WWYD - 13 yr old just binged on an entire bag of Oreo cookies

[Anonymous]

I think this is troll post designed to have Jeff write about.

[Anonymous]

Lighten up on the control issues. Tell your son that Oreos may taste good but they are really processed and not good for you other than occasionally. Make some homemade chocolate chip cookies and other treats with your kids (or have them do it) once a week to have some treats around the house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think this is troll post designed to have Jeff write about.

I literally know parents who are like this. I could see this issue happening the second the kid gets some autonomy. But that's what happens when you try to control a teenager like they're a toddler.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Let me be clear that we do not restrict healthy food. He gets to eat as much as he wants of non-junk food. Yes, he gets enough proteins, fats, and carbs.

My mind is blown that intelligent, well-educated parents think it's okay to let their kids eat unrestricted quantities of unhealthy foods. It's really OK if your kid wants to have six pints of Ben & Jerry's at a sitting on a regular basis?

As I said, we allow small amounts of junk food as occasional treats but I cannot fathom allowing kids of any age to free-feed on food that crowds out healthy calories.

Sugary junk food is made to be addictive and kids, especially teens, do not have the forebrain to fight the addiction.

Think about inserting other kinds of addictive substances -- vaping, meth, alcohol instead of junk food. Of course forbidding something cannot make it attractive. Does that mean we should allow free access to vapes, drugs, and alcohol?

What a total dereliction of parental duty.

We don't restrict anything and our kids self-police. Every week we buy one package of cookies from the grocery store bakery, one container of ice cream. The cookies are gone by about mid week, the ice cream never gets eaten, except by my husband who sometimes has a bowl in the evening. Sometimes we buy a box of 12 ice cream sandwiches. Those usually get eaten by the end of the week but sometimes not.
My kids are 14, 17, 17 and we've never restricted anything at all. They're all athletes and exercise 5 days per week. They all have access to cash and probably buy themselves food once a week (the youngest one walks by a Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, grocery store, CVS, etc on the way home from school.) The older two drive themselves to school so they can go anywhere.

What I don't understand about OP, is her kid never out on his own? Never walks to a store? Never gets dropped off at a friends' house who lives near stores? He's 13. If not, this is some crazy restrictive parenting.

[Anonymous]

Skimmed through all the vitriol on this thread... so might have missed something.

I wanted to chime in and say to OP that you should absolutely not punish your kid for his mistake, but you should sit down with him and discuss how hard it is to stop at just 4 or 5 Oreos. Discuss how hard it is to have a healthy diet when fat, salt, sugar, just taste so good to us. Tell him that next time he should only buy a single serving or two of junk food at the store.

Also, I would recommend letting him pick a recipe and make a homemade dessert every weekend (with your help, of course). Match a batch of cookies or brownies, bake a pie or cake, whatever recipe he wants to try. Then show him how to have 1/3 or half of the dessert (say 4 or 5 cookies for each family member) over the weekend and freeze the rest to eat after dinner one night during the week. If he wants to eat all 5 of his cookies on Saturday, then fine. If he wants to save some for Sunday, then show him how to store them away in a ziploc or container. And go out for ice cream once a month (or buy stuff at the store for ice cream sundaes).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are a family that has sugary dessert only once a week, the rest of the time we end dinner with fresh fruit. We allow occasional treats but we're not really into a lot of junk food.

Our 13 yr old DS bought a bag of Oreos the other day with his own allowance money on the understanding that he could have a couple as an occasional treat. He bought the Oreos on Friday afternoon. They were completely gone by Saturday night.

He knows that we would not be OK with him doing this. When we found out he said he just couldn't control himself around the Oreos.

What's an appropriate consequence for this behavior? We've never known him to binge but this is also the first time we've let him buy a full-size snack bag with his own money.

He's had some issues lying around sneaking video game time but he's generally an honest kid. Clearly cannot be trusted around video games and Oreos tho.

Apologize for restricting his food so he feels like he needs to binge eat? And buy him a box at Costco.

+1
I don’t know a single adult who has a good relationship with food if their parents were restrictive and strict with food growing up. My sister and brother in law and dh all have zero control around food that were restricted when they were growing up.
We have an open policy with food and have tons of sweets. I generally throw out a lot when it’s expired bc my kids eat it in moderation when they want bc they know they’ll always have the option. I’ve learned they have a few friends I need to police when they come over bc they will gorge or take large amounts with them. No surprise - these are the families that are strict about food. OP you should teach your kids everything in moderation and try to fix the damage you’ve already caused.

Maybe they place limits bc their kids overeat? Maybe their kids are overweight? If you don’t need to place limits, that’s great. But not all kids do moderation well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is your end goal to create issues around food? If so, go right ahead and come up with some sort of consequence.

+1 my parents were the same as OP and I’ve been overweight most of my life since I moved out. Def didn’t work.

Ok, and 70% of adults are overweight. No matter how you parent your kid, chances are they will be too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think this is troll post designed to have Jeff write about.

