I grew up always having to ask permission (or at least feeling like I had to), but we weren't well-off, and I watched my mom carefully cut coupons and shop deals all the time. If we had snack foods like chips and soda, it was usually "for company" - extended family often came to visit. As I got older, the financial situation was a little better so it was less of a big deal. We always had iced tea mix, pretzels, and fruit around -- there were usually cookies in the cookie jar but you could only have 2 or 3.

At some point I realized that my daughter just took stuff when she wanted it, and I don't say anything unless it's close to dinner time and she's making ramen or something.

Our main rule is no snacks after 4pm so they don't spoil their appetite for dinner.

Outside of that my kids (11 and 9) have unlimited access to fruit/vegetables, nuts, cereal, oatmeal, cheese, cold cuts, bread/tortillas, eggs, yogurt, and any past dinner leftovers. They are also responsible for their own breakfast and lunch, and fend for themselves from the above options.

We don't keep sugary cereals or true junk food around at all. We have things like chocolates and ice cream, and those are the only thing that's not a "free access" option. If I ever get things for a specific recipe that I don't want them to eat, I will warn them or put a post-it note on.

My mother's rule growing up was that we could have fruit or cereal without asking as a snack (she did not buy sugary cereal very often) and water or milk without asking, otherwise we had to ask. I think that rule probably disappeared once we were in high school or middle school, I don't remember exactly. So I'd recommend you come up with an area of the pantry or some types of food that your older kids can have no permission required and then put stuff in there that you don't have to worry about.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if issues like this lead to the many "how do I find pants with a 24 inch waist and 34 inseam" threads. My sister controlled her son's food intake and he was never allowed to eat more as he got older. He was 6'2 and 120 pounds (also had constipation issues). You can't feed a growing kid as if they are a 40 year woman who is on a permanently calorie restricted diet.

My DD worked at a Sweetgreen and saw a mom go ballistic when her kid asked for strawberries on a salad because he was going to have fruit later.

Hmm, this would be more believable as a problem if we had an epidemic of severely underweight kids. But, no, we have an epidemic of obese kids.

I think there are nuts on both sides of the issue.

Do we have an childhood obsesity epidemic in the DCUM population? Everyone knows DCuM is not representative of America.

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if issues like this lead to the many "how do I find pants with a 24 inch waist and 34 inseam" threads. My sister controlled her son's food intake and he was never allowed to eat more as he got older. He was 6'2 and 120 pounds (also had constipation issues). You can't feed a growing kid as if they are a 40 year woman who is on a permanently calorie restricted diet.

My DD worked at a Sweetgreen and saw a mom go ballistic when her kid asked for strawberries on a salad because he was going to have fruit later.

I was also curious on the overlap between the snack-restricters and some of the nuttier posts on the diet and fitness thread.

I haven't read the whole thread, but I'll just describe how I do it with my two typical boys, ages 10 and 13.

I'm a big believer in the work of Ellyn Satter, and what I do kind of follows what she suggests, with some modification.

First of all, while I believe that it's important to balance the kids' diets, I think that balance is important over a week or a month, not within a day.

At the elementary/middle school level, Ellyn Satter teaches that you provide a structure and let your kids make their own snacks within a set of rules. For us, the rules are as follows.

1) Make yourself a snack when school is finished. When they were in school, they had a snack right after they got home. Now, we're homeschooling, and usually we're finishing up work at around 3 and they're going outside to play, so there's a natural break.

1a) During a pandemic, when everyone is home, take a moment to ask the adults who are working if they'd like a snack, and bring them what they ask for.

2) Eat sitting down at the table.

3) You need to prepare it on your own, and clean up after yourself. Scrambled eggs are fine, if you're willing to scramble them and clean the pan before you go play. The one thing you need permission for is elaborate baking projects.

4) Sometimes there are foods that are off limits, because an adult is planning a specific dish with them. For example, my kids eat a lot of frozen fruit but yesterday I made a cake that involved frozen raspberries. When I bought the raspberries I told the kids they couldn't eat those.

5) If something runs out, it's out. If you want to eat the whole box of granola bars on the first day, you can, but I'm not then going to start buying two boxes.

6) Very occasionally, if there's a special treat that's in limited quantity, then I'm say "There's one for each of you." but that's rare.

7) A good snack usually has more than one food group.

8) Beyond that, they can have whatever in whatever quantity. If there's ice cream in the house, they can have three bowls. Now, of course that means that tomorrow there won't be be any more ice cream and they'll need to have another choice. My kids are learning to pace themselves, and to communicate and negotiate.

9) Once the snack is done and cleaned up, then they don't eat again until dinner.

Ellyn Satter would suggest that once the kids are 13, you transition them to getting their own snacks within the rest of the guidelines, whenever they want, with the expectation that they pace themselves so they're hungry for dinner. I haven't done that yet, because with my kids, I think having the same expectations as each other makes sense. So, I'm thinking that maybe we'll make that shift at 11 and 14. They should be back in school then, and I think that "you can have a snack whenever you want" might be easier to start practicing when they aren't in the same house as the kitchen all day long.

