Do your kids have to ask for food?

Growing up with a solo Mum and four of us kids money was almost non existent and Mum budgeted and stretched everything. She did really well this isnt anything against her but I hated it! :shakehead:
I hated having to ask for a crappy superwine biscuit and usually being told no because they were for school lunches. I hated not being able to go to the fridge if I felt like something because I would get in trouble for eating something that was earmarked for tommorrows lunch. I hated having friends over knowing that our after school snack was pretty pitiful if at all. I know its very silly now, but it stuck with me.

So (up until now) my kids pretty much help themselves. Within reason of course there are still rules - kitchen closes at 4pm after school or they wont eat dinner, you guts it and its gone and I wont be buying it again, two biscuits is suffice for a snack. Lunch stuff is out of bounds but generally if your hungry go find something.

Yesterday I bought $40 worth of fruit with the thinking that school is back next week we will need it for lunches. I got 10 bananas, huge bag of grapes, 15 nectarines, half a watermelon, bag of apples and some pears too.
I had one of the nectarines last night then went to give DD one for morning tea this morning and they are all gone! WHAT?? hmmmmm I went to give her a banana - there are two left! Half the bag of grapes is gone as is half the apples. WTF!

The lazy little sods cant be bothered making themselves something to eat so are grabbing the easiest thing that is clearly not filling them up and have eaten the best part of $20 worth of fruit in 24hrs! That is just ridiculous, I dont want to turn into the food police or start hiding food (Mum did this too when we were a little older and started to sneak it) but I cant afford to feed them like this and I dont want my kids to start sneaking food.

So how does it work in your house?

Having grown up in a similar house I can understand but there is no reason why you can't limit their fruit intake to only 1/2 pieces a day and then they have to find something else?

Could it be possible to have a bowl/plate of food they are "allowed" to eat in the fridge, and once its all gone/dont like it, then that's it?

Not to "police" it, but just restrict it so they aren't taking tonnes of food, perhaps you could make a couple sandwiches before you get them from school (if they are at school?) and have them cut up in the fridge along with some fruit and biscuits?


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I like xHope's idea of having a bowl of food that they can eat and to limit the fruit intake too. I know dh said that as a kid he would eat all the fruit by himself! TO this day salad and fruit are his favourite foods and it's expensive sometimes! His mum used to get pretty mad with him about it I think. I could eat whatever I wanted growing up including all the lollies/chocolates/chips and really healthy food too of course. We were well off so it wasn't a problem and I think being allowed treats kind of helped me to go the other way iykwim? Because I was allowed them I didn't always 'want' them. ds will probably be allowed whatever he wants too. We don't have bad food in the house so anything will probably be ok. Plus I think it's good to eat when your hungry rather than being forced at meal times.

We have a food board on our fridge which details what is for each meal including morning and afternoon tea. DD loves it because she helps think of it each week and she has some treats penciled in here and there. If either child wants something in between any of these meals there are allowed an arrow root biscuit and told that the next meal is in x mins and there is nothing more till then. Because it is so planned, its never long before the next meal, so it works fine. At first DD got very whingey while she waited but she got over it fairly quickly. Each meal includes a course of fruit, morning and afternoon tea are primarily fruit, but will also have something like rice cakes, popcorn or a home made muesli bar included so it is pretty filling. It has really helped to ensure i have enough fruit as i always used to run out towards the end of the week!

I only have one at the moment but she is allowed to eat whatever fruit she likes. I only limit her intake closer to meals....To me I would rather her eat fruit than other 'crap' so we just put a bowl on the table and she knows she can eat whatever she wants....as long as she doesn't waste it.

As I said there is only her and me that eat fruit (DH is a fruit dodger) so its not too expensive for us at the moment....but I do tell her once its gone its gone and I don't replace it until I'm ready too.....and I make sure all the fruit I bought is eaten before I get more....

We had food police in the house growing up and I hated it.

With the girls, they have to ask for food but thats mainly because of their age more than anything else. But we have the policy that they can eat as much fruit as they like, and we restrict the other stuff. i like the idea of a fruit bowl, but I wouldnt be restricting how much they can have when it comes to the healthy stuff. We as a country/world community have major issues with eating properly and I would be commending your kids on choosing the healthy choice without making them think they should choose a biscuit over an apple.

Yes my kids need to ask. The answer is generally yes anyway depending on how close it is to a main meal, but if they don't ask and help themselves then I won't know what they need. I am not one to check cupboards LOL I go from memory.

