Do your kids sneak food?

No, My daughter is diabetic and she knows the consequences of sneaking food. She knows that she could go into a coma or even die. So she sticks to her diet.

If something bad happened to him and he is in therapy then I would not do anything at this time about sneaking food. He is looking to feel good and gets this feeling by from being comforted by sugar food. It sounds as though you are dealing with a major problem so don't make an issue out of this one. It is not the same as kids sneaking food becaue they can't wait for dinner or sneaking food after dinner because they did not like what served. My advice? Love him, love him, and love him again. whe he has dealt with his problem then this should disappear. God Bless you.

Honey food is comfort to adults so therefore it is the same for children. When you say something horrible happened to him of course I think the worse. If it was that bad is he on some kind of antidepressant? Does he sneak other things besides food? Sometimes kids group therapies work wonders. They can relate to other children much better than an adult. Maybe talk to his therapist about group if he isnt already in it. I wish your family success to help your son God Bless.

I would, first of all, tell the therapist. I'm sure that they should be aware of this. It sounds like some sort of a control issue, but considering that your son is seeing a therapist for something traumatic that has happened to him, I think the therapist could easily explain his behavior to you. They need to see the big picture of how he is currently handling things and this would be important info for them.

Often, children hoard things - including food - because they are afraid of doing without. It's a difficult thing to deal with. If he is already in therapy, the only thing you can do is give him all the love you can offer, and reassure him that you will always be there, and he will always have all he needs. It will take time, but as an adult who used to sneak food, I can tell you that trying to restrict it will only increase his fears that there's not enough to go around.

hello my fellow myLotter, i am currently in the same situation with my 11 year old. she also eat treats and leave wrappers hidden throughout the house. i'm not sure what to do myself. we've tried talking with her but she still does it. currently i've given up with it. so if you find out something please let me know.

Hey, don't worry about this. He'll stop it as he grows. My second son used to do it until he was quite grown up. Now he only treats his girlfriend. This is all part of growing up.

I remember when I was a kid, my mother would ask me to buy some grocery items from shop, she will ask me to take money from the bowl she keeps her change, I would take 5cents extra and buy a candy for it, she found out soon, one day when she asked me to take money and go to shop, as usual I took 5cents extra and had a feeling she knows about it, I was so scared that I took the wrong turn from our house to the shop, she was standing outside and saw me but she didnt say anything about it, I had to cross my house again to take the route to the shop, by her look I knew I was caught, she scolded me and I never repeated it ever again..... You dont have to lock all your food, but candy bars and chocolate items can be kept out of reach of your child, when he takes 13 bars to school, he must be distributing among his friends, cannot eat so many on his own.... have a chat with him and ask what's bothering him, or take help from his friends, if they know anything about his problem, if you know that you can work towards solving it.....

My though here is that, kids who do this, were probably limited in what they could have and thus wanted more, hence the reaosn why they sneak it. I say this because when my daughter got bags of candies from her Grandmother, I would give her some and tell her that she can't have anymore - later I will find wrappers all over the house, and the reason is, because I told her she can't have more SHE WANTED MORE THUS SHE SNEAK IT AND HIDE THE WRAPPER FROM ME. My way of dealing with this was to put out a bowl or bag of candy JUST FOR HER, and let her know that it was her share and she is free to take as much as she wants. whenever she wants. What happen was this, most of the time she will take just what I would ahve other wise given to her. Why? Because when kids see so much food just sitting there at one time and know IT ALL BELONGS TO THEM, they do not want to eat it all at once, thus they will eat less than usual just to make it last.

Funny you brought this up, my kids did this last night. I usually have the girl tattle on the boy but she forgets that she'll get in trouble too. I always have to have a mock court to get the truth out of them. They just want snacks so they can play Gameboy or something in their room. I love catching them, its so fun to be a food cop because I get to eat what they take.

