to think my friend is being extreme?

[citylovernow]

Or maybe she has a point. I don't know.

I was talking about pocket money with my good friend of many years - we give the dcs a small amount on the weekends and they can buy whatever they want. One of them usually saves and buys books once she has enough, the other one usually blows it on sweets. I let them choose because I feel that's the point of pocket money - learn the value of money and when it's gone it's gone and all that....

My friend said she does the same except her dcs (aged 7 and 5) have to put it in their piggy banks and they only get to use it if they need to buy a birthday present for a friend or relative. She said she wouldn't let them use it for sweets as they aren't allowed sweets anyway. I hadn't realised this before but when I think about it I've never seen them with sweets.

I didn't say this to her obviously but won't her dcs be shoving their mouths full of crap at the first chance they get?

My kids didn't really buy a lot of sweets, they usually saved for books or action figures or something. I think the kids could be encouraged to save some, but not forced.

My kids have sweets whenever they want, they can take them or leave them tbh. I think putting rules in on when they can or can't eat them is like making them 'forbidden fruit' and kids do like to rebel.

Wrt pocket money, ds spends the lot on fishing gear, dd doesn't get pocket money from us as such ( unless she's going out for the day) but we buy her her bin weevils mag/trading cards/membership. The pocket money she gets from my mum and Dad, she will spend half and put the other half in her piggy bank, or sometimes more if there's a birthday coming up, she's only 8 but she's very insistent about making sure she can buy presents which is sweet :)

Te pocket money thing is strage but my lad dosent no when o say when so we have to put a ban on

I think it a huge mistake to label food as 'bad' and 'good' - it just makes the 'bad' more desirable. Have a healthy diet most of the time, and follow it yourself, and the rest doesn't matter.

ooh, I like that description: "Sweets aren't proper food, more like extras."

Budgeting for friends' gifts is just weird.

I have friends who let their DC save up pocket money for selves, BUT the kids can only spend it on things the parents have discussed at length & otherwise approve of - which ain't much. No impulse purchases allowed. Isn't part of the reason for pocket money to teach them temper their impulses? Also, once the parents wanted to treat their offspring to a specific event: 2 kids said fine, other child ("Tom") said "I don't want to go, if that event costs £100 I'd rather buy X with the £100"; parents said no & made Tom go, anyway.

DS was moaning today he no longer likes Tom because when Tom visits he only wants to play with DS's X toys.

I think it's good to have a balance of sweets and things. I let my dc's have them in moderation but also let them know why it's not good to eat them all the time. My parents allowed us to have very little in the way of sugary stuff and we had coca cola once a year on Xmas day. Now as an adult I can take it or leave it, not keen on fizzy drinks at all. My sister on the other hand has a serious coke addiction! The fizzy stuff obviously she also allows her dc's to have whatever they like but its starting to show on their teeth already. She is a lovely, lovely mum in so many other ways,but it isn't very nice for little ones to have fillings and dental work so young. It's our responsibility to limit stuff without going to the extreme.

I think your taste simply changes as you get older. Depriving a food doesn't mean you'll necessarily pig out when you're able to.

I had sweets on Saturdays. I ate loads of chocolate as a teen, but as an adult i rarely buy it for myself.

We weren't allowed sugary fizzy drinks, except at parties and I've never acquired the taste for them. I only drink coke with alcohol, and that's rare as I prefer wine or beer to drinks you have with coke.

Agree that having to pay for friends gifts is a bit off. Choose them and write the cards definitely! I would say though that all the present buying for school friends parties gets so expensive. I have explained this to my dd's and they understand we only buy something small. I have asked other parents to do this when we have parties, they get so much anyway and the parties are fun enough!

My dcs have never been allowed to spend their pm on food.
Bit of a working class chip about it I suppose. I buy their food, they don't use their money for it

That doesn't apply to any one else's kid btw. I don't care what other people do.

Dcs get sweets on Saturday. We don't buy fizzy drinks.

The kids are all nuts for sweets and fizzy drinks but I can't see them being any different if I allowed them free access.

restricting sweets I am OK with, I have to minimise sweets for my dc due to tooth enamel issues. But I think pocket money they don't have access to and can't spend on themselves is pointless.

My dcs would always accept a fizzy drink if offered/allowed - is that because we've restricted them to parties/holidays? Who knows. Either way the risk of fillings/getting fat/spending all my money on crap stops me from letting them drink that all the time. We have had kids to the house who only want water though. Mine drink water all the time but would have a coke without hesitation if offered.

I don't always make them pay for their own sweets by the way - I might just buy some if we're out somewhere at the weekend, but wouldn't really keep a stock in the house because DH goes hunting after dark.

My mum used to get us out the house by asking us to buy her chocolate.

I have a big sugar addiction, so to me it makes sense to at least minimise the chance of passing it on by making sure sweets aren't seen as an everyday thing.

I think they do as you do, I don't eat many sweets- only chocolate and then only one or one square and I don't have fizzy drinks. I have never had to discuss it, or ban it, they just grow up with understanding that it isn't normal to have lots of either.