Have you decided (as a policy or otherwise) to let your kids have as many sweets as they like?

[carolinecordery]

Hi, I have recently come across the idea (in the book Helping Young children Flourish by Aletha Solter) of letting kids have as many sweets (and pudding) as they like, with the view that they will regulate their own diet to be a healthy one (after an initial binge if sweets have hitherto been rationed or restricted) and not grow up to crave sweets or think they are a coveted treat. Has anyone done this?
I am addicted to sugar and have an alcoholic type relationship with it and don't want that for my kids. Up till now, I've been doing the normal thing (amongst mums I know) of only letting them have sweets in small dribs and drabs and making probably too much of a big deal about it.
is it possible for kids to view sweets as just one thing to eat amongst the great variety, and for them not to prefer them above all else?

We don't usually buy sweets, but they are welcome to ask for them and we get them as they want them. This usually translates as once a week if we aren't going to PIL (who seem to think it is their job to fill them with sweets all day long) or they don't ask if we've been to PIL.

They seem to prefer toast and butter, rice cakes and fruit to snack on most of the time.

I've never made any deal about sweets at all.

We have ajar on the worktop in the kitchen where sweets go - ones that arrive for various occasions etc, and DS can help himself when he likes. He also has a tin in his bedroom of birthday sweets. I think he helps himself perhaps twice or three times a week, to one or two sweets.

DP buys sweets at the cinema (I never do) but mostly they bring most of the bag back home.

Once when DS was a toddler he was eating spag bol (he was a DREADFUL eater, small appetite, little interest in food, fussy) and spotted a bag of choc buttons the other side of the kitchen, and asked fro one. To the horror of other parents present, I gave him one or two buttons, he ate them, and then went happily back to his spag bol.

I think this is partly down to making no big deal - have never used sweets or puddng as a bribe or treat or something to be earned by eating savoury food - and partly down to intrinsic character - he just isnt obsessy or insistent about things, and partly down to not being hugely interested oin food anyway. He eats a fantastic range of foods now, very adventurous, but will have seconds of a savury course he really enjoys rather than dessert.

I had to stop leaving sweets out when his friends came round as they went mad raiding the sweet jar, but now they leave it alone, too - will maybe ask to help themselves to one, i say OK, and that's that.

DS is pretty good - he doesn't go mad for sweets when he sees them. He has sweets, chocolate, crisps, icecream etc. at home, as part of a "normal" diet - but he will as happily have fruit for a snack as he will sweets. He does occasionally ask for chocolate for breakfast (never gets it of course!) but always with the cheekiest look on his face.

I decided to go with the "sweet stuff is still food" and not a "treat" policy - we don't have "treats" in this house. He doesn't get "reward" food either - although it does bug me when we do something, like swimming, and one of his classmates gets an icecream as a reward for doing his swimming lesson!! Because then DS wants one too (but never gets one, it's 10am FGS!). Ditto at his dance class - the teacher hands out jellybeans at the end of the dance class (and DS does two, back to back, so gets a jelly bean after each class) - of course he always picks the blue jelly bean for maximum effect [hgrin]. I much prefer when she gives out stickers...

So far when he's been to parties he's mostly hoovered up the strawberries rather than anything else...

We have a cupboard with sweets and crips. The kids help themselves - and unless it's right before meals - or staight after and they've not eaten their dinner - then I don't regulate it. They don't stuff themselves and we have Easter eggs still sitting uneaten. Having said that - I don't deliberately stock teh cupboard either so some weeks it is near enough empty.
But think it does probably depend on the individual. I don't bother much with sweets - dh on the other hand will eat a chocolate bar before his dinner and regularly buys treats at weekends.
I have also never seen this "sugar rush" with my two that other people refer to. I have seen them become lively after eating meals - but not if they've just ahd a few sweets.

I have never bought sweets,crisps or biscuits, and chocolate was once a week.
Dcs are 12 and 15 and don't seem to spend their allowance on the stuff.....

Dh has the sweetest tooth of us all and would happily go to the garage at 10 pm in the pouring rain to buy some.

Hmm (I am the OP by the way). Thanks for all your comments. They make me think that I probably will still treat sweets and other junk food with caution but also how to deal with this issue is a personal thing and that one theory is not going to cover all people. This is because our own and our DC's behaviour and attitudes regarding sweets, and other food, is connected to our whole history, our upbringing, our whole family's procedures, policies and imperfections and it would be hard to predict how some children would regulate themselves compared to others.
I find it hard to imagine having a box within everyone's reach all the time that had treats and choc in it. It's hard to place this imaginatively in my own childhood- surely it would just be eaten without pause until it was all gone and/or you felt sick? Me and DP can't handle ourselves very well with our treat cupboard. I have a famly-size tiramisu to myself. in this regard, baabaapinksheep- adults DO have unlimited access to junk food, but it is true that we do not EAT unlimited amounts- we regulate ourselves, even when we love it, or are addicted to it. The theory goes that children would do so too (there is old research to back this up -that babies pick their own balanced diet, given the choice (of nutritious foods) and the chance to do so. Can't remember if they redid the experiment to include junk food on the smorgasbord, with older kids, but I think they might have done. not sure though. I think perfect self-regulation would occur in children, given conditions of perfect psychological and emotional health and in a society where sweets weren't pushed on us at every retail outlet. You would think, at the moment, that a massive tin of Roses or Celebrations was a staple of our diet. Perhaps it is.

just wanted to add my experience. As a child I was allowed to eat choc, I was a fussy eater & my mum was greedy & both she & I would work our way through choc bars - wasn't allowed boiled or chewy sweets as these were considered bad for teeth. I am always sniffing around for chocolate - & I'm no longer chubby, but could quite easily be !

I didn't want my children to be a slave to chocolate/sugar like I am so
DD1 was brought up with as little added sugar as possible (no sweeteners though) & didn't have chocolate until she was 2. DD2 was a a few months earlier with the choc. Both have very different palates. DD1 prefers savory food, DD2 would literally eat her own hair to get her hands on chocolate.

We don't have sweets in the other house, other than from party bags (& I usually eat the junk in them). I do make a pudding at the weekend & we sometimes make fairy cakes/biscuits. We usually have some sort of cake when we go on a picnic. But in the main, we don't have them because I don't think we need them.

My opinion is that whilst they they are young they need good food to help them grow healthy & strong. If they are hungry or for a snack they will have fruit or a breadstick or their current fave, one of those twisted flakey sticks.

I don't make a big deal of sweets, I have a cupboard full of stuff and if they want it they can have it although I try to be reasonable about it. I don't want then to end up like me, where there was nothing like that in the cupboards, and sweet day was only on Friday. We never got McDonalds or things like that either, but all it did was when I got my own money I went mad buying sweets and chocolate and still to this day I will gorge on sweets like I'm never going to get it again!!

I always tell my children that if they're not hungry don't eat, if they're full when eating dinner then they don't have to eat it all. No one told me that and I still fight to not clear my, and everyone else's, plates.