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

I think you're getting a hard time on here OP. My 5yo isn't a great eater either so I feel how upsetting and frustrating that is and how as parents we get so much conflicting advice it is hard to know what to do.

My 5yo is a better eater than yours though and is actually better now than she was at say 3. She goes through phases where she won't eat meals properly but I know now these are phases so don't make a big deal over it and wait for it to settle.

We all eat as a family and have the same thing for dinner. I never expect her to eat anything I know that she doesn't like but if I know she likes it then I do expect her to eat it. I plate up and age appropriate portion of meals for her. If she eats it all and wants dessert she can have it. If she doesn't then she is not hungry so doesn't need dessert. Dessert is often yoghurt, fruit, soreen, sometimes biscuit or cake or ice cream depending on what we have in. Fwiw I agree with the poster that essentially said to take it back to a BLW style philosophy which if I think about it is what we still do, sorta. Like you I have a younger child who is 2 and has always been a better eater as well as not having much of a sweet tooth. For example if both kids finish their dinner portions, it's rare that DD will accept more dinner, she's desperate to get to dessert. Whereas a lot of the time DC2 would just rather eat more dinner.

There's a good book by a paediatrician called My Child Won't Eat! that might be worth a read. I would definitely take her to the GP too. I tried to get a dietician referral for DD when she was 4 and they refused as her growth was ok, but your daughter's diet sounds quite a lot more restrictive than mine.

HNRTFT but are you for real? You are setting your daughter up for ED when she is older.

OP, you've two issues you are raising here.

One is your utterly bizarre approach to your DC taking chocolate.

The other is your DD's issue with diet. This is a concern & of course you are right not to allow only treat food without other healthy options. You may need some assistance with this as I suspect it's at least in part influenced by your own approach to food.

@Theonlypot they would force me to sit at the table until it was all finished, sometimes for hours. They would serve me last nights dinner for breakfast. They would force feed me tuna sandwiches until I cried.

I don't do any of these things with my kids. She is allowed to eat as much or as little as she likes. But we stopped the desserts after dinner as she would eat no dinner and just the dessert. Now we don't have dessert she more often than not eats her dinner

Thanks for the correction on the word "bad".

Those tubes and shaped things have more crap in them than a Freddo! Give the lass a Freddo!

ok so at least you took on board

but the idea that both parents thought a 5 year old owning up immediately should receive a week long punishment is concerning

OP, I'm so sorry you had this experience. That's awful.

Gently, even though you are trying hard to do things differently with your DD, I think it's hard given your childhood experiences.

I think looking for some professional help would be good

So what changed and made you eat anything and everything? When you were in control of your own food? Could you try that? Can she ‘do her own shopping’ and plan her own meals? Also have you tried serving her everything at once, dinner and dessert so that getting dessert isn’t a reward and not getting it isn’t a punishment. Explain she needs to eat until she’s no longer hungry and discuss nutrients in an age appropriate way so she can see what she needs to eat. Also maybe make more healthy desserts like beetroot brownies etc?

Poor little bugger! She said she'd eaten some of the chocolate bar because obviously she didn't think it was that big a deal, but she got what must have seemed like a pretty serious punishment to one so young. No wonder she snaffled a few chocolates when she found them, it must have felt incredibly daring and the temptation must have been overwhelming.

Why didn't you want to share a few of your chocolates with your kids in a normal way? Big treat, mum's got fancy chocolates, mum picks first then everyone else can have one.

I know you've got problems getting her to eat a balanced diet, but don't make a big deal out of the chocolates now. Bring them out to share and ask if a cheeky little mouse has been nibbling at them.

Give it another 15 year if MN is still around your be back wondering why your child as gone NC.
Trust me it happens you sound way too bloody strict.
How can you think what your doing is right to a child a 5 year old 60 months.

I don’t think it’s a bad thing to restrict sweets at all. But ‘punishing’ a five year old because she nicks your chocolates? By making it into a big drama-what are you going to do when she really does something wrong? Be matter of fact and tell her we have to be careful with certain foods as we like to be fit and healthy. My kids’ dentist used to tell me to let my kids have sweet things sometimes but to keep them for just after mealtimes-when they’re less likely to do damage. I only used to allow coke if we ate out or very occasionally . Neither of my kids ever had a filling. I think it’s fine to tell a kid that we don’t eat much junk food because it’s, well, junk. And remember kids will copy what you do rather than what you say-so no scoffing on random chocolates in front of her while telling her sweets are bad.

