's not just sweet things he takes but bread, crackers etc. This has been going on for ages now and I've run out of ways to deal with this. Each time he's eventually admitted taking food and then promised not to do it again but a few days later he's started again. I'm concerned that this may lead to bigger problems as he gets older. He does well at school, has lots of friends and our family life is fine - apart from this! I'm resorting to putting cupboards locks on today. Any advice would be great as I'm out of ideas.

So you think I make my ds feel guilty because I want him to tell me he's getting something. There's also a safety issue here too - I like to know what he's up to incase he needs a hand getting something. I don't want him jumping up to try to get something down when I could move it for him if he had asked.

It does take negotiation though. I still don't consider dried pasta a snack.[/shudder] Also, we had for the longest time a sticker on the fruit-bowl with 'what time is it?' written on. I do disapprove of sitting down to supper whilst they are still munching on an apple.

biscuitlover dont worry

he is taking the piss

start getting pissed off with him

if you are confident you are allowing him to help himself from a designated snack bowl and he is eating plenty at meal times, take his nintendo off him if he keeps doing it

Lol Enid I do just that! God kids are demanding. I'll stick with it and check out the other food postings

Also agree with sarahjane there - it's not the need for more food, or even especially the always asking first - it's the stealth issue. And there is a safety issue eg ds can reach the fridge for cheese, but only with difficulty, and cannot reliably close the fridge door after him yet.
I read somewhere that around 7-8 boys' calorific requirements take a huge step up, and they suddenly want more food, more often.
Ds still eats like a bird at 7, but we can see the growing wish to be independent eg getting his own breakfast, and are keen to manage that so that he is clear about what he can do without asking and what he needs to get clearance on first. Not least because we have a three year old gannet stalking and copying his every move.

Who knows what he actually thinks. He could just really like negative attention.

If you remove the safety issue by discussing and having an agreed area to eat in, an agreed variety of food and a promise that it really is ok to eat within these boundries then there is no reason to argue. You will have to go out of your way to paise the behaviour that you want to see IYKWIM.

My neice is eight years old and weighs nearly 9 stone now. Frankly I'd find that a lot more worrying than a growing boy sneaking a snack. We all have our hot buttons with kids. Mine is socks stuffed down the side of the bed.

9 stone

Thanks SarahJaneSmith,that's good advice. If he was 9 stone I'd be horrified but thankfully he's not. I need to step back and bring in more positive praise when he does it right. It's not as if I can expect him to tell me why he does this because he can find it hard to talk about things although I feel this is a new thread that should be on another board!

If I am around, my children will ask because they'd rather I sorted them out, than that they did it themselves.
However, if I am still in bed (which I aspire to be at 6am) or I'm dealing with something else, then at 7 & nearly 5 I like to feel that they are capable of sorting themselves out.
I have a whole selection of things that are readily available in the fridge & cupboard that they can just help themselves to. In fact I am delighted if they have done it for themselves.
If it is just before mealtime, they are unlikely to be helping themselves because I will be in the kitchen cooking. If they ask for something then, I just tell them that they can have it after their meal.

I feel you are being a bit picked on here Biscuitlover. You know if you are being a control freak or whatever but to add another slant on things, I have always "nicked" food from the cupboards since i was about 8. I wasn't starved by any means but my mum used to keep lots of goodies in the cupboards and I began taking the odd bar and eating it in secret. I was allowed to go in the cupboards etc but I developed a weight issue and still am overweight to this day. I also still sneak chocolate etc(in my own house) because I am ashamed at the fact that I am eating/what I am eating/at myself for being greedy.
I think you right to pay attention to it but please be siensitive as to how you deal with it. Don't make your child feel badly about themselves or guilty it will make them feel worse.

Isn't there just something really nice though about a bit of covert eating now and again? I have always been a great one for snacking straight from the fridge - a hunk of cheese or bit of ham eaten by the fridge door always seems to taste much nicer than something you have to faff about with plates etc for?

Do you think he might do it because he is worried about stuff - maybe it's a kind of comfort for him?

Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

I just like my children to take responsbility for those things that they can do for themselves. Other people obviously feel differently

Perhaps it depends on what they are ready to take on for themselves. My DD is 8, and there is nothing much she can't do in the kitchen for herself, although cooking on the hob is still not allowed.

She baked carrot cake last night, from beginning to end, completely on her own (except for a reminder from me to make sure she puts some silicon paper on the base of the cake tin so it doesn't stick). Perhaps I would feel differently if she was a bit of a clot in the kitchen?

