To ask how old your children were when you allowed candy?

[jayisforjessica]

I am aware that I already have a twelve year old DS and I made my choices with him. I now have twins on the way and I'm going to be raising them in a world that is twelve years on from the world in which I raised DS1. I'm curious about sweets, fizzy drinks and the like. How old were your DC when you allowed them?

I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place here - if I say what choices I made for DS1, that'll get accused of being performance parenting, and if I decline to say but answer the inevitable question later, it'll get accused of being a drip feed, so I'm aware of the awkwardness of this post!! Just know that I'm holding off on saying so I can get some genuine answers rather than knee-jerk "ooh, performance parenting thread" comments :) Haha.

Bellarosa - I think the different work/school culture has a big effect on food & eating in France. Schools carry on until later but the children have an hour & a half for lunch for example. Time to eat a proper meal rather than grabbing a fast food type snack that's common in most secondary schools here that may only have 30-40 mins for lunch. So then the kids arnt starving at home time so they arnt then grabbing crisps, chocolate bars etc to keep them going. Their parents also may only have had a quick sandwich lunch & it's then a rush to get dinner done etc. Tempting to pick up a takeaway instead maybe.

I wAited until all my DD's could brush their own teeth. Even now sweets are used as a treat. We dont have them everyday. We never have fizzy in the house and again if we go out to eat then they can have fizzy and it's a treat. I made a point of never buying them in supermarkets whilst we were shopping and if they were asked for I just said 'not today' . 3 of my girls are grown up now with their own children and are exactly the same as I was! Don't know if it was a good thing to do but it worked for us.

My objection to McDonalds is that if we go out and need to eat that means me too, and I think McDonalds food tastes foul and I'm not willing to eat it no matter how much my dc might like it, so it's better they don't try it.

Burger King on the other hand I would take them to if there was one near us, but as there isn't the opportunity hasn't presented itself.

Cafes offer food I like and the dc like so that's why I choose them over McDonalds even tho the dc food is still fried and unhealthy. I've learned to be happy that ds1 is eating anything at all tbh.

That's fair enough MrsKoala. I wouldn't take my children somewhere I didn't like to eat.

I was about 9 before I got anything fizzy. I remember my first can of Irn Bru and how much I burped after because I wasn't used to it.

My kids have McDonalds occasionally. We had it on Friday night. More often than is probably justifiable, we'll get a 50c cone or small sundae from the drive-thru too.

Not KFC though, as the KFC near us is filthy, and KFC, in general, has a reputation in Australia for cases of food poisoning/chicken brains/chicken feet etc.

Yes in my house raisins have been sweets until they were all old enough to notice I.e. Until they saw other children having sweets and wanting them which IME was about 3.

Fizzy drinks, my eldest didn't have fizzy drinks at all until about 10 but now he is able to buy them from the shop himself all the others have them too very occasionally if we go out for dinner so with my youngest two (twins) was about 6, middle child about 9.

They only have the sugar free versions and they all have had so many lectures about gut and tooth rot sometimes they refuse them when they are allowed (because 'I want to look after my teeth') and ask for water instead.

I think you have to try and get the balance right between the real world - kids eating sweets before and after school every day in the playground and in their lunch boxes and bringing sweets in for birthdays etc and it being common to have 'pop' at parties and no other option, and giving them a healthy diet which TBF doesn't include refined sugars or artificial sweeteners at all.

I'm trying to do that by making sure they all understand what is in the things they eat and drink and being a bit more relaxed than total ban.

Raisins might as well be sweets. They are just as sugary. The contain marginally more nutrition & fibre than actual sweets I suppose.

Sugar free drinks give my children stomach ache.

Mine is only 8 months so has only really had tiny tastes of sugar things but I really don't want to be hugely restricted. I was very restricted as a child - never allowed any sweets, chocolates or fizzy drinks - they were only as "treats". Now I have serious food issues and no willpower because subconsciously they still seem like treats to me and I crave them. Not articulated that v well but hopefully you get the gist.

Raisins are high in b vitamins, iron and potassium as well as containing fruit sugars. I don't think they 'might as well be sweets' just because they are high in sugar.

Raisins are amongst the best sources of antioxidants, so they're quite a bit better than sweets.

Perhaps. From a dental perspective, raisons as bad, if not worse, than sweets. So they are best treated in the way sweets are i.e. as occasional treat.

Raisins are a food of the devil as we allk now. Con yourselves into thinking they are a wonderful alternative to sweets but they aren't.

They have cake on their birthday every year. Had a small cupcake on 1st birthday. Never have fizzy drinks, and they hate sweets. Chocolate however, they love and we have some on special occasions.

Oh, and never really have takeaways either