We all want the forbidden fruit. If you stop restricting prepackaged snacks, eventually they won’t look so irresistible (most likely). My Costco-sized boxes of cheeze its and pirates booty and trail mixes last a long time. The occasional bag of potato chips gets snapped up in a day.

Are there any high-fiber foods he loves? Maybe don’t make all of them available all the time. Pomegranates, Asian pears, roasted almonds, and honey crisp apples are occasional treats in our house and the kids go wild for them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if issues like this lead to the many "how do I find pants with a 24 inch waist and 34 inseam" threads. My sister controlled her son's food intake and he was never allowed to eat more as he got older. He was 6'2 and 120 pounds (also had constipation issues). You can't feed a growing kid as if they are a 40 year woman who is on a permanently calorie restricted diet.

My DD worked at a Sweetgreen and saw a mom go ballistic when her kid asked for strawberries on a salad because he was going to have fruit later.

OP here . I definitely mentioned nothing about restricting the amount they eat. They eat massive meals when hungry. Plate and plates of lasagna, bowls of oatmeal, my son will put back two or three of those little raspberry packs in a matter of minutes. They are very well fed nourished kids, and we never restrict how much they eat at meals. But we have always had rules about when they can snack and actively guides food choices. I was looking for advice on increasing g independent on this matter while considering other issues and teaching them food habits. All you people coming out streaming and calling me mentally ill and imagining I’m starving my kids. WTF

. *screamin* not streaming

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if issues like this lead to the many "how do I find pants with a 24 inch waist and 34 inseam" threads. My sister controlled her son's food intake and he was never allowed to eat more as he got older. He was 6'2 and 120 pounds (also had constipation issues). You can't feed a growing kid as if they are a 40 year woman who is on a permanently calorie restricted diet.

My DD worked at a Sweetgreen and saw a mom go ballistic when her kid asked for strawberries on a salad because he was going to have fruit later.

OP here . I definitely mentioned nothing about restricting the amount they eat. They eat massive meals when hungry. Plate and plates of lasagna, bowls of oatmeal, my son will put back two or three of those little raspberry packs in a matter of minutes. They are very well fed nourished kids, and we never restrict how much they eat at meals. But we have always had rules about when they can snack and actively guides food choices. I was looking for advice on increasing g independent on this matter while considering other issues and teaching them food habits. All you people coming out streaming and calling me mentally ill and imagining I’m starving my kids. WTF

Anonymous wrote:Wow! This is over the top for my household. I just go with the flow.

This

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if issues like this lead to the many "how do I find pants with a 24 inch waist and 34 inseam" threads. My sister controlled her son's food intake and he was never allowed to eat more as he got older. He was 6'2 and 120 pounds (also had constipation issues). You can't feed a growing kid as if they are a 40 year woman who is on a permanently calorie restricted diet.

My DD worked at a Sweetgreen and saw a mom go ballistic when her kid asked for strawberries on a salad because he was going to have fruit later.

A grandma I know, who was raising her then 15-year-old grandson, acted exactly like that feeding him nuts and seeds and marveling how healthy he eats! When my DS got a subway sandwich and ate a footlong, not even the whole one(this was during a weekend sporting event where both boys were running for hours!) she talked in front of both of them, how it is unbelievable! that DS ate almost a whole sandwich and how her grandson(who was sitting right there) might have a bit of blueberries and some nuts and a slice of cheese! Then my DS started calling himself a fatass for eating so much! DS is and was as skinny as a rail. Then he injured his back and could not play the sport again. Her grandson was and is skinny as a rail, but I think he started to eat on his own, grandma nutso called me to report that he can eat a whole pizza now! But, she added, she only ever gets him a medium pizza.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm impressed by these tweens/teens who apparently can self-regulate. Mine would blow through the snacks, meant for a week-10 days, in a day or two.*

We do have mostly healthy stuff, but I also buy snacky, not healthy stuff meant for a once/day treat. A bag of chips with lunch, for example. I could just say, ok, well, if you eat it then it's gone, but I've got two kids, and one would eat mostly everything junky very quickly and the other would complain.

*Honestly, their dad does the same thing, and it irritates me to no end. I have to tell him explicitly - these are for the kids' lunches, DON'T EAT THEM! Because of course, he doesn't replace or tell me when the snack bag is low, so I'm running around trying to find a replacement because I have one bag of chips and both kids want them --> bickering.

OP, I tell my kids they can have fruit whenever they want, they can make a sandwich whenever they want so long as they are done eating by 4 pm (hate cooking when people just ate two sandwiches). But other than that, snacks require permission.

Are you teens and your DH overweight? Obese? If they are not, why do you think your kids can't self regulate? I mean, honestly? I understand if they are very overweight, but if they are not, how do you know what is meant for 10 days?