It probably is—fits the MO of starting an incendiary post late at night so the thread can get rolling too late to moderate.

But if it isn’t, I’m wondering how the OP knew the cookies were gone—was the progress of the bag being monitored? Creepy. But sure, punish him for it, and now he’ll just do it anyway and learn to hide it.

[Anonymous]

I hate to sustain this further. I scanned a lot of it, but my simple question that I didn't see addressed: the only sized of Oreo packages that come in bags are small, sack sized. Otherwise, they come in what are called, "packages." I think OP even referenced, a "snack size bag." So, this kid ate probably 1 or 2 servings of Oreos in two days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think a lot of mothers here have no concept of how hungry teenage boys can get. Please talk to the men you know to get an idea of how much food they really need. They are not children anymore. Expect that they will require more than 3 meals a day. There should be no limitations unless you know there is an existing medical issue that must be treated with diet. Provide healthy foods including a daily sweet such as cookies, ice cream, muffins, etc. Expect that he will buy himself treats regularly, just like we did when we were teenagers.

Trust me, it’s far worse for teenage girls, who also get hungry when they’re growing, but get major side-eyes from parents when they get a little plump in the “wrong” places. This is how eating disorders begin. It’s how mine did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread is a very interesting life lesson for parents.

You can't control everything your kids do.

If you teach "moderation" and just never give them access to junk food, they might just binge on it when they are older and get access to their own money.

If you buy lots of sugary snacks, they might become used to them and seek them out constantly.

The issue is that our food system is clogged with horrible food choices that are quite attractive to human brains. Not the choice to buy all the snacks or none of the snacks.

This issue is a perfect allegory for tons of threads! Screen time! Nicotine! Drugs!

We are all doing our best, but we live in a society with so many ways to become addicted to something. And maybe THAT is the problem.

Agree. There is no right way. Some kids will binge on junk food/only want that if you keep it in the house consistently, some kids will binge on junk food if you don’t keep much in the house (at friends, at school, at grandma’s, etc.). Between school (teachers routinely give it out), friends, relatives, parties, trips, etc. I seriously doubt there is a kid in the US that is truly restricted of junk food. It is all around them, whether you buy it or not at home. If he binged a bag of Oreos it isn’t bc OP doesn’t buy them. He’s 13. Besides his weekly dessert at home, I promise he is eating junk at school (like all the other kids) nearly every day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are a family that has sugary dessert only once a week, the rest of the time we end dinner with fresh fruit. We allow occasional treats but we're not really into a lot of junk food.

Our 13 yr old DS bought a bag of Oreos the other day with his own allowance money on the understanding that he could have a couple as an occasional treat. He bought the Oreos on Friday afternoon. They were completely gone by Saturday night.

He knows that we would not be OK with him doing this. When we found out he said he just couldn't control himself around the Oreos.

What's an appropriate consequence for this behavior? We've never known him to binge but this is also the first time we've let him buy a full-size snack bag with his own money.

He's had some issues lying around sneaking video game time but he's generally an honest kid. Clearly cannot be trusted around video games and Oreos tho.

Well, the bolded is manifestly untrue.

[Anonymous]

We are a thin family. My kids are all stick skinny. We are family friends with parents who are overweight and they have so many restrictions with food. The mom does not allow sugar and is a total nazi about junk food. The kids are growing and thin but the parents are overweight. I would guess mom weighs around 160 pounds on an average frame and dad is 200 pounds on an average height so both large. Their kids have a total complex with food!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Let me be clear that we do not restrict healthy food. He gets to eat as much as he wants of non-junk food. Yes, he gets enough proteins, fats, and carbs.

My mind is blown that intelligent, well-educated parents think it's okay to let their kids eat unrestricted quantities of unhealthy foods. It's really OK if your kid wants to have six pints of Ben & Jerry's at a sitting on a regular basis?

As I said, we allow small amounts of junk food as occasional treats but I cannot fathom allowing kids of any age to free-feed on food that crowds out healthy calories.

Sugary junk food is made to be addictive and kids, especially teens, do not have the forebrain to fight the addiction.

Think about inserting other kinds of addictive substances -- vaping, meth, alcohol instead of junk food. Of course forbidding something cannot make it attractive. Does that mean we should allow free access to vapes, drugs, and alcohol?

What a total dereliction of parental duty.

That comment really is the crux of it. Parenting strategies have to mold to meet the child, and then evolve as the kid ages. You have a 13 yo, OP - what happend when he's 15? 17? Will you restrict his eating then?

These questions are much more important than trying to figure out a consequence right now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are a thin family. My kids are all stick skinny. We are family friends with parents who are overweight and they have so many restrictions with food. The mom does not allow sugar and is a total nazi about junk food. The kids are growing and thin but the parents are overweight. I would guess mom weighs around 160 pounds on an average frame and dad is 200 pounds on an average height so both large. Their kids have a total complex with food!

If they didn’t and always had junk food around, and their kids were overweight too, you’d judge them. It’s a no win.