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Yes my kids need to ask. The answer is generally yes anyway depending on how close it is to a main meal, but if they don't ask and help themselves then I won't know what they need. I am not one to check cupboards LOL I go from memory.

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Same deal here :)

Hmmm that's alot of fruit - BUT fantastic that they are scoffing fruit as opposed to some other prepackaged loaded with crap item! But yeah, I'd be making some pretty strict ground rules on the quantity allowed per day.

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Yes my kids need to ask. The answer is generally yes anyway depending on how close it is to a main meal, but if they don't ask and help themselves then I won't know what they need. I am not one to check cupboards LOL I go from memory.

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same here.... I want to know how often DSD is eating as well, cause then I know if she hasn't been eating enough at her main meal to get her through the day.... fruit is always okay, though even that much fruit is a lot of natural sugar to be eating through....

we always had to ask as kids - until we were teenagers pretty much, and even then if it was something special or different in the fridge we still asked - but I recall going through whole bags of grapes in a day - and even now, some fruit always tastes better the same day!!

They can help themselves to anything they want. We don't keep any food in the house they can't eat and if they finish it I just go and buy more.

It depends. Fruit can be eaten whenever and as much as they want. I wont limit fruit, however, I buy a lot of the cheaper fruits (apples, citrus and pears) as these can be left in the fruit bowl on the bench, same with banana's as I was still buying them even when they were expensive and the kids have free reign over that, but the more expensive fruits such as grapes, strawberries, kiwi, melon etc I keep in the fridge and they have to ask for that ust so it doesn't get eaten too quickly. We grow a lot of fruit as well so when its in season they can also have whatever they want, except for apricots as they go right through them LOL. Anything else that is packaged is kept away where they can't get it freely so they have to ask for it. They are limited in the amount of packaged foods they can eat otherwise they would just hook into it and it would be gone very quickly. Yoghurts are OK to eat too without asking. I also bake a lot too so they have a lot of homebaked goods but they have to ask for that just so I know there is still some there. What I found worked really well was making up a big plate of saos with tomato/cheese/vegemite/peanut butter and then having that out for them. Another thing I will always do is make sure they aren't eating out of boredom. If they tell me they are hungry, I'll tell them to have a drink of water and most of the time they aren't really hungry at all.

I really loathe the idea of restricting all the food and I make them ask purely so I know how much they are eating and how much I have left. If we run out of food, I can't just make a 5 minute trip to the corner shop because we live out of town. I don't want to create food issues with them by restricting food and making them ask for absolutely everything and denying them - I grew up in a house similar to yours Feijoa Mum and everything 'good' was kept away and rationed. When I moved out of home and could buy my own food, I made a lot of bad food choices because I didn't have to limit food for me kwim? I don't want my kids to end up doing that, so while I do make them ask, I nearly always say yes unless it is close to meal times.

anything in the crisper was fair game - it was normally apples, oranges, carrots and celery in there ... and there were other things where we knew we could have a limited quantity of (one snack pack or little bag of chips after school, two icypole tubes, etc) any other fruit or food had to be asked for.

this changed when my brothers had their growth spurts (and by then, I'd make a whole saucepan of spaghetti for us or tons of cheese on toasties when we got home from school ... they'd eat it all plus carrots, oranges etc - and still eat their dinner!!)

but yeah, when we were younger, there were certain things in a certain spot which we could help ourselves to.

My kids have to ask but the answer is usually yes. I grew up in a very food-scarce household too, and we usually have more food than we need BUT it hasn't always been that way and there have been recent times when the grocery budget has been limited. There isn't usually an endless supply of treat food here so I do tend to limit that to shared family snacks/meals or when we have guests rather than letting the kid(s) go through it like locusts. But I do try to provide a variety of everyday snack type things so even though my DD will tell you it's an unjust hardship to have a choice of eating a toasted sandwich or a mini pizza or crackers & cheese & snacky bits or one of several types of fruit, it's really not :lol:

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My kids have to ask but the answer is usually yes. I grew up in a very food-scarce household too, and we usually have more food than we need BUT it hasn't always been that way and there have been recent times when the grocery budget has been limited. There isn't usually an endless supply of treat food here so I do tend to limit that to shared family snacks/meals or when we have guests rather than letting the kid(s) go through it like locusts. But I do try to provide a variety of everyday snack type things so even though my DD will tell you it's an unjust hardship to have a choice of eating a toasted sandwich or a mini pizza or crackers & cheese & snacky bits or one of several types of fruit, it's really not :lol:

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MD what a cruel mother you are!

