Problem with DS2 and I don't agree with DH's solution

[FabBakerGirlIsBack]

DS2 is just 4 and since he was 3 he has come down in the morning and helped himself to food. Always chocolate. He isn't doing it because he is hungry, he just wants the chocolate and knows it is wrong as we have told him not to do it.

Last week he had some of my chocolate and said he was just checking it was okay.

This morning I came down to get a box of Roses I had left out to take into school today for a Mum who had helped me yesterday. They had been put in the cupboard and I assumed by DH. I got them out and DS2 had opened them and helped himself to three, and then put them back in the cupboard (hiding the evidence,)

DH wants to put a lock on the door so he can't come out. I am 100% against this and will look for something to keep the cupboard door from being opened by DS2.

Any ideas to get him to stop? I am giving him a sticker for staying in his room after he has been put to bed at night and wondering about extending that to staying upstairs until DH or I are up.

He once ate some cooking chocolate and I worry one day he will eat something he really shouldn't have and make himself ill.

I have to go to school now but thank you in advance for any advice.

Just one last thing, what do you do if you disagree with something your DH wants to do/use as discipline? Who gets the final say?

BTW I will win this one. There is no way he is locking him in.

W... I see you are trying to be a reasonable voice and so I will defend my position and get on with my packing...

I have many many issues with my dcs, but none of them are old ones, they are new ones all of the time. My oldest dc hates hw and so we had to try many many approaches until we found one that worked, in the end it had to be very very fast reward. My second oldest is very loud, this we have accepted in certain situations (because he really can't help it and we found the noise overshadowed very kind and good behaviour) and in others he has to stay silent as his voice is too loud. I could go on and on.

I firmly believe if FAQ's or Fab's kitchen was, for example, infested with mice and they were told to put poison down then they could keep their dcs out of the kitchen. It all about how much you want your child to do something.

no fab, we're not calling you a crap mother by asking you why you can't stop a 4 year old from doing something.... we're asking you to question if you've really tried or if you've been happy enough to let it continue without much effort at stopping him.

dd is the type of child that can be told something 500 times and still ignore you, she drives me to tears some days. but when the issue is important enough i can get her to listen... it's difficult but it can be done.

i find with dd telling her the exact consequences can be useful... for example simply telling her standing on her window sill is dangerous had no effect at all but telling her what would happen if she fell out the window in gory detail solved the problem fairly swiftly.

my kids know that the things they can't argue are matters of safety because i've told them so.... my advice would be to stop focusing on the chocolate and start worrying about what would happen if your ds was the one who started a fire, or broke his neck while you slept or broke something irreplacable or expensive.

I'm going to leave this thread now because sadly I don't have any more advice for you.

I think you need to realise you aren't going to find the quick-fix solution you seem to be looking for. It is just something you are going to have to work on; move the chocolate, tell him the rules about not going downstairs/taking stuff from the kitchen without asking you, and just keep reminding him. Do try giving him his own snack box though, he may be genuinely really hungry in the mornings - in his eyes, chocolate may just be the easiest thing to eat.

Who was it that had a little fridge with snacks and stuff in for her DD to take?

posie - no I wouldn't risk poison if I had mice in their - it would be traps - or DS's and I would be going away for a short break to my IL's or something. And that's even without the food taking issue. OR the poison would be put in places that actually meant physically removing bits of kitchen units and replacing them to ensure they couldn't be touched without the use of a screwdriver

My bathroom is at the other end of the kitchen - there is a constant flow of children back and forth and, particularly when I'm bathing them, I can't stop them having a little poke at things as they come back through to the living room.

Are you missing the point on purpose??

I found the thread about the snack boxes here - it was F&Z and Greensleeves that tried the fridge. I recall it was very effective HTH

How do you stop a child putting his hands in fire or on a cooker?

You tell them they'll get burned right?

So why is any other situation any differant?

