Honestly, I look at the kids as an investment. And by investment, I mean teaching them literacy when I only have a handful of adult bandits free.
Of course, I can say that, because my theurgy and combat runs never have any trouble collecting the necessary “freedom taxes” to keep my people fed. So feeding the kids isn’t a problem.
@Havenstone: The fact that you don’t have dictatorial control over your followers is absolutely a feature. I mean, obviously it requires some trickery and games to keep everyone on a subsistence diet when I can clearly afford better, but the individual bandits didn’t sign up to be fed crumbs just because it fits my strategy to let them get sick until the deer come.