Yes my DD has to ask for food, but that's because she is a type 1 diabetic and she needs insulin to counteract what she consumes. However she does have a supply of "free foods" which she can consume and it won't affect her blood sugar levels.

Of course being a child she does sneak food but she is generally good and just asks.

Mine are a bit shorter that yours I'd say (well DS is) but they are allowed anything on the bottom shelf/crispers of the fridge. I only say that because we have to keep most stuff in the fridge. Of a morning I leave DS who's a very early riser a yoghurt and a spoon there too so he can get that. They also have a shelf in the pantry with rice crackers etc they can have.
We only have stuff they are freely allowed to eat and anything contraband that appears is put up where I have to get it....though when you are blessed with amazon children that generally means somewhere I need a chair for lol.

Though...that is a lot of fruit in 24hours.

Yes, they do, but that's more due to the fact that they're only 3 and 4 (and 1!). When they get bigger I am hoping I have taught them enough that they will choose good foods to eat (although we rarely have really junky stuff int he cupboards) like fruit and veg before the package snacks. I am trying to get them to do this now. We go through alot of fruit and veg inour house anyway, and I can forsee that we will oonly be going through more as time goes on! If you think each child might eat 2-3 bits of fruit a day, for us, with 3 children that's 15 peices of fruit a day, plus me who wil go through 3-4 (DH won't eat much fruit!) So all up about 18 bits of fruit a day...woah baby!!!!!!
But I would say if you don't want them eating so much, put a limit on it to two bits of fruit a day. Specially while they are home at the moment on hols!! Once they go back to school, you will probably find you fridge and cupboards won't be raided so badly every day!

Yup mine do, they also have set times for eating.

With so many (and all being very young) if I don't have that in place they will take whatever, eat a bite or two, see their sibling take a different thing that looks better than what they are eating, drop food on floor and go get what their sibling has. This can happen multiple times a day so yup my kids have to ask, they do get told no if it's not at a food time because otherwise I have 3 kids running in and out all bloody day asking continuously for food. So we have breakfast, lunch and dinner and our morning tea and afternoon tea all at set times with set amount of food given out to minimize waste and cut off at 4pm or else they won't eat any dinner.

If that's mean or whatever - so be it. But I detest wasting food when so many in this world are starving.

Growing up, I had to ask for food and didn't mind being told no. (Although I was anorexic in my teens, so being forced to eat up to one meal a day wasn't appreciated.) DH was only allowed bread and jam as a snack - MiL complained a few times to me years after the fact he'd go through a whole loaf of bread in an evening!

Liebs is allowed to help himself to fruit, as I buy in cheap fruit for him to snaffle. Everything else he has to ask. Because I can't just pop to the shops the next day and if he eats tomorrow's lunch then I'm pretty much stuffed for his lunchbox.

Yes they do, we have a gate across kitchen so they need to ask.

Like Mrs Nerd Burger they ask as they are so small.

They must sit at table to eat, but generally can have what they want when they want within reason and as long as not after 1630.

I also hate wasting food so don't give them much at a time would rather them finish it and ask for more if still hungry.

Yeah, mine ask most of the time. The answer is usually yes.

Mine have to ask when they want something, but only because of their age and so I give them options. I never say no to them having fruit, unless its within 30 minutes of meal time. Otherwise, they are allowed one snack a day of something like two plain biscuits, rice crisps etc. The rest of the time they are given choices of things like cheese, crackers, fruit, a sandwich etc. Both my girls are on the skinny side, so when they have days when they seem to forever be eating I'm just grateful for it and they can eat just about anything they like. I would spend I guess about $60 per week just on fruit - we're all home most of the time and all big fruit eaters.

Mine generally does but often I have to ask if she wants anything to eat (she is a small eater). We nver had to ask as children but there really wasn't alot on offer anyway (money issues plus mum had no idea what was nutritious and still doesn't).....Well I can't remember any fruit as a small child. Only salada biscuits, processed meats

My DD is such a fussy eater, that of she asks for food I give it to her. Even if it eans she eats her dinner at 4;30.

Generally they ask. Their faves as bananas and apples, so we struggled there during the banana shortage!