Does your daughter have free access to any food at all, OP?

I ask because she has quite a small number of safe foods, one of which is chocolate spread (albeit sugar free), but a 5yo won’t distinguish easily between “chocolate spread” and “chocolate” necessarily.

Could it be that she was just hungry and eating one of the few things she feels safe with? If so, punishment feels all wrong here (and tbh I wouldn’t punish a kid for something like this at all.. and hate the word stealing about a child eating any food they find in the home).

Nevertheless… If possibly hungry (as she sounds she could
be), how about popping a bowl or box of healthy safe food snacks in her reach and letting her know she can access it any time (eg berries, low sugar or bars etc). My 7yo son has free reign of the fruit bowl, oat cakes, plain biscuits and low cal ice lollies and has done since age 5- and self regulates really well.

Also are your family veggie? I ask as you don’t mention any meat in your diet. And if so have you had your family diet checked by a nutritionist for adequate child nutrition? Gravitation towards high fat high sugar could suggest not enough calories/fats from main meals (the body is a funny thing and knows what it needs!) Also craving chocolate can signal low iron.

Ah stop.

OP isn't making great choices here but she's a caring mother who wants the best for her DD. No need to be nasty.

Also-I wouldn’t label a five year old as ‘sneaky’-she’s just curious. But making a huge thing and punishing her will sure as hell make her do sneaky things when she gets older.

Not nasty ive read a lot worse on MN.
Its my opinion just like you have yours.

This is awful.

Sadly I think that you have fallen into a trap where you think that because you have improved a bit on distressing behaviours you experienced from your parents, that it means that the place you are is proportionate and healthy.

I think it might be time for some therapy around your own experiences with food as a child (and the resulting patterns as an adult). If you can’t afford therapy find some self-help materials and a support group.

There is such an obvious pattern. Your parents were controlling about food, you were a restrictive eater until you were older and started eating more in the company of other people. Now you are being controlling with food, and your daughter is becoming increasingly disordered around food.

I was asking about how to discipline her as she stole a couple of weeks ago and now again this week. The first time she owned up straight away and we had a calm chat about it and said like no sweets of biscuits until next week and she said ok. She asked a couple of times within that week can we go to the shop and get sweets and we said no because you stole the chocolate before and she said oh yeah ok. And it's just that she's stolen again so was just asking what to do, like if your kids were stealing things they know they are not allowed how do you deal with it

Not nasty ive read a lot worse on MN.
It's my opinion just like you have yours

It's absolutely nasty to tell OP she's facing a situation where her adult DD will go NC with her. Behave yourself!

OP may not be making great choices but she loves her DD & wants the best for her.

There's no need to make wild assertions when trying to express your 'opinion'.

I was asking about how to discipline her as she stole a couple of weeks ago and now again this week.

OP. She is 5. She's not stealing. And telling her she is, in relation to food, is so harmful.

Can you not see that?

Yes she has free rein over the fruit bowl but that's it. Although she won't eat anything from there as says she doesn't like bananas and refuses oranges. She will eat an apple if I cut it up. She got into a habit of asking for snacks between her after school snack and before dinner and eating mainly biscuits which I would give her freely but then would eat nothing for dinner so I stopped the biscuits in between afterschool snack and dinner. Maybe I will put out some more things she can eat freely around the fruit bowl.

And in response to your question, if my small DC was taking anything they shouldn't, I'd firstly move it so they couldn't, then I'd ask them why.

In relation to the food, I'd explain they were a treat that belonged to mum, and as such she needs to ask. Then I'd find a time later for everyone to have a share in the chocolates.

You are really creating a worrying dynamic around food which almost certainly is feeding into her avoidance & choices.

You've just had a third baby? Kerching!

Oh behave honestly, you're being rather dramatic! She's not going to go NC with us she's a happy kid, we've only recently restricted her high sugar food intake as that's ALL she was eating and refusing all over foods offered to her.

Also, did you know that some fairly common and effective advice to people with bulimia to help them stop bingeing/purging is to stop restricting?