When I was a kid, I didn’t have many restrictions on sugar. My brother and I ate all the sweet cereals like Super Golden Crisp, Pops, Honeycomb, Cap’n Crunch, and Lucky Charms. We had Hi-C and Capri Suns in our lunches, as well as Fruit Roll ups for a snack, and of course Lunchables or sandwiches on white Wonder Bread. We bought candy and ice cream and grab bags from the ice cream truck almost every day. I grew up on 7-11 slurpees and never met a Coke I didn’t like! That’s not to say that we didn’t eat healthy — almost all our meals were homecooked, healthy Korean food, but my parents just didn’t worry too much about sugar.
Though I always have a twinge of nostalgia for the more carefree good old days, I think it’s good that parents these days are much more mindful about what their kids are eating. I think about this often living in the Philippines, where everyone loves very sweet food, and candy, chocolate, powdered juice drinks and soda flow freely. Cavities are a very serious problem here. I actively think about restricting sugar, whereas in the US we had so many healthy options that we just don’t have here. It’s hard though because sugar is everywhere — sweetened drinks are usually free with every meal!
My Swedish friend here follows a Swedish tradition where kids are allowed pretty much unlimited sugar on Saturdays. That gives the kids something to look forward to after the school week, and they don’t feel deprived of sweets since they can indulge on that one day. When her daughter comes over on a Saturday, she brings a trove of chocolate and candy that she shares with Charlie and Olive because it’s too much for her to eat. I do ascribe to the idea that denying your kids of something too much only makes them want it more, but I can’t get on board with unrestricted sugar, even if it’s just one day a week. My friend’s daughter is a very mellow child however, whereas Charlie was less than mellow for most of his years, so I’ve always thought about the effects of sugar on him.
I control how much sugar my kids eat by keeping it out of the house because I don’t like sweet things myself. Since I buy all the groceries, I have all the power! These are my general rules:
- no soda, except on special occasions. I very rarely drank soda throughout my entire 30’s when I lived in New York so we never had any in the home. Charlie loves orange soda that he gets to drink at birthday parties, but Olive doesn’t like soda of any kind. They both never tried soda until we moved to the Philippines.
- no juice. The only beverages we have at home are water, boreecha (a Korean barley tea) and milk. Instead of juice we make fruit smoothies.
- I very rarely buy sweets of any kind at the market. I rarely even eat fruit because it’s too sweet for me, so I don’t buy things like sugary cereals, candy, cookies, even chips at the market. But when we’re out and about, I will buy them candy treats like cotton candy from time to time, and they get ice cream a couple times a week too.
- dessert is fresh fruit. I always prepare a large plate of fresh fruit maybe an hour after dinner. This was my dessert growing up too.
These rules are stricter than pretty much all my parent friends here, but I think my kids have a healthy relationship with sugar. They know the rules and don’t binge (our Halloween candy was leftover for months) or crave it too much. Since they almost never see me or Mr. Bee eating anything sweet, I think it’s a normal part of their lives that we don’t really have sweets in the home.
Do you have any guidelines you follow when it comes to sugar and sweets for your kids?
blogger / cherry / 138 posts
We don’t really restrict sugar, but we don’t buy sugary cereals. We do let her have juice and Gatorade and hot cocoa. Candy is a special treat. She eats TONS of fruit.
cantaloupe / 6086 posts
I also try to just make good choices about what is in the house so it’s naturally less available. Sugary things (except fruit) are generally a “sometimes food” – I try hard not to demonize it since I have a pretty messed up food relationship, but talk about how fresh foods and things like protein give us more energy. But I let them have treats for parties, holidays, or a special treat as a family without worrying too much. My kids also never finish candy from holidays or party favors, but my middle definitely has a sweet tooth so I do limit how much he eats a time if he has something available.
pomelo / 5621 posts
Since I do the shopping I try to buy mostly healthy food. No sugary cereal for sure! I do buy some treats and I’m trying to teach my family to not eat them all in the first couple days so we can have treats until the next grocery shop. When DS asks for a snack most of the time I tell him to pick a healthy choice which he is good at.
blogger / apricot / 482 posts
We basically have the same rules as you do – no soda, no juice (except for birthday parties), no sweets in the house. We do fruit for dessert because that’s how I grew up; when I became an adult and realized that people have things like cakes, pies and ice cream after meals on a regular basis it blew my mind! We just don’t have sugar in the house, so it’s not really an issue.
guest
I don’t think we’re THE strictest, but probably still on the modest spectrum when it comes to sugar consumption. Also my girls are young, so they’ve never tasted soda, and also just get juice at parties or once in a blue moon get juice as part of a happy meal (even then they never finish). At home we mostly eat fruits as sweets. I confiscate all candy they get from school/parties. My 4 year old’s peak sugar consumption was probably when she was first pooping on the potty! In the summer they def have a little more sugar as we’ll go for ice-cream/Italian ice probably weekly but I feel pretty good about the healthier choices there are out there (like real fruit Italian ice, fro-yo, etc).
guest
I try really hard not to demonize sugar because like @bhbee I have food issues. Mostly I never use sugar as a reward or punishment- I’m super super sensitive about that and I don’t want them to associate food with feelings or behavior.
We buy sugary cereals but my kids don’t eat them every day and still like non sugar cereals as well. (My mom refused to buy them and its all I ate in college.)
I let my kids have dessert if we have it in the house, regardless if they finish their dinner. (I certainly don’t want to force them to eat when they aren’t that hungry just so they can eat more.)
The only thing I try to restrict with my oldest is caffeinated soda because he almost always wets the bed when he has it. I’ve explained that’s the reason to him and sometimes he will still ask for it but is getting better. (We don’t keep soda in the house and my husband and I don’t drink it so its only at movies/restaurants/parties.) My younger son doesn’t like soda but will pick hi-c or lemonade, which is just as much a sugar bomb.
