Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 ··· 10 11 12 13 14 15

Original poster

to ask politely that a visiting child not to have sugar on his cereal?

360 replies

ChaosTrulyReigns · 14/03/2011 10:34

Occasionally I'll have one of DD2's classmates before school, as it helps with his parents' working situation.

I have 4 DCs who obviously will have to be cautious over their eating habits for life. Genes.

Therefore we have only cereals that are not excessively sugary for breakfast.

This child moans about what is on offer at my house. So he then asks for augar to be added to weetabix, which I would rather not, but if DS is not in the room he can have some discreetly, as the girls understand my rationale, but DS is only 4 and I would rather not have this eating style visible to him.

So, AIBU to request politely that he doesn't add sugar when ChaoticBoy is around?

OP posts:

ledkr · 16/03/2011 11:49

my dd asks about desert every meal time despite the choice only ever being yogurt,dh always says shall we wheel out the sweet trolley

exoticfruits · 16/03/2011 11:51

'I'd better ban sweets and cakes to be on the safe side, '

How do you make cakes if you don't keep sugar in the house? Home made are much better than shop bought processed.

It is the whole life style that is important. DS is running a half marathon at the weekend-he trains regularly-he needs a balanced diet, including sugar.

AitchTech · 16/03/2011 11:54

stop the 'ban sugar' straw man. she's saying 'do i have to give this kid butter and jam on his toast when my kids are so far happy with butter and i know that if i let him have it i'll have a fight on my hands with the others?'

the fight is the thing.

this thread is bonkers.

and weetabix tastes like shit with or without sugar. oddly, it tastes rather nice with butter on it, sweartagod.

Habbibu · 16/03/2011 12:04

exotic - seriously, are you only reading the bits of posts that allow you to get all vexed? Aitch is right - it's a straw man. And you were the one who was so proud of your suagr free fruit cake, iirc...

weetabix with butter? Aitch, you are wrongness personified.

Habbibu · 16/03/2011 12:05

I do love the "didn't do me any harm" argument. I don't understand why it doesn't just stop threads stone dead.

exoticfruits · 16/03/2011 12:07

You are surely aiming for self control?
I can't do without chocolate and I have to have one piece a day.(not strictly true-I'm not addicted- but I choose to eat it) People (adults) tell me 'I can't do that-I have to eat it all if it is there'. I think that it either because their parents rigidly controlled what they ate or were far too liberal. There is a middle way-everything in moderation-and you just grow up getting used to it. If you police the diet how do you know they will police it? You need to relax about it. My DCs eat quite reasonable diets on their own-I haven't made food a big issue.

exoticfruits · 16/03/2011 12:08

I do cakes with sugar in too-I am proud of my sugar free fruit cake-it is really good!

thumbwitch · 16/03/2011 12:09

bogeyface, I can also attest to the fact that coffee goes stale. I don't drink it either, but I had a small jar - hadn't used it for aaaages but when someone came round and wanted some, I dug it out - and had to chisel out the desiccated granules from the bottom. Needless to say, they didn't taste good either.
Tea wasn't a better option - I don't drink that either and my teabags were older than my coffee (and tea goes stale quicker)

Can't BELIEVE that some people are still equating this to not offering ADULTS sugar in their tea - there is NO COMPARISON.

AitchTech · 16/03/2011 12:11

it actually was a 'recipe' on the back of the pack in the 70s, habs. all thanks to audrey eaton and her f-plan diet. eat them dry, like a biscuit, with butter on. sensational. or at least they were last time i ate them that way, in approx 1978.

Habbibu · 16/03/2011 12:12

Who needs to relax? If children don't mind cereal without sugar, why on earth should you add it - the cereal already has sugar in it, after all. NO-ONE is talking about banning sugar except you, fgs, and everything in moderation is a fairly subtle approach which will have different nuances for different people. It doesn't mean that all parents who don't follow exactly what you say are doomed to have children with food issues.

AitchTech · 16/03/2011 12:13

it's not even 'don't mind', it's 'actively like'. not every child will have the same palate, esp if they don't eat a lot of sweets anyway*.

*not mine.

Habbibu · 16/03/2011 12:14

I mean, I find "having" to have one piece of chocolate a day kind of strange, but who cares? Neither what you do nor my thoughts about it are remotely hurting anyone else.

Aitch, you probably thought the Bay City Rollers were cool in 1978. What happened in the '70s should stay in the 70s. FACT.

AitchTech · 16/03/2011 12:20

(and tomorrow you will try it and see that i am RIGHT. hahahahahahahahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.)

yes i don't get the chocolate thing either, habs. i mean i like it, but i don't find it medicinal.

Habbibu · 16/03/2011 12:26

Over my dead body. I see you've decided to remain silent on the Bay City Rollers thing. Oh yes.

