Saying no because of limited resources
evawitsel
Hello,
My name is Eva, I've been reading here for some time. I live in the Netherlands together with my husband, 4 yo son and 2,5 yo daughter. We only started unschooling about a month ago after a major fiasco when my son went to school after he turned 4. After three months we took him out of school and decided to homeschool him. This is not an easy thing to do in the Netherlands, lots of people have to go to court because of their choice to homeschool, some even get in trouble with child protection services and in extreme cases the children are taken to foster care. Brrrr! Well, let's not think about that too much...
Anyway, my question is this: I'm currently out of a job and so we don't have a lot of money to spend on grocery shopping. If it is up to my children, I buy a lot of candy, cakes etc. (we only lifted the food restrictions 3 weeks ago, they only eat half of it, the rest I have to throw away because it's half eaten, or my husband takes it to work and his colleagues eat it :) ).
I try to say yes to most of their requests, but how do you handle all the requests for things when there's no money left in the bank account?
Should I give them a fixed amount of money to spend on all the sweets they want? Should I tell them that they can only buy one bag of candy/cookies/cakes? Should I just say no and explain that we don't have enough money?
Eva, Berend (4) and Fiene (2,5)
My name is Eva, I've been reading here for some time. I live in the Netherlands together with my husband, 4 yo son and 2,5 yo daughter. We only started unschooling about a month ago after a major fiasco when my son went to school after he turned 4. After three months we took him out of school and decided to homeschool him. This is not an easy thing to do in the Netherlands, lots of people have to go to court because of their choice to homeschool, some even get in trouble with child protection services and in extreme cases the children are taken to foster care. Brrrr! Well, let's not think about that too much...
Anyway, my question is this: I'm currently out of a job and so we don't have a lot of money to spend on grocery shopping. If it is up to my children, I buy a lot of candy, cakes etc. (we only lifted the food restrictions 3 weeks ago, they only eat half of it, the rest I have to throw away because it's half eaten, or my husband takes it to work and his colleagues eat it :) ).
I try to say yes to most of their requests, but how do you handle all the requests for things when there's no money left in the bank account?
Should I give them a fixed amount of money to spend on all the sweets they want? Should I tell them that they can only buy one bag of candy/cookies/cakes? Should I just say no and explain that we don't have enough money?
Eva, Berend (4) and Fiene (2,5)
Sandra Dodd
-=-If it is up to my children, I buy a lot of candy, cakes etc. (we
only lifted the food restrictions 3 weeks ago=-
Food restrictions can't be an all or none. I wish someone had
recommended that you go gradually on "lifting" any restrictions.
http://sandradodd.com/gradualchange
Three weeks isn't long.
Instead of taking them to the store where there are more things than
you can afford, maybe ask what they would like you to get when you're
going to the store. If they name two or three things, ask which one
they want most, or get the one or two you can best afford or that will
be more filling (if you're pretty poor in grocery money right now).
Instead of thinking of the world as candy and not candy, make their
other food more fun, more decorative, more fruity maybe.
http://sandradodd.com/monkeyplatters
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
only lifted the food restrictions 3 weeks ago=-
Food restrictions can't be an all or none. I wish someone had
recommended that you go gradually on "lifting" any restrictions.
http://sandradodd.com/gradualchange
Three weeks isn't long.
Instead of taking them to the store where there are more things than
you can afford, maybe ask what they would like you to get when you're
going to the store. If they name two or three things, ask which one
they want most, or get the one or two you can best afford or that will
be more filling (if you're pretty poor in grocery money right now).
Instead of thinking of the world as candy and not candy, make their
other food more fun, more decorative, more fruity maybe.
http://sandradodd.com/monkeyplatters
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Sandra Dodd
-=-
Should I give them a fixed amount of money to spend on all the sweets
they want? Should I tell them that they can only buy one bag of candy/
cookies/cakes?-=-
Neither, but rather than go into detail about why not, maybe read here
more:
http://sandradodd.com/food
Here's something about going gradually with food:
http://sandradodd.com/eating/control
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Should I give them a fixed amount of money to spend on all the sweets
they want? Should I tell them that they can only buy one bag of candy/
cookies/cakes?-=-
Neither, but rather than go into detail about why not, maybe read here
more:
http://sandradodd.com/food
Here's something about going gradually with food:
http://sandradodd.com/eating/control
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Sandra Dodd
-=-If it is up to my children, I buy a lot of candy, cakes etc. (we
only lifted the food restrictions 3 weeks ago=-
Food restrictions can't be an all or none. I wish someone had
recommended that you go gradually on "lifting" any restrictions.
http://sandradodd.com/gradualchange
Three weeks isn't long.
Instead of taking them to the store where there are more things than
you can afford, maybe ask what they would like you to get when you're
going to the store. If they name two or three things, ask which one
they want most, or get the one or two you can best afford or that will
be more filling (if you're pretty poor in grocery money right now).
Instead of thinking of the world as candy and not candy, make their
other food more fun, more decorative, more fruity maybe.
http://sandradodd.com/monkeyplatters
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
only lifted the food restrictions 3 weeks ago=-
Food restrictions can't be an all or none. I wish someone had
recommended that you go gradually on "lifting" any restrictions.
http://sandradodd.com/gradualchange
Three weeks isn't long.
Instead of taking them to the store where there are more things than
you can afford, maybe ask what they would like you to get when you're
going to the store. If they name two or three things, ask which one
they want most, or get the one or two you can best afford or that will
be more filling (if you're pretty poor in grocery money right now).
Instead of thinking of the world as candy and not candy, make their
other food more fun, more decorative, more fruity maybe.
http://sandradodd.com/monkeyplatters
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
evawitsel
> Food restrictions can't be an all or none. I wish someone hadI've read those pages before we started and so I've tried to do things gradually, saying yes more often etc. But my kids quickly caught on and started having LOTS of candy requests...
> recommended that you go gradually on "lifting" any restrictions.
> http://sandradodd.com/gradualchange
The lifting of the restrictions isn't going too bad. They eat a lot more candy than they did before, but the cool thing to see is that they don't eat anything that they don't REALLY like anymore. They used to eat everything with sugar in it, but now they are finding it harder to choose when they are in the shops because there is so much they don't like anymore :) (unfortunately, there is so much to choose from, that it will take a while before they have tried everything, they have now moved from candy to cookies to cakes...). And they really enjoy the monkey platters I make for them, so that has been a big success!
> Instead of taking them to the store where there are more things thanThat's a good idea, we'll try this for a while and hopefully the damage we've done by restricting them for so long will heal soon.
> you can afford, maybe ask what they would like you to get when you're
> going to the store.
The strange thing is that I had seen the PBS program that you also link on your website years ago. I always thought that it would be better not to restrict them, I just had a lot of difficulty doing so. I'm glad I finally managed to let go. And to be honest, I am having a lot of fun too, it's really nice to buy them the food they really like, I would have loved this when I was a kid!
Thanks for the not-taking-them-shopping advice!
Sandra Dodd
-=-And to be honest, I am having a lot of fun too, it's really nice to
buy them the food they really like, I would have loved this when I was
a kid!-=-
It's pretty wonderful when being a kinder parent heals the parent.
It feels good to be nice and to make someone else happy. That's an
aspect that "you're their parent not their friend" parenting lacks.
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
buy them the food they really like, I would have loved this when I was
a kid!-=-
It's pretty wonderful when being a kinder parent heals the parent.
It feels good to be nice and to make someone else happy. That's an
aspect that "you're their parent not their friend" parenting lacks.
Sandra
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]