We don’t talk about sugar as being bad but rather that it has no nutritional value. So that it isn’t going to help you grow or fill up and its better to pick foods that have vitamins and minerals.
Mostly I want my kids to think of sugar as a non-issue, know it’s not the best choice but have the ability to enjoy it without guilt or binging.
blogger / nectarine / 2043 posts
I take the same approach as @bhbee and Erin. I really don’t want to put value around food of any kind, so we talk about why all food is important. My kid comes from school and reports her lunch menu every day with something added, like “today I had carrots, they’re good for your eyes!” (totally didn’t train her to do that, either lol). She has a sweet tooth like me, so dessert is a small treat after dinner, like fun size candy or a scoop of ice cream, and half the time she doesn’t even ask for it. We talk about how too much of anything is not a good idea, not just sugar. And we control what we buy. IE, we’ve never given her sugary cereals and when she has them, it’s a treat like a dessert. She has juice for snack at school but otherwise it’s water all the time. Breakfast is our biggest challenge because she likes carby breakfasts and the only yogurt she’ll eat is the one with M&Ms in it, but I think it balances out over the course of the day.
wonderful pea / 17279 posts
So I need to get 1000% better at this because LO gets treats too frequently. We are always out somewhere where a dessert is in reach and I buy. We also are eating out a bit more and I let LO have juice at restaurants.
At home the only treat we have are all-natural popsicles. Recently LO said popsicles are like ice cream and lollipops. I used to tell myself the popsicle was a fun way to get him hydrated, but clearly he’s loving it too much.
He gets a cookie at the grocery store, CFA, Panera, and the new pizza place near us has amazing brownies. LO has a thing for chocolate. Fortunately he’s okay with saving part of it for later if he weren’t he just wouldn’t get the rest.
Now, that I pack his lunch and PM snack I can throw in snacks like Craisins and Goldfish and make that a school food. At home he eats loads of fruit, whole wheat bread, and 2% milk all contain sugar, but feels healthier. Sugar is everywhere!
We are firm on no candy and candy bars. LO has had a few dum dum lollipops in his life and I blame daycare for introducing those. He knows how to unwrap them himself so if he gets his hands on one he sneaks off and comes back with the lollipop in his mouth. On occasion he’s had a sip of my lemonade or limeade, but never as his own drink and certainly no soda.
I’m working on making chocolate/ juice treats a once a week max type of thing.
nectarine / 2047 posts
DS only drinks water and does not really have any processed treats. We do bake once a week from scratch, like banana bread or oatmeal cookies and we eat that slowly over the week. I have a terrible sweet tooth, so I can’t buy treats bc I will seriously eat the whole package in one sitting.
persimmon / 1381 posts
We don’t do soda and juice is only on special occasions. We eat a lot of fresh fruit and I don’t limit that. Even treats like candy or cookies are pretty limited although I have used candy as bribery to get through dinner…although honestly half of the time my 3.5 year old is just so happy to be excused from the table to go play that he forgets about the treat. Our big downfall is fruit snacks and yogurt. My son could eat fruit snacks until he exploded but I limit him to one small bag per day (still more than I would prefer) and yogurt just has so much sugar. I’ve tried making my own with plain yogurt and mixing in fruit but neither the preschooler or the baby will go for it. All bets are off on holidays and when DS1 is at my parents’. Pretty sure my mom would let him eat sugar out of a bowl if he asked her.
pomelo / 5084 posts
Like tv, we believe making it too restricted will inspire an obsession with how attractive sugar is. We have a really militant friend who won’t allow her daughter ANY treats (I mean absolutely none) and her daughter has picked half eaten cookies and fruit snacks out of the trash at school
DS doesn’t happen to like juice or soda and we don’t buy sugary cereal, but he gets plenty of chocolate for rewards (taking medicine, pooping on the potty, etc) plus holidays, when we are out, all that. Luckily he just doesn’t care that much. At Halloween this year he ate maybe 3 pieces then handed over his bucket!
pomegranate / 3601 posts
We don’t do much sugar in our house either. While we do let them have juice mixed with water (and juice here doesn’t contain any additional suggar/sweetener) for dinner we limit it to tea or water during the day.
I can definitely see a difference in behavior especially with my two boys. My younger daughter seems to be totally unphased by sugar and my second needs a lot of sugar to start reacting negatively.
I also regularly through out left over Halloween/Easter/Birthday party candy.
blogger / apricot / 335 posts
Since my husband and I have huge sugar addictions, I was worried about my kids. I thought I heard the first two years of life is important about what you introduce to your child, so I stayed away from sugar/sweets except fruit. To this day, my kids love fruit but not huge fans of cake/cookies/sugar. I also think it’s because I didn’t make a big deal out of it, I honestly was so busy with life that I forgot to introduce sugar. They were both introduced to their first cookie and cupcake at school. I noticed some schools have a strict “no candy” policy, and although that might be hard to abide, I really like that idea! Now, I purposefully buy stickers, glow sticks and activity related things in kids’ goodie bags versus candy.
persimmon / 1095 posts
We definitely let our daughter have sugar. I have a sweet tooth and I’m not going to deprive any of us! She is very fit and healthy and eats a well rounded diet so I don’t worry about some sugar in what we eat. We don’t eat many processed foods and avoid fast food. We bake a lot and have homemade treats often. She loves m&m’s and the promise of even one m&m is a great motivating factor! She randomly started pooping in her underwear at school the other week and we had no idea why. I was tired of spraying poop out of her underwear every day (or throwing them out), so I told her she could have one m&m after school if she didn’t poop in her underwear and for the past two days she’s gotten an m&m and I haven’t had to spray poop out of underwear. Win win in my book!