How to stop kids raiding the cookie jar

Are you struggling to control your child’s constant demands for snacks, biscuits, cookies and treats?

It's only natural that many of us are becoming tired of juggling the demands of bored kids, especially if we're working from home. Standards have started to slip and it’s just easier to give in to demands a bit more often than we’d like. So what's the best way to get things back on track?

Let's start by exploring the problems before looking at the solutions.

 THE PROBLEMS

 1) Have you set boundaries?

We often know what we don’t want our children to do (eat lots of snacks during the day) but have you actually outlined what you do want?  What is going to be acceptable?  If you’ve never communicated this, how will your child know? 
 
One day you turn a blind eye to sneaky hands in the cookie jar because you’re busy and let’s face it, it keeps the kids quiet - but then on another day, you get cross because it’s simply happening too often.  If we’re honest, we'll admit that we're cross with ourselves really, for letting them eat too many snacks. It makes us feel guilty. No wonder kids are confused – if we don’t know what’s acceptable from one day to the next, how on earth will they ever figure it out?

2) Are you a fire-fighting parent?

When kids are quiet and happily amusing themselves, we tend to leave well alone –  it’s common-sense, isn’t it?  Only when things start to get out of hand or a bit heated, do we rush in to sort the problem out. But children love having their parents’ attention – they long for you to engage with them, talk to them, play with them. If the only guaranteed time your child can get your attention is to stick their hand in the cookie jar or do something naughty, there will be no incentive for them to stop, no matter how many times you tell them not to do something.  From now on start thinking about how you can give more attention to good behaviour rather than unwanted behaviour.  Children love being praised and the more you do it, the more reasons they will give you to do it.

3) Do you use snacks as bribes for good behaviour?

Most of us have fallen into this trap, especially when we’re trying to work from home. You promise to reward your kids with sweets and treats if they play quietly while you’re doing a Zoom call for work. Or perhaps your strategy has been to give them a cookie to eat to keep them quiet while you’re busy Zooming? Either way, you’ve just elevated the humble cookie to something special to be desired and a substitute for your presence.  It’s a treat – or a compensation.  And herein lies the beginnings of a complicated relationship with food which could last with your child forever. A cookie, cake, chocolate or sweets should be seen for what they are – items of food.  Something to eat.  They may be delicious, they may be our favourites, but they’re types of food nevertheless - to be eaten when we’re hungry and not to be confused with anything else.
 
THE SOLUTIONS

1) Get clear in your mind

Start by deciding what type of snacks would be good to eat and how you could offer a variety. When cookies are offered alongside carrots, broccoli, apples, cubes of cheese and raisins, no one food is given greater status. It’s all just food.  And think about the kind of quantity that would be appropriate for your child's age. 

2) Create a snack station

Find a corner or space in the house to call your ‘snack station’.  Each morning the daily allowance of snacks can be laid out and you can explain to your child that they can visit the snack station whenever they feel hungry – there are no set times and they will not need to ask you. They can just have a think about whether they are hungry or not. Once all the snacks have been eaten, new ones will not be laid out until the next day. Remember to also offer drinks – I recommend a jug of water and allow your child to pour their own drink into a glass.
 
I know some of you will be thinking that given a free rein, your child might eat all the food within the first hour of the day and that may well happen, but do stay relaxed.  By day 2 and day 3, you will find that things start to calm down.  And after a week or two, your children will actually start to eat fewer snacks than they ever did before and you're more likely to find food left over at the end of each day. 
 
Years ago, when I ran my Montessori School I used exactly this method – there were no fixed break times and 30 children were allowed to decide for themselves whether to stop for a snack or not.  It works.  When you give a child responsibility, they respond accordingly.

3) Introduce other activities around snack time.

Kids often head for the cookie jar because they’re bored.  Let’s face it, we all do that.  One way to overcome this is to introduce 'before and after' activities that will keep them busy.  Decide for yourselves whether these additional activities would work for your family.

Create a menu

Each evening, have a chat about which snacks will be laid out on the table the next day.  You can ask your children to design a menu and to write it out. A small chalkboard will be ideal for this.

Lay the table

Hand over the responsibility of laying out the snack table each morning. Show them how to do this once or twice and then you can leave them to do it by themselves if you feel it's appropriate. You’ll need plates, cutlery, paper napkins, jugs and glasses.  And what about the food itself – fruit and veg need to be washed, sliced and arranged on plates or in bowls.

Organise the seating area

Decide where you’ll be eating your snacks. Is there a particular table you’ll sit at? Or a rug in a corner perhaps, or maybe a blanket in the garden? Choose a designated place – this will avoid having food being eaten all around the house and in bedrooms. And if you see your children sitting down to have their snacks, perhaps you’ll decide to join them with a cup of coffee too?  

Create a 'washing hands' station

In these Coronavirus times, it’s good to keep reinforcing the message of washing hands before eating.  If you can, create a ‘washing hands’ station alongside your snack area.  Show your child what they’ll need to do – how to use soap, wash and dry hands.  I recommend getting a stack of face flannels to use as towels. Each time one has been used, it can be hung on a drying rack to dry out before being folded later to be used again.

Have an outdoors washing area

Children with lots of energy, need to be kept busy.  If you have an outside area or garden with an outside tap, you could place your washing hands area here.  Put a bucket under the table and show your child how to take it over to the tap to fill up with water and then slowly carry it back to the plastic bowl to pour in. After washing and drying their hands, they can pour the dirty water back into the bucket and carry it over to an outside drain to empty.

Clearing up

At the end of the day, plates and glasses will need to be washed up or taken to the kitchen. Left over food that can't be reused will need to be put in the composting or recycling bin
 
I know some of you will be thinking that this is a bit of a faff – far too time consuming.  In my Montessori school I made it even more time-consuming: we had real tablecloths that the children would wash at the end of the day and we had a small vase for flowers on the table and these needed to be picked from the garden (daisies are great for this).  Everything was designed to engage the children and keep them concentrating on what they were doing.

Of course it will be much quicker to let your kids grab a biscuit from the tin. But this is not about convenience, it’s about setting simple boundaries for your child so that you can dispense with all the nagging and telling off, that wears you out. It’s going to make life easier for you in the long run as ‘having a snack’ is going to turn from a quick dip of the hands into the biscuit tin into an ‘event’. It will require your child to think about what they’re doing - and they may well decide they can’t be bothered to have a biscuit, after all.

In the initial instance it may require a bit of thought on your part, but after a couple of days and once you have a routine in place, you'll find this strategy will see you through the long summer holidays with a calmer, more orderly atmosphere in the house.

And it will certainly let you know whether your child is genuinely hungry and needs something to eat or is simply bored!

You can read more about managing kids behaviour in Words that Work: How to get kids to do almost anything.

About the Author

Alicia Eaton is a Harley Street based Psychotherapist and Clinical Hypnotherapist and the author of four best-selling books. She’s also a Winner in the latest ‘Global Health & Pharma’ Mental Health Awards 2023. For more details of appointments see here: Consultations.