Mumsnet members get a 10% discount from Boden (including free returns and free delivery), The White Company, sweaty Betty, Luxury Family Hotels, JoJo Maman Bebe, Siblu, GLTC, Bump to 3 (the official online shop for Grobags) and more. Click here for more info Join mumsnet here.
Note: This topic, as you might guess from its title, encourages posters to take sides. This means that posters tend to express their opinions. If you don't want to read posts from people who might strongly disagree with you, you might prefer to post in a different topic area on our site.
Why does it have to be so packed with sugar? After the fair at the juniors my nearly three year old was sick several times in the night because someone gave him those disgusting sugar walking sticks.
At the Infants fair yesterday I gave my kids pocket money and sent them off browsing reminding them about the sugar poisoning incident so ds3 decided to go for the lucky dip. He pulled out a handbag which I thought was great. I later discovered it was FULL of lollies FGS!
I can;'t watch them all every minute of the Christmas Fair because it's one of the places they should be given freedom to roam. Also I was running a stall.
I love school fairs but the sugar thing really ruins them for me and poisons my kids. Why are people so obsessed with sugar for kids?
I have many years to go at these schools so am thinking of writing or talking to the PTFA people about capping the amount of sugar available at these events. Is that reasonable?
Now if you'll excuse me I have to put some more vomitty bedding in the washing machine.
It's Christmas, a little indulging never killed anyone really. I am sorry that your LO was sick but maybe you needed to monitor what he was eating - I do think he could have just as easily got sick from an organic ginger flapjack
Sorry but I thing YAB abit U here..as long as it's not every day of the year, it's sugar, not poison.
apologies if i've got the wrong person, but if you are who I think you are, one of your children is diabetic, so I'ld have thought you had very good reason to complain about lack of decent alternatives to suggary prizes etc.
are you sure it was the sugar? sounds like a virulent reaction
if your child has a food allergy/ intolerance, surely you need to make sure they don;t eat that food, until they are old enough to refuse it or look for an alternative?
agree there should be alternatives to sugary stuff, but 99 % of parents would probably be fine with their DCs having sugar
sorry you are having a horrible time with pukey children
YABU unless there is a medical reason why your child shouldn;t have sugar in which case the school should have made sure that their needs were catered for.
However if there is a medical problem such as diabetes then you should either suypervise them more closeley or make sure they understand they can't have stuff.
There is a little girl in my dd's class at school who is on a special diet. At parties etc her mum takes her own stuff and party bag prizes she knows to give to her mum who excannegs them for something she can eat. This girl is aged 6.
However my 3 year old ds does not understand that artificial sweeteners (sugar free juice etc) makes him ill so I have to watch him like a hawk.
Sorry, but it's your child, therefore your responsibilty to watch what they're eating. Would you expect someone to cater differently for a birthday party because your DC's were going? Sweet things are fine for most children in moderation. I understand not watching kids all the time, but you said your DS was nearly 3??? Any child of that age will eat sweets if given them, and most peopel that see a child at a xmas fair wandering around would think that as they are not being followed by a parent worried about what they are eating then they would be fine with sugar.
I really do not believe that a child was sick three times in the night because someone gave him a sugar walking stick. Unless, possibly, if it was life sized!
ER, I can't imagine how your 3yo got so much, did he really wonder off on his own? Our head would have firmly brought my 3yo DS back (with loads of tut-tutting at me personally) if I had let him go like that. I can't imagine handing him his own money or letting him wander off unobserved at the Fayre. He'd raid every sweet jar en route, little monkey.
I agree it's an annoying sugar fest, but I ration what they're allowed at the time and confiscate the rest to go into the general sweets stockpile at home.
That said, YANBU to write a polite letter and start a campaign about not having too much sugar as prizes -- but do leave the 'poison' word out. For prizes they could instead offer pencils, stickers, pretty shells, little notebooks or tokens for experiences like extra playtime the next school day.
Sugar poisoning You want them to cap the amount of sugar available at the fair You are joking aren't you? You've not posted this seriously. Hope you children have recovered, now, and you don't get any more vomitty bedding. Hate that. Especially when you have to rinse the solids off in the bath first. Uuuurgh
If you don't want your child to eat something, you take it off them and tell them no.
My little buggers will quickly cram as much as they can into their mouths before I (mummymeaniecowbag ) come along and take it away from them! So I know I have to be watchful.
So be on top of them, and take it off them if you have to.
your son was sick because of a sugar walking stick? a couple of sweets are hardly overindulgence imo - are you sure that's what caused it?
anyhow how are they going to cap the amount of sugar?
will there be ration cards handed out to every child? or will there a very small pile to be thrown down the throats of the first 10 children in the door leaving the rest to nibble on wholemeal crackers?
my kids went to the school fair yesterday and had a mini roll each
Your kids sound like they don't get any treats at all - what fun that must be for them to go off and stuff their faces with 'poison' when you aren't looking.
