Child being given sweets then getting upset when I say they can't have them.

[GhastlyBoo]

Anyone else facing this problem?

My dc are constantly being given sweets from family, friends, school & clubs. I don't like them having sweets as they have a few dental issues and I find lollipops a choking hazard.

I'm always the bad guy when they bring home sweets and I have to say no you can't eat them.

I do allow them the occasional treat but I like to limit it and know when they've eaten them.

How can I explain to people not to give my dc sweets without my consent? I've tried telling a few of them but they don't seem to take me seriously.

I agree with this.

My dc gets so much given in school too! His TA gave him three sweets on Friday. Every time there's a birthday children bring in sweets. I wouldn't mind actual little chocolates or cake but they are always those really sticky, hard, chewy, artificially coloured sweets.

Dc is much pickier about food now which is also related to getting so many treats from so many.

Yep, anything starch based that likes to stick between your teeth is a tooth decay culprit. As far as sweets go, sour sweets are the absolute worst because that’s sugar + lashings of citric acid.

DD puts sweets she is given in her treats bag and then they're there for when she fancies something sweet which isn't that often.

I agree.

The more things are forbidden, the more you crave them.

Whereas knowing you can have them any time you want takes away your craving for them.

Every year at Halloween we buy a big bag of sweets for the trick or treaters and eat whatever’s left.
At first we are excited to have sweets but every year we’re left with a big bowl of sweets because none of us fancy them. I always end up taking them into work and giving them away.

Its just reminded me of the forbidden fruit scenario.

When I was 11 i went to a friend's house. She showed me under her bed loads of large lockable tins filled with chocolates and sweets. Her parents didn't allow chocolate or any treats.
She used to spend her money on it each month and scoff when they'd gone to bed. They believed the tins were for arts and craft and her diary.
I can still picture the volume of junk. And thinking i wish i had all that, even though i was allowed to have what i wanted and pretty much when i wanted. Except fizzy

Now Late 30s one small filling . No health issues and until recently since the age of 16 would also drink a ridiculous quantity of coke, like 3 litres a DAY or more if bottles or 10 cans a day.
And i always remember mum saying i wasn't allowed it was her treat it would rot my teeth

Another vote for a sweets jar then they get them at appropriate times. Assuming they are at school you need to teach them to have a healthy relationship with sweet foods, banning them will result in them coveting them more and hiding them

When mine were younger and this happened I’d let them eat one or two of the sweats and then say “I’ll take them and save them for later”. I’d actually throw most of it away, but leave a few bits for them. Obviously when they were around 10 I’d let them be responsible for their own sweets.

I now have one grown up DD who is a complete sugar addict and another who doesn’t like sweets at all!

I could have written this. I'm just brutally honest with my kids and tell them I hate sweets and lollipops and why and swap them for a bit of cake.

Thanks everyone. Just to clarify, my children are allowed occasional sweets/ treats. They are not completely restricted.

The issue I have is with the frequency they are being given them.
No child needs sweets daily or several times a week!

All of my dc have at least a few permanent teeth and our dentist has specifically told my eldest to avoid extra sugar. Their teeth just cannot handle it. I think it's only fair if I say they should all go by this rule.

As for those of you who have no fillings in adult age whilst being able to consume as much sugar as you like, I am extremely envious.

Are you not just going to cause massive binge issues when they go to uni?

me too - so made the decision to allow our kids sweets (not to excess)

Neither of them are that fussed with them now

DB and I will gorge till we fee sick and hate ourselves for it and both blame our parent's for not allowing us Mohave sweets as kids

There is no chance of stopping the onslaught. Add a candy bowl to your pantry and anything that needs to be delayed can be added.

Even with dd having some severe dental issues due to bad genetics, we were advised that it is really about good, timely teeth cleaning.

We rarely turned down her requests for something from the candy bowl when she was still young enough to need to ask. We still had to regularly throw out candy because it would get stale and the bowl would fill up. She loves sweets, absolutely loves them, but being allowed to have one when she wanted meant it was never that big of a deal. She often just didn’t care. Sometimes she would get on a kick and have something a few days in a row, then she would forget the candy was there for a month.

we still use a candy bowl. Dd is a teenager and can help herself and so can the adults. We still have to throw out lots of old candy because somehow she still comes home with more random sweets than she needs.

Their teeth just cannot handle it.

That's really silly thing to say. Everyone's teeth is made with same stuff. If you or your child is more likely to get decay, sweets isn't the reason. Brush it properly, eat healthy to help protect teeth.
Like I said up thread, they will eat it behind your back as they get older. If you really worry, you don't take away the joy, you will teach them how you prevent the damage.

