to be planning a letter of complaint to the PTFA for poisoning my children at the Christmas fair?

[Mincepiedermama]

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.

ooh, I would win the Krispy kreme donut comp - hands down....arf arf.

It always seems to be the accepted wisdom on here that children 'deprived' of sugar will gorge on it given the chance - I haven't found that to be the case myself. Ds didn't have anything really with sugar in it until he was at least 2, and sugary cakes and chocolate are still an occasional treat rather than the norm, but I haven't noticed him going crazy when it is available. The first party he went to, with shed loads of sweet food, he put one of everything on his plate and then just licked each thing once before putting it down - I think it tasted really weird to him, as it does to me if I eat healthily and don't have any processed sugary stuff.

He is definitely very keen on chocolate etc now, but like most children he also loves fruit and will sometimes say "this is too sickly" when given something sugary. I can't really recall him seriously overeating on junky stuff. I just wanted to point out that I have heard many many stories of 'deprived' children of 'controlling' parents, stealing sweets to get sugar etc, but I have never actually seen this happen, and it certainly hasn't been my experience so far with ds.

I think, like everything, it depends on the child. And possibly on how the parents treat sugary things, ie in a horrified way ("poison") or in a calm ("not very healthy") one.

I think it does depend on the child and possibly on the parents, but it has been presented on this thread (and usually on MN in general) that it is the inevitable result of being 'controlling' about your children's diet. I think controlling is a really damning word used in this context - surely we all control our children's diets to some extent? I really hope so, anyway

Agree with Blu, the more you withhold it the more it becomes the holy grail - I have never made a deal over it, my dcs do like sweets but are also quite happy without, in fact they still have stuff left over from their summer hols and regularly come back from the cinema without having finished whatever crap they've bought. They'll often choose fruit over chocolate.

YABU if you complain, it is your responsibility to watch what your dcs eat.

joins Blu in smug oafdom

I do think that if it is a joke, it is meant to wind people up with a superciliously superior attitude that immediately gets people's backs up. It's just so very extreme to talk of poisoning and writing complaint letters. I'm not surprised people are having a go

Well first of all i like the way the op assumes sugar and sweets are they the bad thing you can give your children. I work in the food industry and you would be astonished at what actually goes into normal everyday food that you so ignorantly feed your children.

Years ago certain food was only good for a day or two, now though you can keep food (excluding freezing it) for a week. Imagine what goes into that to keep it "fresh" like bread for instance. Dp owns a bakery and his bread only lasts for 1 or 2 days because it doesn't have any preservatives in it where as other breads stay "fresh" ages. Hmm i wonder why?

I am not saying don't buy bread or other foods but the op seems so dam sure that because she doesn't give her kids sugar it means her kids aren't getting anything bad inside them. Dream on.

It's also up to the parent to supervise their kids, especially in a public place and especially when they have been left with money to buy stuff with. If you gave a dog money he would buy a bone so if you give kids money they are going to buy sweets.

I don't agree with kids having sweets all the time but in moderation it's fine and if you say no all the time now, when they are old enough they will just do the opposite to what mummy has said. Don't be suprised if you end up with a fat teenager who eats sweets all the time and says it's because "mum deprived me as a child."

Well said MSXT.

to be fair to OP, I get the impression that she is an all-round home-baking, fresh preparing from home-grown vegetables with added seeds, style foodie, don't think it's limited to sugar

She's not my MIL is she

by 'it' I meant food concerns of course

I think both franny and blu have valid points. My children do not eat tons of sugar. I cook muffins sometimes and they are allowed one after dinner, which they rarely finish (the muffins not the dinner)and dd (not sos sure about ds!) would not 'go mad' on sugar if it was available.

But it's the way she understands sugar, she is old enough to have had the way her body works, and the food it needs explained to her so she sees sugar as something that can be a nice treat at times, but can make you very poorly if you eat too much of it.

I think if she was told 'NO DON'T EAT THAT SUGAR, IT'S POISON' Then went out into the world as an adult and saw people eating it in moderation, and having no problem with it, she might be at risk of going crazy with it.

My little boy was sick after he ate all the chocolate baubles of the tree which were positined below 3 feet. I should have written to nestle about the amount of sugar in them but chose to hang them higher up instead. Then I ate them when he went to bed - just to test for poisons you understand

My ds gets the runs from too many bran flakes, but is fine with sweets

I went to a wedding reception last weekend. I had too much wine and I was sick in the night. I am writing to the happy couple to complain about them poisoning me.

And, come to think of it, if sugar had this effct on children, the entire school would have been throwing up the day after the fair.....unless the op's ds children ate ALL the candy canes available!

I only felt the need to flaunt my smugness to show how well it sets off my natural oafery

And gawds 'onest truth guvnor, I have witnessed many children who are not allowed sugar / swets / bisbuits making a turbo-driven beeline for them once they are out of their parents sight...but cannot say whether their parents have to withold sugar because of the enthusiasm for it (i.e a cause), or whether it is a result.

Actually one of DS's freinds treats all ordinary food in exactly the same way and will grab what s/he can, fill pockets and stuff down as much as possible - and that is a child who actually suffered lack of food as part of serious neglect - so i wouln't be surprised if there wasn't some degree of a result in witholding other foodstuffs. Sweetness is a natural flavour and composition of our food, after all.

but surely that's an intolerance to wine and you should be careful to note down the brand of wine and avoid in future, make sure you tell people inviting you for dinner that you are allergic to australian (or whatever) wines

i imagine you could also grow up with a an unhealthy relationship with sugar and things like bulimia could crop up. If "mummy" has always told you it's wrong and poison and you will get fat if you eat it, then in the adult world you see normal people eating it you could go as the other poster said crazy. You could end up binge eating the "bad sugary food" as sort a naughty treat then make yourself throw it all back up again so you don't get fat like mummy said you would.

My dd is very young at the moment but any sweet things are to be had after tea and not before. She doesn't have them everyday either and so she will grow up with a healthy relationship with sugar and see it's a treat to be had in moderation rather than "the bad" thing that is poison. If you don't make a big deal of it and draw attention to it then your dc won't see as something to be curious about.

I'm intolerant of gin. I think it's the juniper berries, because I once fell asleep in the blazing sun at midday in a field where there was a juniper bush and when I woke up, my skin was sore and red and looked sort of burnt.....It's OK thought, because I'm fine with vodka. I think it's because it's a purer spirit....

I have deduced that not am i allergic to wine, it actually makes me pregnant. Twice I have woken up with child after a big night out......(fgrin)