Sorry ,your children are not well. I think you will be laughed at if you complain to be honest. My children got swords as a prize last week-which I didn't like.. I took them away. I was running a stall too. My children were my responsibility and not the P.T.A
You let your 3yo wander unsupervised at a Christmas fair, and you're complaining that he ate too much sugar - sorry, but clearly YABtotallyU. Put bluntly, it's your fault he ate too much sugar, not the school's. They weren't supervising him.
That said, I have a lot of sympathy with the idea of asking school fairs to give out prizes that aren't sweets. We went to our first one with ds (3yo) & dd (20mths) and they ate a ridiculous amount of tat because pretty much every stall was dolling out sweets as prizes (except the booze tombola ) - I would have liked to have seen more plastic tat instead...
Oh my god you poor disillusioned oafs and your poor children.
Imagine such trust in sugar. Haven't you done any reading? Do you just close your eyes and march through life believing it must be OK because it's in the shops/at the christmas fair/wherever.
LOOK at the fat, sick, out of control, badly behaved kids we're bringing up. They haven't the foggiest about food as their taste buds have been corrupted hy sugar and MGS and whatever other crap people stick in to make crap food taste acceptable.
You think you're being nice to your kids by allowing them horrendous amounts of sugar? You think it really won't do them any harm?
if your kids have such a violent reaction to sugar then go get their pancreas checked out.and moondog-speak for yourself-my chikldren are not fat or sick or out of control or badly behaved or any of thing like that and they are allowed sugar as part of their diet.
5+?? Wasn't it your almost three year old that you mentioned in the op?? My DD is 7 and wouldn't eat/purchase anything I told her not to. Whereas my Ds is 3 in a couple of weeks and would help himself to anything he could. They also are not ill or overweight or badly behaved etc.
Hilarious post. Don't want your three year old to have any sugar? Then, duh, don't fill his pockets with money and let him wander around unsupervised. You know, be the parent. Anyway, there is a short-lived winter vomiting virus going round. Makes kids very, very sick but doesn't last long.
Actually mildmanneredblah my DS1 is a type 1 diabetic which has only a passing relevance to this thread afaik. This is about all four of my kids and indeed all the kids there who were off their faces on sugar in a way which has become far too accepted.
There IS far too much shit on offer at school events though. It pisses me off, especially when my children are given haribo, hunks of icing and evilly bright lollipops without my permission. I'm not quite the purist Spidermama is though, I do let them have sweet foods sometimes, but I like it to be on my terms and not in crazily excessive quantities.
Christmas is the craziest time of all for this - cheap shitty TV merchandise chocolate advent calendars being the thin end of the wedge - it hacks me off because it's a conscious underestimation of children. Why the assumption that children can't find any wonder or excitement at anything unless it comes with a chunk of sugary shite? I can remember being overwhelmed with awe at the prospect of opening the little window on the advent calendar and seeing what the picture was that day.
Oh shit, I just had a hot chocolate with marshmallows. I'm going to die. FFS. Sugar, as most other things that are regularly found in a human diet is fine in moderation.
wekll there you go-your child is diabetic which is a whole dofferent kettle of fish to kids that don'ty have that.
in the seven years i have been a parent i have never seen my children 'off their faces on sugar', they have never been hyper after eating sweets, been mad or any of the other states attributed to children who have been eating sweet stuff. i am very about statements like yours.
My dd is 5 and i wouldn't let her walk around a school fair on her own. She would also not eat any sweets unless she asked me first. I see no difference in letting a child walk around unsupervised in a school fair than a supermarket.The doors are open for parents and public alike to attend.
'Off their faces on sugar'? Are you sure it wasn't speed then? My children have never been 'off their faces' on sugar. If this the type of reaction your children have then it's your responsibility to monitor it, nobody else's.
Mincepiemama, sugar is a natural not a chemical substance. It is from the sugar roe. It is a plant. Though, this does not mean it is a drug, like opium, or cannabis, also from a plant.
You are the parent, You are responsible for what your children eat, not the school.
My children wouldn't buy and eat anything without checking with me first. My DD always comes home from a party with party bag and goes through it with me pulling out stuff and binning what she can't have. My kids have allergies and intolerances and DS2 has asd and cannot cope with too much sugar or additives so i can't take the sugar and sweets thing lightly but - it is MY responsibilty - one that I only pass on to people who I would trust to check on my kids as I would. So yes - as much as I have to be strict about sweets too - I think you are being unreasonable. If you can't trust them not to check with you then they are not responsible enough to be wandering on their own. My 5 year old would have come to me to check.