Habbibu · 16/03/2011 12:29

Oh, hang on - missed a great opportunity to lure in skin-readers:

Butter? BUTTER? In MY house? Good god no. Saturated fat within a 10 metre radius of a toddler can Actually clog their arteries within 15 minutes (copyright DM). You must be a Bad Parent etc etc.

AitchTech · 16/03/2011 12:36

you'll do it. tomorrow. you'll break a bit of the 'bix off, top with butter and all wondrousness will be revealed.

actually i did think the BCR were tres glam until my big cousin got me on to Bolan.

exoticfruits · 16/03/2011 13:17

The chocolate thing was because so many adults seem to have a bad relationship with food and can't control how much chocolate they eat, if it is available.

Of course OP is doing the right thing-she wants her DCs to eat a healthy diet-but not for the first 5yrs, or the first 10 yrs but for life.
She doesn't care what the neighbours DC eats-she fears that although she has told her DC that you don't have sugar on weetabix and it doesn't need sugar he will see another DC with it and want it-and worse than that, if he ever tastes it with sugar he will like it better. You can give it sneakily (never wise IMO DCs have a nose for it)but it is all rather in vain if he is going to get his own, with lashings of sugar, at 12, 15, 18-whenever.

She needs to be teaching the broad outlines of a healthy diet and getting him to want to eat it because he prefers it rather than his mother prefers it. I eat my low fat, low sugar diet because I like it and feel fitter-I don't eat it because my mother told me to! We did however eat healthily as a family when I was growing up despite me having sugar on cornflakes.

You get this with moderation and balance-not with rigidly policing sugar intake with visitors.

carmenelectra · 16/03/2011 13:26

I think that it is nothing whatsover to do with the OP.

If she is so worried of her own DC'S seeing another kid with sugar and wanting it themselves, then perhaps she shouldnt have other kids to stay.

I dont have sugar on any cereal. My eldest has sugar on his, so does my DP.A little bit of sugar is no big deal. And as for it on weetabix I can totally see why a lot of people dont like them without. My eldest DS is one of them. He loves weetabix though, just likes a bit of sugar too.

You can't change other peoples eating habits, I realised that a long time ago. And its not worth the stress trying to either.

AitchTech · 16/03/2011 13:28

i take issue with being able to put sugar on the moany little sod's cereal without being noticed, tbh. my kids would spot this in a heartbeat.

he's TEN. he needs to eat breakfast in his own house or take what's on offer at theirs. it's just manners, ateotd.

foxinsocks · 16/03/2011 13:33

lol at aitch and her butter

yes mine would notice too but then again they are always scoffing honey loops and coco pops so I'm not sure we can hold our sugar heads high in my house

I tend to think if you are doing someone a favour, then you expect that child to get through your way of doing breakfast. I'd probably offer something else he might like (cos I'm a softie) but surely it's part of life's tapestries to try different things at different people's houses?

I remember when mine came back having had pesto for the first time at someone else's house. I had never even heard of it pleb

carmenelectra · 16/03/2011 13:35

i would be annoyed if A child complained what was offer at a meal time in my house. The visiting child I mean. I have had this happen and it does irritate when a child asks if you have anything else cos they dont like cornflakes or jacket potato or whatever it may be.

I think you just have to accept that people have different eating habits.

However, in the case of this OP, the child is eating what is given , just wants a bit of sugar on it. Fine, i think. Totally.

It would be like me accepting cheese on toast at someones house and asking if i could ahve a bit of brown sauce with it. Not at all unreasonable.

The child is asking for something to accompany his brekky, not something different!

AitchTech · 16/03/2011 13:40

hmmm yes actually i do see that point, carmen, but by the sounds of things there are about a gazillion cereals there that he could have. it's just another pita thing though, isn't it, having to sneak about in your own kitchen and give someone sugar when it's perfectly possible to do without.

trixymalixy · 16/03/2011 13:46

My DS is 4 and has multiple food allergies, he might as well learn now that he can't always have the same as other people. Bless him he deals with it really well.

We were at a museum with a friend on Sunday and she wasn't going to let her kids have ice cream as DS couldn't have it, but I told her she should as DS will just have to learn to live with it.

I did go and buy him a huge bar of dairy free chocolate on the way home though!!

MadamDeathstare · 16/03/2011 13:50

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

carmenelectra · 16/03/2011 13:58

Yes, but I wouldnt sneak out to give a child sugar, id give it in in full view of my own Dc's arther than draw massive attention to something like this. But then It would be no big deal in our house.My Dc's are allowed sugar. If they weren't, then i might possibly bend the rules for the odd day, over a spoon of sugar.

I have had kids come though, who say they eat biscuits or pot noodles for breakfast, now I wouldn't probably go that far, but generally Im pretty easy going about food.

We all eat really well and no food is banned in our house.We don't have any food issues.

Flip

1 2 ··· 10 11 12 13 14 15

Swipe left for the next trending thread