Question
Hello! We have stealing problem in our family. We read the information from your website, but we still cannot find the proper answer. Our 5-year old tries to sneak into the kitchen (usually moring time when we sleep) and if she finds chocolate or any other food, she would eat a lot. During the day she eats good portions of healthy food (low carbs, high fat and good portion of protein) and we cannot understand whether we should give more freedom or in opposite inforce punishments for such behavior (food stealing). This kind of behavior makes us upset and we would like to be in control of it.
Up to this point we dealt with this behavior in a following way:
1) We asked her not to go in the kitchen while we still sleep in the morning (she wakes up 1 hour earlier than we do, especially during weekends and seems like she is bored)
2) We started to lock the kitchen door, but she manages to open it
3) We punished her by not letting into the kitchen during the whole day (except for meal time)
4) If she would eat some kind of dessert (when sneaking into the kitched) like chocolate, we would not give her it during the day.
As an option, we may give her more food (but we feel that if not stopped, she would eat more that the child portion should be) and we have some restrictions on her diet that we just cannot give such portions of food so that she stops eating by herself.
We are looking for some advice from you.
Thank you very much!