Thank God my kids are grown now. But i never denied them anything food wise. I can see why parents would want to limit sweets. I used to have my own secret stash of sweets in my own bedroom which they were not allowed to go in. They also had sweets but i knew if my favorite was out where they could get it i wouldnt get to eat any of them. I would suggest you put a lock on your bedroom door and keep the sweets in there.

In my experience stealing and leaving so much evidence is a call for attention. It sounds like you are doing a lot. I would discuss this with his therapist and see what they suggest. I think it's important that they know about this before it gets worse. Good Luck

Unfortunately, I think you have to hide the treats. I would make it a behavior based thing. If he does such and such, he can earn a treat. He may be using food as a comfort item since something happened to him. I know I use food as a comfort item. I wouldn't take treats away from, but I would hide them. Have you talked to his therapist about this? Maybe they would have some idea how to handle it.

My brothers did this. They became extremely overweight and my parents enforced a strict diet and locked up the "junk food". They also forced them into a strict exercise program. This went of for years and they lost alot of weight and were overall healthier. They did however develop some issues due to this implememtation. One of them kept the weight off, the other ballooned up to 300+ lbs and is still going. He's 6.5 feet tall so it doesn't look as bad on him but he is still very unhealthy. I don't know the right solution, I guess my opinion would be to lock up or quit buying the junkfood. I know it is unfair to the rest of the household and makes for a very difficult lifestyle, but sometimes these kids have compulsions that they cannot control and I believe this to be one of them. They may be using it to comfort themselves, to have control over something in their lives, to compensate for feelings of inadequacy, or out of boredom. Whatever the reason, it seems that they are unable to control it. My brothers started this at around your sons age and continued on the strict diet till they were about 15. My mom gave up bc she worked full time and found it very hard to monitor things and hide them all the time. Like I said, one flourished, the other relapsed. I think the counseling is a good idea, maybe mention this to the therapist to see if they have any ideas, but other than that, it may be something you have to alter your lifestyle to control. I wish you the best of luck with this as I know it is very difficult.

my son is 17 and sneak foods i know it,s in there when i go to bed when i awaken then it is gone my son needs a job he eats a lot like there is no tomorrow.i told him he has more then one day to eat you can,t eat everything in one day.i think he have no consious that food cost a lot money these day.

I am sorry that your son has had some problems in the past. You should ask the therapist if this is a symptom of what happened to him? I don't have this problem at all with my kids. I have never kept food from them..if they are hungry, they get something to eat. They are allowed to snack when they want. They all know how to control what they eat, so I don't have to worry about this kind of problem.

Not just kids but also adults.. basically all of us sneak foods. foods are tempting eventhough we are aiming for a good shaping body...

8 children wow. Thats a lot of children to take care of. My daughter isnt allowed to eat junk food only on rare occasions so if she is somewhere that has free candy she will just gobble it down. I know how she feels I get that way to lol. My daughter will get in the cupboard and sneak junk food as well. My fix to this is to tell my husband to stop bringing in so many sweets to eat and then she wouldnt have anything to be tempted with at home. He doesnt listen. He will eat a box of little debbie snacks at night while hes playing video games. I could see like one but not a whole box. Ick I would gag eating so much of the same thing. I don't know what to say to you I guess every case it different. Maybe you could try rewarding him at the end of the week with a non-food item reward for not sneaking any junk food and only eating it when you allow him to. This might work if he has something he really likes other then junk food hehe.

he does once in awhile but on a very small scale like one of those 100 cal snack packs or two. i usually find the wrappers strewn around or in the garbage and i alway tell him to ask first because i do not want him just randomly snacking all of the time.

I use to have the same problem in the house they would sneak food then hide the wrappers. As an adult I like my treats too, but when I noticed this happening I quite buying treats for a while, once they realized they had no treats to sneak they quite going in where we keep them. I had started buying them again, but they were out of the HABIT of going in there and getting them. I would stop keeping them in the house for a while of keep them where he can't find them. My hubby and I have our snacks that the kids don't know where they are and we won't eat them until kids are in bed.