If the dentist has said to avoid extra sugar, I would take that seriously tbh. There is evidence that genetics plays a much bigger role in tooth decay than previously thought. Some people (me) can eat sweets, fruit juices, diet coke etc and brushing teeth twice daily is sufficient to prevent problems. Other people aren’t so lucky, and have to be more careful.

I wouldn’t ban all sweets though. I’d share the dentists advice with family / friends and insist that they don’t buy sweets. The stuff from school can go in a treat box. We used to get sweets once per week as a Friday night treat when we were kids (my parents never had much spare money). I loved Fridays!

A couple of PPs have referred occasional sweets being fine, or the odd lolly, etc.

I agree but the volume of sweets given to my DC would be sufficient for them to have sweets every day, and some leftover.

Highly processed foods are pleasurable because they trigger dopamine production in the brain. Your brain wiring changes if you eat them alot, similarly with other addictions. I can't fathom why our society think it's OK to promote a highly processed sugar product to kids for regular consumption. One upon a time it was entirely acceptable to smoke around kids but we've woken up to the health issues. Some day we'll look back on kids being encouraged to eat sugary crap and wonder what we were thinking.

Any sweets go straight in the bin

This way to collect your eating disorder.

I'm mystified by this. Unless things have changed since mine were in primary, sweets were a s couple of times a term if that.

There is evidence that genetics plays a much bigger role in tooth decay than previously thought.

I do agree, my mum was told exactly that by a dentist. But the thing is, it's really easy to counter it, unlike other genetic factors. You just need to make sure the sugar don't stay on the teeth for long period of time, the sugar on the teeth doesn't decay your teeth instantly. So, instead of not letting a child eat sweets, the parents can make sure they drink water, or brush their teeth, or whatever they can to stop the teeth from decaying. Limiting the sugar intake just because they worry about tooth decay is cruel, unless their teeth is so vulnerable to any sugar, that eating it instantly decay their teeth.

Put the sweets in a ‘sweet box’ in the kitchen when they get home and then when they are allowed a treat they can choose one out of there. Kids love picking out of a treat box. And it avoids blatantly throwing away things that others have given them, which is just mean really and will encourage a bad relationship with sugar as they grow up.

We were allowed sweets only on Saturdays as a kid. It made them more of a treat and limited our sugar addiction. No sweet cakes or sickly puddings mid week either. If I were you OP I’d put the sweets in a tin and let them pick one thing out on a Saturday. Binning them is extreme.

My kids are 9 and 7. I have a picture of them when they were no older than 6 and 4 in our old house. They were working together to move one of the kitchen stools to the counter, climb up on it and gain access to the sweets in the cupboard.

Unless you lock the kitchen cupboards or never let them out of your sight, your kids will snaffle those sweets whether you want them to or not!

I really wonder, as a foreigner. So many people on MN say the sweets are treats. Only allowed on weekends or whatever. Why so many obese adults in UK?
I had plenty of sweets. It was never a treat on the weekends. No one limited my sugar intake. My native country is one of the less obese country in the world.
Something is just so wrong here in UK.

Absolutely. I’m aghast at some of the stuff on here.

My kids and quite a lot of sweets and sugary stuff. All grew up into slim adults with no eating disorders.

It’s restricting, tutting, frowning and concealing at and about sugar that leads to problems. Loads of cats bum faces.

Most adolescents live off the stuff. They used to sell it to each other in the corridors when l was teaching ( a year ago). They’d come in with 3 cans of Coke and an Advent Calendar for breakfast. There will be more tutting about this, but it’s true. And l taught in a posh school in a posh suburb.

They aren’t mainlining it in their adulthood.

I do this too, but I often end up eating them myself. 🙄

I find a clear rule helps. My kids know they can have sweets at the weekend so anything they get during the week goes into 'the bucket'.

I wasn't allowed free access to sweets as a kid. I'm not overweight, didn't have a filling until I was 42 but don't have the healthiest approach to sweets myself so can't claim that my way is the right way but the kids know where they stand so there's no fuss when they do get sweets and have to put them away until the weekend.

My mil’s favourite pa game is to bring the dc a giant bag of chocolate and simper about how mum probably won’t allow them to have them. They just put them in the treat basket and have them as dessert. Then she criticises us for having a treat basket.

But I agree with you op - it’s bloody endless. Sweets at school, at hw club, at sports, at the shoe shop. It’s completely unnecessary.