How is a child supposed to understand 'Don't do that because mommy says not to' if you don't explain why he shouldn't do it? Explain what could happen in the most exlicit way possible.. ie 'You could fall off the counter and crack your skull and because mommy and daddy didn't know you were downstairs and were asleep we might not find you until it was too late to help you, you could get dead '

Obviously that doesn't work with food theft as there aren't really any terrible consequences other than pissing everyone off (never a huge concern for small children)

Although it occurs to me that when i went through phases of stealing food as a child my mother made a big song and dance about how i must have worms as i was so hungry and dosed me with the most noxious, evil worm medicine to 'cure' me..... guess that's un pc these days though right?

PinkTulips - if I knew why the food stealing and computer hacking where different I'd have been able to tackle them both years ago - but I don't . I have a sensible 8yr old who I trust to walk to school on his own, who goes to the shop for me, who will actively participate in telling his brothers not to do dangerous stuff - but will he stop doing those things - not on your nelly

Like I said - another 10yrs and he can go and raid his own food cupboards and use his own computer to his hearts content

washer - I am willing to take suggestions, just not to one to not buy chocolate.

Pink Tulips - the answer I get is 'because I want to'. DS2 also reckons there it is safe to stand outside our house at night because 'there aren't any cars when it's dark mummy'.
These children (well mine, at least), aren't ready for negotiation or reason or bribery or sanctions. I am sure in time they will be, but for the moment, we have put a lock on DS2's door to stop him from doing things we think are dangerous/not acceptable, but which he thinks are fine.

I have tried...

Thank you all.

___

I have real sympathies with FabBakerGirl, FAQ and the other posters with children who take food.

I'm blessed with 2 ds's who don't take food and really I can honestly say it's nothing to do with my parenting, it's just luck. They have never tried, simple as that. long may it stay that way.

It's easy to say 'just say no' when you have children who's instinct is not to behave in a certain way anyway but not all children are like that.

Doyouthink I have to conceded it's luck

DS2 has the biggest appetite in the house (barring DH) and yet he has always resisted the temptation to take food.

I just ignore the fact that he stands there drooling at it instead

Disclaimers first:

1. I really and truly don't think ANYONE here is a crap mother.

1. I only have one DS, 19 months, so haven't encountered any of these problems yet.

But what I have done is spent years training dogs and, to a lesser extent, cats. And believe me, there are few things in life harder or more frustrating than training cats.... Now, I'm not for a single second equating DCs with pets, but there are some parallels because cats are willful, can't be reasoned with, and have no concept of anything but the most immediate consequence. (I really hope I don't give offence by drawing the pet/children comparison....)

So here are a few thoughts (no more that that, please disregard if inappropriate):

1. Is your child willful in ALL respects or only in this one? If the former then I suspect you have different battles to fight than the latter. From your posts, it seems that this is the only (or the most significant) issue. so first you need to make sure there aren't environmental factors affecting his behaviour. Perhaps he really does need an instant hit of sugar first thing - is his blood sugar getting too low during the night? Does he have older siblings/bigger boys at school who might be stopping him getting his fair share of treats during the day?

1. If not environmental factors then move on to learned behaviours. In cats at least, it's possible to tackle learned behaviours, BUT you have to do it as soon as they misbehave. Delayed response just won't work. In cats, shock tactics are best (i.e. a quick squirt of water from a finished washing up liquid bottle). Not suggesting you get up early to squirt water at your boy (although it might be quite funny!), but perhaps you could rig up something noisy bu not dangerous (like a box of rattles balanced on top of the chocolate) that would fall over when he grabs the box and (a) give him a bit of a fright; and (b) wake you up so he knows he won't get away with it this time.

1. If you don't want to go down this route for any reason (and there are a number of excellent ones, safety being prime among them, as is deciding that this just isn't a big enough battle to worry about. Or if you know it won't work for you/him) then the alternative is transference. Transfer the bad behaviour into something more acceptable. Speaking entirely personally, I wouldn't worry too much about a four year old eating a couple of squares of chocolate each morning provided he's active and has an otherwise balanced diet - I think we're all entitled to our little treats. So I think the idea of a private snack box or fridge for him is an excellent one. Put in healthy snacks as well as a couple of pieces of chocolate, and leave him to it.

