Sweets Remain Sweet — But They’re No Longer A ‘Treat’
Normalizing sugar with my kids
“Hey guys— do you want ice cream? I’m stopping for some mint chocolate chip. Anyone interested?”
A few seconds later from the backseat— “No, we’re fine Dad. We don’t want ice cream.”
We were driving home from the library in the early afternoon.
I looked at my wife, Sasmita, sitting in the front passenger seat. We smiled and did a fist bump.
Victory!
Like many parents, we fought constantly with our kids (4 and 7) about cookies, cake, pie, ice cream, etc, If it had sugar my kids couldn’t get enough.
During the pandemic, I read ‘Sugar is not the Enemy’ in the New York Times which helped my feelings on sugar and kids evolve.
It was about normalizing kids and their relationship with it.
The main takeaway was there is no such thing as a ‘sugar-high.’ It also spoke about letting your child self-regulate their sugar intake.
I was inspired and we instituted the following rules:
We never use sweets to induce or reward the kids' behavior.
Gone are the days of saying ‘If you do ‘x’ you’ll get a cookie. Or saying, ‘Unless you stop doing…