My tweens are not obese but my DH is. He eats constantly and has never passed a 7-11 that he doesn't want to enter. I know that it is meant for 10 days because I bought it and I intended it to last for 10 days. For example, if I buy 20 of those snack bags of chips, I am intending to give each of my two kids one bag per day = 20 days. I do not expect the three of them to eat it in 1-2 days. My DH would blow through 4-5 of those at a time, because they are single-serve bags so he thinks they are just a taste.

One single-serve bag of chips.... per tween.
Your dh aside, you meant it for 10 days, so it is supposed to be for 10 days. In other words, your meals and snacks are controlled by you, your kids see snacks as some thing to crave, you are creating obese kids, yes, not your DH, you are.

What? This is pp you are responding to and you are reading far too much into my answer. I was answering the question of how do I know that the snacks are for a certain number of days. Yes, they get one bag of chips in their lunch box. It's a problem if they are fixing lunches and there's one bag left because both kids will want it. I am not saying that's the only snack they are allowed to have in a day, just that I can't have DH eating all the lunch snacks without letting me know because it leaves the kids short.

Snacks require permission? Did you write that? How is anyone reading too much into that? How can that be read in any way other than you are nuts?

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if issues like this lead to the many "how do I find pants with a 24 inch waist and 34 inseam" threads. My sister controlled her son's food intake and he was never allowed to eat more as he got older. He was 6'2 and 120 pounds (also had constipation issues). You can't feed a growing kid as if they are a 40 year woman who is on a permanently calorie restricted diet.

My DD worked at a Sweetgreen and saw a mom go ballistic when her kid asked for strawberries on a salad because he was going to have fruit later.

Hmm, this would be more believable as a problem if we had an epidemic of severely underweight kids. But, no, we have an epidemic of obese kids.

I think there are nuts on both sides of the issue.

Anonymous wrote:We generally make tween DD ask before eating a snack. Otherwise it'd be lots of carbs, too much food too close to dinnertime, and not hungry at lunch or dinner. DD was also putting on pounds since covid lockdown, between too many carbs and not enough exercise. We're all now exercising and watching what we eat, and we're all much healthier. Unless it's too close to dinner, we say yes to the snack and figure out together what that snack will be. "Can I have another muffin?" "No, that would be 3 muffins in one day. How about a banana?" "OK."

So, was just your DD eating too many carbs, or was this your and your dh as well? I get it if kids are gaining way too much weight, you gotta do what you gotta do. I do wonder why you felt the need to include the fact about "lots of carbs." Carbs are not the devil. People should not wear a cross and a wreath of garlic to stave off carbs! That is nothing but a fad of the rich and bored. Fruit and veg are carbs. Surely, you do not think fruit is a bad carb? Cause, there are people like that on dcum. We had a pp post that she doesn't want her toddler eating fruit due to sugar and carb content.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm impressed by these tweens/teens who apparently can self-regulate. Mine would blow through the snacks, meant for a week-10 days, in a day or two.*

We do have mostly healthy stuff, but I also buy snacky, not healthy stuff meant for a once/day treat. A bag of chips with lunch, for example. I could just say, ok, well, if you eat it then it's gone, but I've got two kids, and one would eat mostly everything junky very quickly and the other would complain.

*Honestly, their dad does the same thing, and it irritates me to no end. I have to tell him explicitly - these are for the kids' lunches, DON'T EAT THEM! Because of course, he doesn't replace or tell me when the snack bag is low, so I'm running around trying to find a replacement because I have one bag of chips and both kids want them --> bickering.

OP, I tell my kids they can have fruit whenever they want, they can make a sandwich whenever they want so long as they are done eating by 4 pm (hate cooking when people just ate two sandwiches). But other than that, snacks require permission.

Are you teens and your DH overweight? Obese? If they are not, why do you think your kids can't self regulate? I mean, honestly? I understand if they are very overweight, but if they are not, how do you know what is meant for 10 days?

My tweens are not obese but my DH is. He eats constantly and has never passed a 7-11 that he doesn't want to enter. I know that it is meant for 10 days because I bought it and I intended it to last for 10 days. For example, if I buy 20 of those snack bags of chips, I am intending to give each of my two kids one bag per day = 20 days. I do not expect the three of them to eat it in 1-2 days. My DH would blow through 4-5 of those at a time, because they are single-serve bags so he thinks they are just a taste.

One single-serve bag of chips.... per tween.
Your dh aside, you meant it for 10 days, so it is supposed to be for 10 days. In other words, your meals and snacks are controlled by you, your kids see snacks as some thing to crave, you are creating obese kids, yes, not your DH, you are.

What? This is pp you are responding to and you are reading far too much into my answer. I was answering the question of how do I know that the snacks are for a certain number of days. Yes, they get one bag of chips in their lunch box. It's a problem if they are fixing lunches and there's one bag left because both kids will want it. I am not saying that's the only snack they are allowed to have in a day, just that I can't have DH eating all the lunch snacks without letting me know because it leaves the kids short.