I have just made some chocolate muffins, chocolate brownie cake and maple syrup muffins and I am quite surprised at how big the pile of sugar is that goes in them. As I have been very strict in the past, I am trying to realx a bit and let the kids have some treats, (I figure home made are better than shop bought), and I think the children need a certain amount of sugar to grow and for energy. Am I right, or not?
Would prefer all mine to eat stupid amounts of sugar instead of artificial sweeteners, sugar makes you fat and rots yours teeth, jury's out on the artificial stuff
I have never seen a kid vomit because of sugar, I have seen kids vomit after over indulging in too much food but not just sugar
I doubt one little walking stick caused the problem
hey we may be oafs but i for one never let me ds's wander around a school fair on thier tod at the age of 3 i escpecially wouldnt have they had been diabetic
i urge you to write to your p.t.a....go on give em all something to laugh about over the christmas break!
perhaps a better way to deal with this is to teach your children when enough is enough, then they can have control over their sugar intake(to a certain extent) my kids would only eat a certain amount never enough to make themselves sick. A healthy relationship with food is the key if you teach your kids that sugar is poison then that is not a good relationship. I agree that it is also down to schools, the government and other people to ensure that we try to promote healthy eating but it starts at home
hmmm. I have a bit of an inclination to think that it might not be a bad idea for schools to make a bit of an effort to reduce the total available sugar at your average christmas fair. however ultimately it's up to parents.
also it's rubbish to say - which you pretty much did - that those of us who tolerate this are bringing up fat badly-behaved kids. mine are certainly neither of these. (dd1 can't get clothes that fit her waist she is so not fat).
my personal bug bear is the stall we always have which is like a tombola - except you always get a prize - and the prize is a jar of sweets. fine. I have no problem with kids having a jar of sweets - what I can't quite get my head round is parents who allow their kids to buy 3 or even 4! - but it's the parents who allow excess not the stall that's at fault.
YAB totally unreasonable. The ONLY fault here is with you; the parent. If you don't want your kids to have stuff, supervise them.
It's unreasonable to 'send kids off browsing' at an INFANTS fair, one of them being two years old!
Don't write complaining to others - you're the one who 'poisoned' your children if that's how you see it. It's your job to care for your children's welfare not the schools.
At a school christmas fair with half the schools selling sweets, what did you think your kids were going to do without you guiding their choices?
NAB, a little sugar will not harm them. Certainly not in the case of a homemade muffin. Feeding them tons of sweets is a different matter, but don't worry about the cake.
begs the question why this stall is my "bug-bear" - it's not really. I just don;t understand some parents. though nothing to do with me who am I to judge etc.
Well I just lost any slight sympathy I had with you, mincedpiemamma, when you called everyone you just asked advice from ' poor disillusioned oafs'. Whaaat? I'm suprised you didn't choke on your own smugness never mind your children being poisoned by sugar. I think the diabetes is incredibly relevant, actually - the fact you didn't mention it is just weird. I feed my children very healthily - they have five portions of fruit and veg a day and all the relevant protein etc but I do think there are situations where you just have to let go (Unless your child is diabetic when you obviously can never stop watching) and Christmas fairs are one of them. As for your comment " Look at all the fat, sick, out of control children we're bringing up' all I can say is you've been watching too much Supernanny. As someone who works in television I can say tell you now that only the most extreme cases get on so stop being hystercal. My children - who are allowed sugar on special occasions on the grounds a little in moderation wont kill them - are neither fat, sick or out of control. Neither are most of the children I know who are in the main happy, healthy children not turned into monsters by a little bit of sugar. Your post made me feel like a donut - with extra sugar
NAB, fwiw I think you're right to allow your kids sweet treats every now and then. You do need sugar in your diet, but your body can make it from fat and complex starches (like if you chew potato for 10 minutes before swallowing, the amylase in your saliva will break down the starch into sugar and it'll taste sweet). So you don't actually need to add sugar or sweet stuff to your diet at all. On the other hand, it's a source of pleasure, and your kids will have access to it at some point, so why not allow them it in moderation.
Just done the accounts for our school fayre (no not me- I'm Sec- I cant add up LOL) and the sweetie etc type stalls amde the most money.
which in our case raised a total of £1370, imagine what we can do for the kids with that!
We do send home plastic boxes for the kids to fill, decorate and then to sell for £1; we deliberately edited the wording from sweetie box to treat box and put small crafts ites, toy cars, etc in the notes- they still came back from the homes filled with sweets.
Spidermama btw ds1 is intolerant of milk- I would not class that as a poison, neither the gluten which he can tolerate but which exacerbates his behaviours so badly.
Its a PITA having kids on a special diet, mroe so if you're on one yourself (me and casein dont mix at all) but you have to find ways to deal with thoccasions it comes up- DS1 takes special bars into school which he has for birthdays etc, and ds3 will get small cartons of soya drink at break time. Its just part of the deal.
