5 year old ate my Mother's Day chocs

[fishstiks]

Just found DD has sneakily been getting my Mother's Day box of chocolates from my bedside drawer and has eaten 3 out of the box. We only allow sweets once a week and never have dessert. Obviously the temptation was too much! A few weeks ago she found a large bar of chocolate belonging to DH and ate more than half! When we found it she owned up straight away and we banned all sweet treats and chocolate for a week (no chocolate spread, no sweets or chocolate, no biscuits and no milkshakes)

Should I punish her for the latest chocolate stealing? Are we too strict overall with sweet stuff?

She's a really picky eater she survives on crumpets with sugar free chocolate spread (we only introduced the chocolate spread as she won't eat butter and then will eat no toast or crumpets etc) berries, tofu, rice, pasta and cucumber mostly.

Any advice on the picky eater stuff or appropriate discipline would be appreciated

My child handed me a box of chocolates and two minutes later she said can we open these now,🤣 so we did. I would never use food as a reward or punishment.

I'm one of those rare unicorns that eats whatever they want and stays the same size.

so why the serious food issues?

@KeenMintCrow thank you that's actually a great idea we will do that next time. She's our first so obviously learning with her, the first stolen chocolate bar was the first ever time we found out something sneaky she had done behind our backs so we're really just at the beginning of learning how to handle these things

With my daughter?

Now I have a really varied diet, but until age 18 ate a really small group of foods.

18?

Take the heat out of this, don't put these foods on a pedestal.

so you asked what i would have done….

Absolutely the same in our house. Oldest is 16 and now buys sweets, desserts and biscuits themselves, I just find the wrappers in his room. Youngest eats lots of fruit.

I have a son with severe ARFID, I fully understand just how stressful it can be when a child can’t/won’t eat. But as hard as it is as a parent sometimes you do have to realise your behaviour does have an impact.

If you let things become a battle of wills then it’s much more likely the child will just not eat. If you take a more relaxed approach then that removes the pressure from her.

make sure every meal contains an element she will eat, offer puddings as normal or not at all -not conditional on eating main. Don’t make a fuss about what she does or doesn’t eat.

you can’t force a child to eat, attempting to do so won’t help the child in the long term. Your job is to offer her foods it’s up to her if she eats them or not!

I think you’ve turned sweets in to too big a deal. I think it would help if you relaxed around the boundaries of sweets so it’s not an automatic no or a BIG treat.

Yes she is offered yogurt every night but refuses unfortunately. I've gotten yogurts in all different flavors and shapes of serving like the tubes or pots or the shaped fruit things and she refuses them all. Until a month or two ago she would have a frube but they are not refused

18 until you go over the very small group of foods that you’d eat

that is late

and i suggest that your issues as a young adult woman
are still present years later

Thanks.

This is what calling food "treats" does.

so she doesn’t get dessert anymore

and no one else does either?

You're too strict with her food. It's not just about health, but also enjoyment. And she's only 5. Also, you're a bit mean to hide them away and not share them with her. Every time I get chocolates from the kids I'm lucky to get any, but I don't really mind.

OP 5 pages in

and a complete bloody mindedness despite every single poster disagreeing with your approach

Yeah up until I started going to uni and going out with friends and trying new things I ate pasta, pizza, roast dinners, potatoes. Never very adventurous with other things until I started having a curry with mates and enjoying it, now I eat everything

You clearly aren't aware the yogurt you are feeding her are as bad as the chocolates you are hiding from her?

Unless you are giving her plain unsweetened natural yoghurt they are very high in sugar.

Except the one who seems to be flogging a book and a course. 😏

What did your parents do when you starting restricting your food to very small food groups?

The pickiness you are describing is very normal. What isn't normal is how you are dealing with it.

If your child goes through a phase of wanting nothing but yogurt with ketchup out something equality odd. then give it to them, it won't last forever and you won't have made food into a battle ground or a mental issue. Gradually they start widening their tastes again. Gently offer options and leave things available to them but absolutley don't make a thing of it.
If they are eating a little as you say, a coupe of bits of chocolate to breach the calorie gap isn't an issue. Perhaps have a chat to explain they were special chocolates so she should have asked but buy a bag of chocolate buttons and give her a coupe every day instead for now. If she has a drink if water afterwards it won't talk harm her teeth too much and she likely needs lots of calories.
Making food unto a hidden secret is,a shocking example

DH initially didn’t allow DS to have chocolate until I told him that meant he also couldn’t eat chocolate in front of him or keep it in sight.

I didn’t have chocolate, crisps or dessert as a kid and now, shockingly, they make up most of what I eat. Ever since my first babysitting gig at the age of 14, I have been binging on them. I literally have no self control and I am now 46 years old.

When we found it she owned up straight away and we banned all sweet treats and chocolate for a week (no chocolate spread, no sweets or chocolate, no biscuits and no milkshakes)

How can you not see how much of the problem is with you, by this approach?

How could you do that to a little girl, who told you the truth straightaway? It's not the end of the world.

You ask what others would have done - I'd have told her it wasn't ok to take the food like this, without asking, and there would be no further consequences, especially around food, and particularly given her restrictive eating.

You clearly aren't aware the yogurt you are feeding her are as bad as the chocolates you are hiding from her?

Neither are 'bad'. But while many yogurts are indeed sugary, there's no harm at all in having a yogurt daily. It's about balance.

Tbh I think people have majorly misunderstood that we have no problem with eating high sugar foods if other foods are also consumed, but she we were giving high sugar foods a few months ago she had gotten to the point where she would eat nothing but high sugar foods so we made the drastic decision to try an cut them out. I have no problem with her eating a dessert every evening as long as she's had a little bit of her dinner too but she was refusing all lunch and dinner that wasn't high sugar. So would you just let this continue and your child be surviving on cakes, chocolate and sweets? No you wouldn't, you like me would try and sort it out. Obviously we've done it the wrong way according to the majority of posters and I'm asking now what we could do to help her. Maybe I will take her to the doctor and see what they say, but don't tell me if your childcare ONLY chocolate cake pudding dessert and candy that you would just let them do that without trying to reduce the high sugar foods and encourage other foods?