Concerned over DD sneaking food at relatives’ houses

[Anonymous]

Lol at all the commenters saying OP is controlling her daughter's diet when it turns out the daughter eats plenty of processed foods.

OP, you need to crack down on her addiction to refined carbs by regularly cooking at home and reserving treats for the weekend. I have a major sweet tooth and wish my parents were more strict with me. Thankfully, now it's under control but it was really hard as an adult to stop myself from indulging in dessert every single day and finally change my palate.

[Anonymous]

There is nothing wrong with your daughter. 99.9% of kids offered donuts, chicken nuggets and cheeseburgers will eat those things. You say that this isn’t out of your routine. Your kid ate no homemade meals. If that is really your routine, that’s the piece that needs to change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lol at all the commenters saying OP is controlling her daughter's diet when it turns out the daughter eats plenty of processed foods.

OP, you need to crack down on her addiction to refined carbs by regularly cooking at home and reserving treats for the weekend. I have a major sweet tooth and wish my parents were more strict with me. Thankfully, now it's under control but it was really hard as an adult to stop myself from indulging in dessert every single day and finally change my palate.

This. Please ignore all the hate OP. “Controlling mom” is always the blame. Your daughter actually needs more control and help from you, not less. Some kids don’t have good self regulation and need help. Giving them that help is what parenting is. She needs less access to junk food, not more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is she also showing signs of ADHD or autism? Very common

I guess 100% of kids are autistic because they’d pretty much all choose chicken fingers given the chance!

STFU. Don't try to use autism as an excuse for your NT kids choices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If she does it away but not home, it's because she feels like she can't to get snacks freely when she's not home. Make sure reasonable snack food is available for her to take even if it's not an official serving time.

What happens with snacking when she goes to friends' house? I can tell whose desserts/snacks/etc get counted and rationed by the way they approach Oreos at my house. The kids who know they can have them whenever take 2-3; other kids down a sleeve. They probably know I'm not going to report this to the parents but maybe your daughter knows relatives might/will so that is why she is sneaking?

Anyway, might want to reach out to a parent you trust to see if something off happens with eating/snacking when she goes to a friends' house. But probably talking to the pediatrician is the best advice here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is OP again. I really do appreciate all of the perspectives here because it’s a very difficult topic and the last thing I want to do is drive her toward an eating disorder. The overall problem is that my daughter has too much access to junk food and there isn’t much I can do about it if I don’t try to steer her toward healthy choices at least some of the time. While we prepare healthy choices at home for breakfast/dinner during the week most of the time, she goes to my parents’ or siblings’ houses probably twice per week after school/weekends and also regularly goes to friends’ houses where they seem to all eat a ton of junk regularly.

I used yesterday as a test and said nothing to DD all day and let her eat what she wanted. DD slept over at her friend’s house Monday night and had donuts for breakfast (DD told me). We later went to my sibling’s house where they ordered in lunch and DD chose chicken fingers and fries. Carrot sticks and apples were served and DD ate one carrot stick and no apples. We went out for an early dinner and DD chose a cheeseburger and fries, with an ice cream sundae for dessert (and ate all of it, plus a half a slice of her cousin’s pizza). Today we went to a friend’s house for a NY brunch/party and DD had several cookies and other treats, plus pizza.

I would not be concerned if this was just a rare occasion during the holidays, but again it’s not. We eat out a decent amount with family or DD is with friends and what she eats is out of my control.

So do I really just say nothing and let her make her own decisions?

I say this kindly as I feel like you are getting a lot of comments here that are harsh. I wouldn't say anything and my DD (12) has definitely had weeks like this. In fact I think she has helped herself to a Sprite or similar every day since break started (one example). Is there any chance you can scale back on the "decent amount" of eating out and try and cook at home once your break is over? That way you control in ways that are less obvious, like you don't have to say no to fries because you are not serving them. Or find places your family can go that might be a little healthier, like Chipotle? I know that is not super healthy but better than say McDonald's.