Ooo Jeremy, what a wag you are. Luckily for my kids they don't need sugar in order to have fun. Sorry yours do but if you ever need any help in that direction I can certainly guide you to better ways.
as in my humble opinion the only 'poor disullusioned oaf' around here is the one who controls their childrens' diet to such an extent that they have no self-control and pig out and make themselves sick and then tries to be all 'holier than thou' about it
Well, he's only 20 mths so sugar is not really an issue at the moment, but i will remember your kind offer if and when the sweet stuff raises it's deadly ugly head.
DD is 4 1/2. She knows that she cannot have squash as it makes her bounce and gives her a stomach ache if she has too much - the same with hot dog sausages and sweets (sweets only if overdone). I can trust her not to eat too many sweets and to refuse the others unless I have ok'd it.
At 3 she wouldn't have been let loose alone.
The friday tuck shop full of penny sweets does irk, thankfully she doesn't know it exists yet so it isn't a problem. We are trying to get fairtrade choc etc in it so that it is more in keeping with the ethics of the school.
So.... what was my point? Erm, tis a one off, get a grip.
I did pmsl @ Twig's bafflement as to why JV was amused
I'm always glad to touch so many nerves though. Perhaps my message will get through to even one person who has the intelligence to stop and engage their brain and wonder what this sugar is doing in the short and long term.
I love to be able to perform this public service. You oafs ladies are clearly quite emotional about the whole issue.
Spidie its not really teh deal to post AIBU and then call anyone who disagrees with you disillusioned is it?
Ultimately your kids are your responsibility- if Dh hadnt been about )he isnt always) then the boys simply wouldnt have attendd the fayre when I was manning the stall; either that or I wouldn't have run one.
oooh, i;ve never been called a disillusioned oaf, even as part of a mass name calling, how very exciting !!
i might even change my name to camillatheoaf, has rather a ring to it !!
<<leaves thread to feed childrne more sugary donuts on honour of chanukah... see,, tis not just the scourge of christians, oh no, tis multi faith madness!>>
'the hidden dangers of sugar' or 'why i believe sugar is an uncecessary evil', without naem calling and smugness would have been a far better way to get the point across
there is of course an pbvious solution, one I employed when the ds's did win (they didnt go near the wsweet stall proper) too much in the way of sugary crap
Am I just not getting this? Sugar isn't a euphemism for heroin here, is it? Spidermama - you're usually so reasonable!
I agree that kids don't need the amount of sugar they generally get, and the huge piles of sugary fatty Christmas trash in shops turns my stomach, but poison is taking it a bit far.
The ones who write the letters to the PA at our school are the ones who complain when we cant afford to put on events or buy equipment they consider necessary
When a child, a mulled snowman is a glass of vaguely cinnamony water with a few bits of orange bunged in for effect and some ragged wool from a cooked scarf hanging out
It is poison. It caused my children to be ill. I didn't say 'deadly poison'. I said 'poison' and if you look it up in the dictionary (or in the link I provided earlier) you will see I used the word correctly.
That's just idiotic. Loads of things are harmful in massive amounts - eg water. Is water a 'poison'. Sugar is not a poison. Your kid has a bug. Get over it.
oh in answer to the OP, I don't think you should complain (I don't think it would achieve anything for a start) but I do think you should try to become more involved and suggest different things that could be given as prizes etc
I haven't been to a school fair for years (not since becoming a parent) so am only going on what people have posted here, but feel it is a shame if they are giving out sweets at every stall, yes
Oh this thread has really cheered up my damp and miserable Sunday!!!! What a lot of pompous rot! Our Xmas fayre was indeed a sugar fest...tbh there isn't an awful lot in the way of prizes that can be bought for 20p and put in a lucky dip for 50p...After all we're trying to make money. however my 2 ds's (1 has nut allergy) managed to stroll around and spend a couple of pounds whilst I manned a stall, without poisoning themselves. I have a feeling mincepiedermama's children will be the ones gorging themselves sick at any old party as they are obviously denied treats and therefore have no self control.
The only message I'm taking from this thread is that Spidermama (think that's the OP) is a bit hysterical about sugar. And inclined to blame everyone else but her when her kids eat too much.
Good suggestion F&Z. I think you are quite right. It's high time I got involved with the PTFA so I can have some imput. No poiknt moaning. Must take positive action.
Yes that's true about the gorging on sugar. One of my kids recently had a party and a child I'd normally think of as very mild-mannered and quite strictly brought up went absolutely mental on chocolate. He stuffed himself full of the stuff. I've never seen the like.
could have been anything that made him sick 
)
) - I would have liked to have seen more plastic tat instead... 
and yet ROFL
By 
