Kids - Sweets and Chocolate

nadnad

i think kids get far too much junk food, and i think this has a big part to play in the amount of badly behaved kids as well. My little one is only 8 months but he won't be getting sweets or chocolate or crisps every day, even now I don't give him any of the biscuits for babys, or rusks as they're full of sugar and he just doesnt need it. When I was little (am 28 now) we got chocolate maybe on a saturday, crisps were never in the house and we drank either water or diluting juice fizz was for christmas and maybe birthdays, as a result I have no fillings and really good teeth which i'm really proud of.

A big issue when you try to give your children the right foods and limit the wrong ones is the pressure and ridicule from outside sources. My MIL is my biggest problem, she was ready to give my son a chocolate biscuit when he was 3 MONTHS old!! We were there the other day and she was asking would he not have a drink of juice or some tea (!!!), have a biscuit, rusks, petit filous - all of which i've said no to and she thinks this is awful, thinks I'm depriving him!

allIcouldwishfor

Our kids have set "sweetie days" - saturday and sunday - when they are allowed some sweets or chocolate. DS once asked me why the shops sell sweets when it's not a sweetie day!! I don't think what you are doing is mean at all, in fact, the girl whose mum gave her the "lunch" you describe is far meaner - imagine the health problems that child is going to have if her diet is that bad. Give the excess sweets away or throw them in the bin. When our sweetie cache becomes overwhelming, I bag them up and give them away.

Nadnad, my SIL kept trying to give DS tea when he was a baby - what is that about??!!!

PolishBigSpender

pukkamum wrote: »

I think it depends on whether you are giving them the dark chocolate instead of the home cooked meal;)
I really don't think there is anything wrong with value meat or tinned veg as both are still nutricious.

Allegedly.

I wouldn't feed anyone Tesco Value meat or vegetables. In fact, the chocolate is likely to contain far less rubbish than the meat or the vegetables.

PolishBigSpender

What's wrong with giving a child tea? It doesn't need sugar, or milk - but giving a child the ability to drink various teas can reap health benefits later on in life.

Supernanny would probably find some pseudo-medical reason as to why it shouldn't be allowed, though.

nadnad

PolishBigSpender wrote: »

What's wrong with giving a child tea? It doesn't need sugar, or milk - but giving a child the ability to drink various teas can reap health benefits later on in life.

Supernanny would probably find some pseudo-medical reason as to why it shouldn't be allowed, though.

yes but tea contains caffeine and i'm not happy giving that to my 8 month old.

bestpud

I agree with Becles about the children who have no sweets being the ones who gorge at parties! I have noticed this time and again - it is always the ones whose parents seem to judge every morsel that passes their lips. And when I say gorge, I mean literally shoving a handful of cake into their mouths!

DD doesn't have sweets much, as sugar sends her into a 'spin', and makes her very chopsy too! She virtually never has fizzy pop for the same reason.

She has sweets when my dad picks her up from school once a week, or if she visits someone, but we rarely buy them for her.

We eat sweets sometimes (more at certain a time of the month for me) but usually when dd is in bed.

We do have dessert most nights though - usually ice cream in a cone. And we tend to have cake with our Sunday tea.

If she has chocolate for a present, they never last long and I have no issue with that.

She has crisps in her lunchbox, when she has packed lunch days - they aren't allowed sweets or chocolate but have a pudding with the hot dinners.

Tbh, I don't make an issue of it at all - I prefer not to label foods 'good' or 'bad'.

We don't have a treat cupboard/box. We have crisps but they are for lunchboxes and are rarely eaten any other time. DD tends to have toast or youghurt as a snack when she comes home. Or if we have some melon, she likes that after school. Mostly though, she sticks to meals.

It works for us. None of them are overweight and they don't have bad teeth.

Ds had a filling when he was 5 but none since - he is 18 now. Neither dd has ever had one.

Everything in moderation I think and so we have 'better for us' foods but we don't have 'bad' or forbidden ones.

leiela

Ok so i've bitten the bullet, i came to a realisation last night. Last night kids finished thier tea and asked for their sweet, asked for them like there where some kind of "right" not a treat, as it happened i had some yogurts in the fridge closing in on thier sell by date so i suggested they had on of those instead.

BOTH kids looked at me as if i was nuts, refused the yogurt and helped themselves to sweets.

Suddenly it dawned on me that "no i wasn't being mean" and that tbh i had a much bigger problem to deal with than throwing away a few sweets.

My kids expect them!!! they actually seem to think that theses sweets are a right that they a due....

Me and my husband tbh are fitness freaks right now we our diet is religiously strict, but this is something thats only happened in the last 12 months, before that we where very much pizza and takeout people.

its suddenly occured to me that although i have totally re-vamped mine and my husbands foods, i buy nothing overly processed and make all family meals from scratch, meaning all the family meals are healthy i haven't really taken into concideration what the kids are snacking on bettween meals, me and my husband don't eat junk food but my kids are still eating it to some degree.