Mine ask,but theyre young and tend to not be able to reach the fruit on the bench ect.
Majority of the time its a yes, although immediately after lunch/breaky is a no as they tend to just be eating out of boredom and not within an hour of lunch/ dinner either

that's very expensive for you. Maybe you need to ration it out. E.g do you buy fruit for two days? Do you buy fruit for the week?
Whatever you do, dole it out in airtight containers (7) so that each day, you can clearly say to the kids "this is the box for today - when it's gone, that is it".
That way, you will have enough fruit for the rest of the week.

i can see your bind. You want to not replicate your childhood, but you (like your mum) are not made of money.
I thought my mum was a meany for never buying real oj, just the fake oj that is really cordial. Now i understand, her priority was to pay off the mortgage fast, pay for three children's needs. Just as i have priorities too. And now as an adult (and a parent) i understand, eating the whole orange is better for me, than guzzling OJ. but i digress.

Children need to learn the value of money.
As much as you love them, you cannot afford to buy that much fruit so often.
They need to learn other options for snacks and to have boundaries around how much fruit they consume.
In the real world, they can't have infinite everything.
you're not a mean mum if you provide some limits.

It's wonderful that they are so into fruit, but not realistic (unless you win Lotto) to sustain that habit.

Do you grow any fruit? Could you interest them in growing fruit? a longterm partial solution maybe?

DD1 is allowed to eat whatever she wants. Sometimes she does ask for food other times she gets it herself. I encourage her to help herself with snacks. She isn't allowed to snack near dinner time. After dinner she can go for it. DD2 is only 14 months, DD1 does give her food. Adorable that she thinks about her baby sister.

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Yes my kids need to ask. The answer is generally yes anyway depending on how close it is to a main meal, but if they don't ask and help themselves then I won't know what they need. I am not one to check cupboards LOL I go from memory.

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Yes same here.

My girls climb chairs to the table & help themselves to the fruit bowl, no big deal until between 2 of them they ate 2 pairs, 5 apples, banana's then got into the fridge & ate strawberries all in 1 day at random times while I was hanging washing etc.

Now they have to ask, I don't knock
Them back on fruit but they are not allowed to help themselves to junk.

They are still quite young (2 & 3) and I want them to realise they can't just stuff themselves with food whenever they like.


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With having 6 children I have rules and they must ask before they eat ANYTHING - especially fruit. My kids would eat it all day with no troubles but it costs us a small car each time I buy it. Having 2 diabetics means that they can't eat it when ever they want it anyway and by getting them to ask first, to me anyway, means they are learning manners.

I try to have things like carrots, celery, cheese, strawberries available to them as they are free foods. But they must ask first.

thanks ladies for all your replies. I have now put a limit of two pieces of a fruit each a day.

DS14 was not impressed but I told him it was 2 or nothing!

I dont mind them snacking on the fruit as it is a much better option for them, but when its gonna cost me $20 a day/$140 a week just on fruit I think we have to reassess things.
Especially the older boys as they can make themselves something to eat. There is usually some kind of leftovers in the fridge, there is always cereal, noodles, spaghetti, plenty of bread (I buy 12 loaves a week), crackers etc but they are just been lazy and grabbing something that requires as little output as possible :shakehead:

I dont feel so bad now for putting restrictions on it when I know there is still plenty for them to have if they are hungry.

Our children all have to ask. I have battled weight problems all my life and they started during my childhood when I leaved to help myself to food. I want to teach my girls healthy eating habits before I let then help themselves to food.

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My kids have to but they are 3 and 2. DDs will eat all day and DS will only eat white foods so I get them all to eat together. DS is more willing to try new things if other people are eating it

mainly due to my girls ages they have to ask

fruit in the fruit bowl they can have whenever they like (except cloese to main meals. The fruit in the bowl is what ever is cheap at the time, apples, citrus, bananas and stone fruits if they are on special. Grapes, strawberries etc are kept in the fridge otherwise they all dissapear very quickly! Yoghurt and dried fruit Im also happy for them to have most of the time as long as they havent had 3 serves in one day. I like to make sure they are having variety so if the ask for the same thing over and over Ill offer other suggestions.

Packaged food they are limited in how much they can have for health reasons'

lately I have been spending more on fruit as I figure we pay out for soft drinks (for us) biscuites etc and a block of chocolate is the same price as blackberries at the moment so I feel bad not buying the healthier option. We also have 2 large containers in the pantry one has snack pack rice crackers, chips and sweet biscuits. The other has dried fruit, museli bars and fruit tubs so I generally let the girls pick from the second container more often than the first. I like giving them a choice, but a limited one at that :)

I like the idea of having a fruit bowl that is open all hours :) and keeping the 'treat' fruits aside. Or maybe dividing things like grapes into serves in little bags/containers and limiting them to choose 1 treat fruit a day to keep a cap on the budget.