Ds will be 7 in March, which is our cut of age for tea and coffee making- so I will have two willing helpers to keep me watered with regular cups of tea

Ds1 is 5, and I am always on at him for 'stealing' food - mainly because he is a pain at mealtimes, and it drives me mad that there's shepherds pie in the oven, ready in 10 mins and he is stealing bread. I don't think that's unreasonable. I allow snacks, but I think sneaking food should be stamped on. I've got ds1 to a stage where he always asks. Partly also because his 3 year old sister who eats very well copies him all the time, but obviously needs less food, but has never been known to refuse food!

It would not occur to my 2 (they're 4 and 7)to help themselves to anything without asking. I was brought up to always ask and expect my children to as well. They are able to reach fruit, their own snack boxes, drinks themselves- but will always ask before taking something. Is this not basic manners? I always thought it was!

I must admit to not reading all the thread biscuitlover.. but has he always been like this or is it recent? I can alway tell when my 8 year old is having a growth spurt as he doesn't stop eating!... it is very rare for my DS to say I am full! We had a roast dinner last night and I swear he had the same amount of roast potatoes as his Dad! then he went and got a yogurt pudding.
My children ask for snacks, our fruit bowl is always full, and our meal times... well you could set your clock by them!

Thank you tortoiseSHELL- thank goodnesss someone agrees with me . This has been going on for some months - but he has always had a good appetite and will always say 'I'm hungry' after a large helping of Shepherds pie, veg and a yoghurt for pudding, for example. If I let him, he would eat us out of food every evening. He isn't overweight, he's like a stick really lol. My original concern was that he was taking things like a creme egg without asking and sneaking it upstairs to eat and it has just grown from there. Now its anything and everything. But thanks to people for their suggestions about making it clear about what he can/cant snack on. I expect him to ask, as I expect my children to have good manners.

I feel at 8 years old he ought to be allowed to help himself if he is hungry.

I think he needs a 'framework' to operate within rather than rules to follow; for instance, we eat dinner at 6 so make sure you haven't stuffed yourself so that you don't want dinner.

If he does stuff himself and not eat dinner, THEN it's time to break out the threat of 'well if you don't eat dinner then you won't be allowed snacks for half an hour before dinner'...and build up from there, rather than hitting it with rules or locks on cupboards.

He basically needs to know that he must eat his meals - he takes responsibility for getting to the table hungry enough to do so.

Don't have biscuits, chocolate or crisps in the house then you won't need to lock them away.

also, I dunno if I think this is a good manners issue at 8 years old....I wouldn't find it rude if my ds went to the kitchen to get an apple or snack at 8 without asking or telling me. I'd find it an example of his growing independence....

but this definitely depends on the food choices being made, so long as it's not sweets crisps and chocolate then it's not a problem for an 8 yr old to be having something healthy to eat.

Also maybe a gender issue, some men and boys just seem to have an appetite that simply beggars belief to us girls!

The only thing I can say is wait until they are teenagers. They are like locusts. If you want something special you have to hide it from them.....and as for asking, it would never crosss their self-centred little minds.

Also probably an age thing here too as my other kids are older. I'm often out whilst they are in so they need to know what to help themselves too and what to leave. There's no way that they would be able to wait for my return to ask for a snack.

'Good manners' in our house are about offering help to others and making other people feel comfortable. They always shout if they are putting the toaster on to ask if anyone else wants some. I would find it an utter drag having four or five other people asking me for permission everytime they wanted food. As it is, we have a very amiable bunch of locusts.

Someone down the thread said about getting the kids to make cups of tea......I vividly remember being given a tea-tray when I was about 8yo as a special birthday present as I was now old enough to make my mums tea. Clever lady.

I hope you all get your snack situation sorted out so that you are all happy. I really don't think that it's a right or wrong 'thing' but it is so much more interesting than finishing my tax return.

Fizzbuzz - spot on with locusts. My eldest asked for a breadmaker for his last birthday and it's worn out already.

well I an bemused

I just do not get how an 8 yo kid can steal food from their parents. The food is therem he's hungry. Whats the big deal?

And I also don't get why they should ask for food in their own home.

all the food in our house is utterly communal. Everyone can help themselves to any of it. the kids have a shelf on the fridge and another in the general kitchen so they can access it easily, they can have anything they want there but it means the things they like don't get stuck behind half eaten lettuce.

phew, just read the entire tread...

my two age 4 and 7 always ask before getting a snack. nothing to do with me being a control freak, more to do with teaching them manners.

yes, the food is for all of us, but a weeks's shop has to last a week, so whilst I am not rationing it, there is a limit to what they can have, and more importantly when they can have it.

normally when they ask for a snack I say yes, so luckily they don't sneak food, but I expect respect and therefore expect to be asked. After all, I am mum!!

ps - dh asks too - not because I am the boss of him, more in a way of - what can I have??