Parents - how do you allow your kids sweets and also foster healthy habits?

Ironandwine69

amusedmonkey wrote: »

I have no kids, and although I did get fat, sweets and snacks did not really contribute to that so I feel sharing my experience may be helpful. I'm one of these people who can eat one serving of ice cream, chips, or a couple of chocolate truffles and be perfectly satisfied. When I was a child my parents didn't really do the "clean your plate" thing. I just ate what they ate during meals and was not a picky kid, and had a certain amount of pocket money for snacks if I wanted to buy something.

We did not have sweet snacks lying around the house so it was normal to just go and buy whatever I wanted within my pocket money budget. My parents did not really comment on any aspect of my food or snacks. My pocket money could afford me 1-2 single serving packs of something, and I had the option to save some of it if I wanted something bigger/more expensive - they did not tell me that, I just figured it out on my own.

My family was not a soda drinker so we did not have a bottle in the fridge. We only bought it occasionally to have with some occasional meals (like pizza).

My mom made dessert maybe once or twice a month or for special occasions and we enjoyed it together, so eating dessert was a ritualistic occasional act, not a daily occurrence. Some snack foods were only eaten for certain family rituals or occasions, so they felt special and not something I thought about outside of these occasions (like there was a dessert that mom only made on the last day of school before summer break...etc.)

I grew up not feeling like I was missing out on anything (or even thought much about it at all) and still went for single servings of desserts and snacks even at my highest weight. When I decided to start dieting I did not have to change my habits around snacks because my portions were already healthy.

While I wish my parents controlled my intake of other foods in some way, I credit my healthy snacking habits and never developing fear of food to their laid back approach. I was never told foods were "bad", but my snacking was controlled organically through their own snacking habits and environmentally through artificial limits that did not feel like food limits (limits on money, limits on time mom had as a working mom to prepare dessert, limits on frequency of certain foods due to the preferences of the family...etc). It just felt like the normal way to eat, not some imposed feeding system.

Not sure if it's too late to do something like this (I was born into this), and not sure it even works when not everyone is doing the same (most kids I knew grew up with the same system so it did not feel out of the ordinary), but this was my experience, take or leave whatever you wish from it.

This reminded of another aspect of it. I was raised to celebrate good things with food( most of us were). I have made a point to decrease that as much as possible. I want to celebrate things with experiences rather than food. One of my biggest goals as far as healthy eating goes is to not treat food as a reward. So instead of going out to eat or bake something to celebrate I have my son pick something he wants to do. For example yesterday was last day of kindergarten, he picked to go play laser tag ( I didn't give him going out for pizza or baking something as an option).

Lounmoun

We don't have dessert daily. It was not something I grew up with and I don't have a big sweet tooth. We have things like ice cream or sweet cereal in the house. We have fruit and yogurt all the time. I probably encourage non-sweet snacks more because that is what I prefer.
We don't buy large amounts of candy. Dd can get some but not a giant bag to constantly snack from.
We have discussed nutrition. There are books and web sites geared toward kids.
As long as my dd eats regular meals she can eat whatever she chooses. If it becomes a problem (eating low nutrition foods instead of meals) then I have a conversation about making better choices. She alters her behavior and it isn't a big issue.

Share what you do with your dd.
Teach her about why you want to limit these foods.

EmbeeKay

Honestly, they don't need it every day or even every week. I have completely stopped having it around (with the exception of a giant bag of semi sweet chocolate chips that I can use for baking and the occasional reward for potty training or something, and they certainly don't have access to that and don't really remember it from day to day). I always buy lots of fruit and they have that on a regular basis.

I figure they get enough added sugar in their diet. For example, once a week we have pancakes for dinner and of course they have syrup on those. The way I see it, I do not need to have packages of cookies and candy around the house and they don't need it either. This way, when grandma and grandpa offers them a treat at their house, or daddy offers them a popsicle on the weekend, I always say, "Sure."

EmbeeKay

And there's not much they can do when you shrug and say, "Sorry, I don't have anything for dessert. You can have some more fruit if you want."

markswife1992

when my cousins were little, my aunt had a rule that they could eat no sweets, no candy, no soda, until saturdays. then they were allowed an ice cream cone, a coke, or another treat that they could choose. they are both very fit to this day, and don't eat alot of sweets. they are in the 40's now.

Unknown

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zdyb23456

When my kids are in school they get small treats just about every day. Usually the teacher will hand out a piece of candy for having a good day. It's small - like a starburst or a dum dum lollipop. I do pack a treat in their lunch like a pouch of fruit snacks or if I have cookies, a cookie.

Otherwise we don't do desserts except on special occasions or if we have lunch with friends a dessert is usually served.

I explain to my kids that candy, sweets, desserts, fast food, chip, soda, etc are treats that are for once in awhile not every day.

On vacation or at parties I'm pretty relaxed... I let them have chips, juice (though I make them stop at 2 juice boxes, then they have to switch to water), and I let them pick 1 dessert.

I'm definitely not a super mom. My kids eat sugary cereal for breakfast, they eat nuggets, mac and cheese, fish sticks, white bread... I'd love to feed them perfectly at every meal, but most days keeping them alive at the end of the day is a win in my book.

ladyhusker39

Letting my kids have sweets in itself fosters a healthy relationship with food. It's not contradictory to that goal.

WendyLeigh1119

For my son (who's now 13)...it was mostly just only having foods that are acceptable in the house. If I'm allowed to eat it, telling them not to eat it isn't going to work.

So I kept all organic foods, no "juice blends" or mixes, no soda ever (but I hate soda, so no issue), no candy or gum.

I let my son have "junk" (soda, candy, gum, juice cocktails, etc on holidays and special events. That's it. He was always (and still is) allowed a balanced after school snack (like if he wants a chocolate chip granola bar, he has to eat an apple as well) + a bedtime snack that can be semi-junky. Like cookies that are natural ingredients (maybe 3 with some milk), occasionally ice cream, or even a bowl of cereal.

If you give them the illusion of "choice" by only buying/offering things that are acceptable to you as the parent, they typically don't battle for control and just accept "something is better than nothing". And if they don't like it....no snack.

I don't push "eat everything on your plate, either because professionals say it fosters unhealthy eating (eating past your body's "full" signals). Instead, I make sure he eats some of everything (has to eat as many of the veggies as the other stuff if he's going tok claim he's "full"). And if he refused to eat a reasonable amount/claims to be full, then he's too full for snack, too.

Now that he's older, it's no problem...but those years of tantrums and begging for junk aren't fun. Just explain that sweets are ok sometimes...but there are healthy AND sweet options like apple-cinnamon rice cake bites (his fav as a small kid) or berries with a scoop of vanilla ice cream instead of Oreos. If you don't make it available, they don't know the difference.

But he's always been a little thin and very tall, so I do push veggie proteins, fresh fruit, and fats because he undereats a bit. He's 5'7 and 125lbs and just turned 13....I'm working on reminding him to eat because it's a "chore" or something (teens, who knows).