I really hope that you find your answer, and that this might help.

No you haven't and I loved the cat reference.

I was upset this morning because I had bought the chocolate for someone else and I had to go and buy another box when I haven't spare money.

CinnabaRed - thank you. That was a very helpful post.
My situation is that DS2 is a problem in a number of areas, but I am liking your shock tatics idea. If the words won't work, then booby trapping the door/ fridge might get the message across. I shall give it some thought.
Your comparison of children to animals did not offend me in the slightest - seems very apt imo. Thanks.

Ooh - how about going down the "Lighthousekeeper's Lunch" route, and investing in some chilli chocolates? Does that count as cruel when you're not actually offering them to him?

I know it's hard to hear but Posie is right. Every single parent has problems and every single parent does not get it right first time with most things. This is just a generic problem about something a parent does not want their child to do - it could be anything and doesn't matter it is chocolate in the morning.

What do you do in other situations when you do not want him to do something?

cinnabar... possibly my life long being owned by a succession of cats is why i'm not grasping why it's so difficult to tell a four year old not to do something compared to my cats the kids are possitively malleable

fab, i've just had a thought... could you buy one of those door alarms that sound when a door is opened so that you get woken up as soon as he leaves his room in the morning? it won't stop him wanting to steal chocolate but at least you'll be awake and aware he's rummaging around the house.... i still wholeheartedly think it's not safe for him to be downstairs while you sleep anyway, tbh the chocolate wouldn't bother me at all in comparison to the safety issue.

also, he's being quite restrained if he only takes 3 out of a whole tin of roses.... there may be something to the theory of low blood suger and leaving him out some easily accesible treats that he knows he's allowed... if he was just being greedy surely he'd eat more than 3?

PT - if you think you have a solution for my DS1 you're welcome to him - just make sure you lock up (and keep the key in your pillowcase ) anything that can be eaten without cooking it.....although give it just a few more years and I'm sure even the stuff that needs cooking won't be safe either

mind you I blame DH's genes.

He grew up with very strict parenting with real consequences which even those who give the odd smack would be at.

However nothing stopped him and his cousin repeatedly going into the pantry in the village, eating the inside of the cut-in -alf loaves of bread and then sneaking back to bed leaving the 2 halves of bread together as if they were full of bread - when all they'd left was the crusty shell!. And it wasn't even the same building as it was rural Zimbabwe!

Apparently there was all hell to pay the following day when it was discovered - but they still went back LOL.

I've just read the whole thread and i think that as this issue is upsetting and frustrating you, that is possibly why you are reading things into people's posts that aren't actually there.

No one has said or implied you are a crap mum. Most people seem to be thinking less about the chocolate and more about the safety concerns of having a child downstairs, unattended, clearly fiddling with things in the kitchen and that that in itself should be enough reason to ensure you make him do as he's told about this issue.

As someone else has said - how much do you want to stop this? You are probably going to have to inconvience yourself in the short term to achieve the result you want in the long term. If that means getting rid of all chocolate in the house then so be it. It could mean setting an alarm so you wake before him for a few days and can apply an immediate punishment/reward as appropriate depending on what he does. It has possibly just become a habit that needs to be broken so some other snacks in his room and the promise of a small reward at the end of the week if he has stayed in his bedroom til you are up could be a solution.

I'm reeeeeeally not trying to upset you with this post but as an impartial person reading the whole thread can see you are ignoring some well meant advice as you are just feeling got-at.

Good luck Xx

greenelephant - that would (possibly) stop the chocolate being eaten but doesn't actually tackle the issue of them taking food in general (and IME one sort of food leads to another - so the OP could lock the chocolate in a cupboard and then find the fridge has been raided).