I think the problem was that although i wanted us to eat healthier as a family but i didn't want to turn the kids into health nuts, as you say the type of kids that gourge themselves at party's and i do belive "junk food" can and should be eaten in moderation.

Yesterday I also realised my kids don't eat anything bettween meals that isn't junk, granted neither do alot of snacking. But when they are peckish the stuff they are being given isn't great quality. Neither will eat fruit though choice and unless a meal time they will point blank refuse anything healthy as a "snack" because to them snack = suger or crisps as far as they are concerned.

I guess when i started making the switch over to healthier foods figured if thier "meals" where good nutritious food then that was half of the battle and i guess in a way thats true, but now i need to tackle the rest of this fight and move them onto healthier snacks leaving the junkier ones for "treats"

Ok so here it is .....

How the hell do i turn this around?? i have a 7 year old and a 9 year old and i really want to encourage them to eat well, but to be perfectly honest right now if i gave them an "apple" or veg and dip as a snack they'd think i'd gone insane.

What should i do about the sweetie cuboard?? throwing it all away and making the kids go cold turkey seems kinda harsh and i really don't mind moderation but i don't want them expecting it after every meal either.

mrcow

Can I be really boring here with a suggestion?

My children love it when they have a pudding for dinner and I used to keep a tub of ice-cream in the freezer for such occasions. It worked well as there are three of them and it means that they can have a pudding without me having to cook biscuits or something (which I don't like doing as I know I'll eat some too and I'm trying to get back to my old figure).

The trouble is that I don't like shop bought ice-cream as it's often got e numbers etc and I think it contains a lot of sugar and fat.

Anyway.....my sister bought me an icecream maker for Christmas (I used to make my own - you know........heating it up and then whisking forever and a day) and I love it. I've been making banana ice-cream and chocolate icecream with just milk, fruit, cocoa powder and a little sugar. They love it and I'm happy as I know what's gone in it. I'm planning loads more flavours with them with fresh or tinned fruit and yogurts etc (they are as excited about it as I am lol).

I can make a litre of fruit ice-cream in about 1/2 hour.

It's just an idea - they'd happily eat fruit for a pudding, but churning it into icecream instead seems to turn it into a much more "acceptable" treat - in the eyes of a three year old

With regards to your sweet cupboard - I'd just move them so they can't help themselves. I'd personally ditch the more "junky" sweets if there are any. There is nothing wrong with eating chocolate and/or sweets - when your Mum lets you.

bestpud

mrcow wrote: »

Can I be really boring here with a suggestion?

My children love it when they have a pudding for dinner and I used to keep a tub of ice-cream in the freezer for such occasions. It worked well as there are three of them and it means that they can have a pudding without me having to cook biscuits or something (which I don't like doing as I know I'll eat some too and I'm trying to get back to my old figure).

The trouble is that I don't like shop bought ice-cream as it's often got e numbers etc and I think it contains a lot of sugar and fat.

Anyway.....my sister bought me an icecream maker for Christmas (I used to make my own - you know........heating it up and then whisking forever and a day) and I love it. I've been making banana ice-cream and chocolate icecream with just milk, fruit, cocoa powder and a little sugar. They love it and I'm happy as I know what's gone in it. I'm planning loads more flavours with them with fresh or tinned fruit and yogurts etc (they are as excited about it as I am lol).

I can make a litre of fruit ice-cream in about 1/2 hour.

It's just an idea - they'd happily eat fruit for a pudding, but churning it into icecream instead seems to turn it into a much more "acceptable" treat - in the eyes of a three year old

With regards to your sweet cupboard - I'd just move them so they can't help themselves. I'd personally ditch the more "junky" sweets if there are any. There is nothing wrong with eating chocolate and/or sweets - when your Mum lets you.

That sounds great. I thought home made ice cream took an age to make, even with a machine!

I may look into that as we love ice cream in this house.

Have you got an expensive machine, or are they all much of a muchness?

Sorry to butt in leiela.

Another thought, if you have a liquidiser is smoothies. Easy peasy to make and dd loves them. I have one with porridge oats mixed in for breakfast some mornings too.

fernliebee

PolishBigSpender wrote: »

What's wrong with giving a child tea? It doesn't need sugar, or milk - but giving a child the ability to drink various teas can reap health benefits later on in life.

Supernanny would probably find some pseudo-medical reason as to why it shouldn't be allowed, though.

Caffeine is an addictive drug! I don't see why you would want to set your child up for an addiction. Personally I don't drink it (i do drink herbal tea's that are naturally caffeine free) so I definitely wouldn't let my DD have it.

Saying that, everything is about balance, and if others think their children are ok with the occasional tea thats their call.