How often do you treat your child?

bestpud

DD(9) has 50p for sweets once a week.

Most of her friends eat them daily though and a few parents have asked me how I manage to avoid buying dd sweets every day, because their kids drive them mad if they don't take them to the shop...? :cool:

I've seen a child stamp on her mum's foot to make her hand over the sweets she'd been told to leave until they got into the car! :eek: Worse still was the mother gave in and let her have them!! :eek::eek::eek:

DD was watching, so I told her I'd give away the sweets or throw them in the bin if she ever behaved like that!

Crazy imo!

milliebear00001

My kids have what we call 'pudding' everyday after their dinner. Sometimes this is something like ice cream, but sometimes it might be a bar of chocolate or biscuits or a jam tart etc. They rarely have 'sweets' as such, and we rarely buy sweets when we go out. I grew up with access to lots of sweets and I guess giving my kids sweet things has always been 'normal'.

We don't use food as a reward/treat/sanction at all as I really don't want my kids to have the association between food and reward. I know plenty of people who are screwed up about food - I think my parents' relaxed attitude towards my eating habits as a child has probably meant I've never thought about, or worried about, my food intake much!

Millie2008_2

I used to get 20p every Friday to spend in the sweetie shop up the road from school (this was the 1980s and 20p went a long way) I never felt deprived otherwise; we had chocolate/biscuits/crisps at home and I knew that they were there, but to be eaten after dinner/lunch, if we were still hungry

Grandparents occasionally took me to the amazing sweet shop in the town where they lived and bought me a bag of "rubbish" (1p/2p sweets) and told me not to tell my mother

Lunar_Eclipse

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

How can something you have every day be a treat?

In theory I agree with what you're saying, but I honestly consider my daily fresh coffees a treat every single time I have them, particularly that very first cup of the day! ;-)

OP - my girls aged 11 and 9 have sweets once a week. (It was formalised many years ago when we walked past the sweet shop 4 times/day, so they knew when they could have them and not to ask every other time!) I suppose some children will have them every day, but I definitely don't think it's the norm. I have found that my children are very accepting of the differences they notice between the way we do things and the way other families do, if you explain the reasons behind your decisions. Having said that, I am consciously much more relaxed about their intake of sweets/food generally because I don't want them to develop issues surrounding food if possible. I had a strict diet growing up with very occasional treats, which I think triggered secret sugar consumption behind my parents' backs; not ideal.

shirlgirl2004

My children (7 and 4) have never had sweets because we don't feed junk. They have treats such as blueberries which are quite expensive but they don't have them everyday.

pigpen

I NEVER buy my children sweets..

In terms of treats, they probably get a small thing maybe once a month if that.. a book or a trinket or just something I see and it makes me think of them.

They often get sweets from school or grandparents.. they dont need more. They like nothing better than going and buying a punnet of grapes and strawberries and sharing them. Their favourite at the moment is asking OH to do them smoothies and waffles for dessert.

neverdespairgirl

My DS is 6, and he certainly doesn't have sweets every day - perhaps every other weekend.

mummyroysof3

mine probly have them 4 times a week but only after tea, other days they will have icecream, fruit, yogurt. ive had to curb the biscuits a little bit as they were asking for them all the time. feels like they eating constantly when they off school lol

pinkmami

Thank you peeps! Seems that I'm "normal" in doing what I do then.

To the poster on page 1 who asked if I said no to money or sweets? I said NO to both xx

Well today DD1 is grounded all day cos of her attititude. So I don't have to worry about her going to the shop with this 8 yr old! lol!

It won't last cos we're moving from this village - hopefully next year so the temptation of the £1 will not be there!!

Jewel_2

My daughter is nearly 12 and to be honest all the best practice in the world disappears as soon as you don't see what they're eating all the time. I tend to ensure that what she has at home is relatively healthy.

I can't ever remember thinking of sweets as 'treats'. I hate the whole concept of kids begging for sweets and if they seem them as treats that's what will happen imo. I still do the 'buying from the supermarket' bit and she can help herself when she likes, so long as it is at an appropriate time (eg, something after she's had something healthy). I used to weigh up what she'd had - so if she'd had a plate of veg, she could have a bag of crisps (always thought it better for her to have both, rather than neither).

My friend never gives her daughter sweets and she's a nightmare to take out if she's got any money with her, honestly, the ONLY thing she wants is something sweet to eat.

We do our best when they are little, but once they become teenagers (going to parties, being out etc) they will eat junk. I've also got a friend who insists on soya milk and her daughter has given up drinking milk full stop.

The other thing I do is stock up on fruit juice lollies, or make them.