Hello, so this is something I think about a lot since the decision is constantly being brought before me. Yes I struggle when to let me kids and myself have sugar and or sweets . But I don't really call them sweets I just usually process it in my mind as sugar. I want my kids to have a healthy relationship with Sugar as well as myself. I want them not to be afraid to eat it or to do it with shame. I want them to be empowered and not shameful. I know I have made some mistakes in the past with sugar and my kids. I believe this is because we never set proper food boundaries with sweets. I know it is a work in progress. Sometimes my daughter will say things like "I don't like sugar." When clearly she does like sugar! I want her to know that it is ok to like sugar! It just needs to be kept in moderation in my opinion. So what is moderation? Moderation for my family is not going to look like moderation for your family.
So that is why I believe everyone should have a discussion about what is moderation with sweets for their family. How does it look? How often, and how much. The kids should be involved in this to a certain extent depending on their age/maturity. And the beautiful thing about this is you can try it out for a week and then re-evaluate. Life is all about being flexible.
For me and my family we had the talk, I think it went really well and my oldest who is five was involved and able to participate.
Our family food plan regarding Sugar. It is very basic and simple!
Sunday dinners everyone get dessert.
Birthdays and Holidays (The big ones, like Christmas, Valentines day, Halloween, Easter, Thanksgiving)
Family outings once a week or less to get a treat. Whether it's to the local Donut shop, or ice cream or to Nana's (grandma's) freezer to get a Popsicle. Or the occasional baking cookies day.
For moms
Of course there will always be baby showers and girls nights that come up. But I think if you keep the portion size to a minimum then it should be ok.
I am a huge fan of sharing dessert. The other day we all split one gelato and it worked out fine. (Good thing the spoons are so small :)
Benefits to cutting down on sugar.
Think of all the money you will save, and the health benefits are too numerous to count! Happy Food boundary setting.
Tell me your success stories of your failures, I want to hear about your plans!
We discussed this as a family, too. We decided to stick to healthy foods with a big emphasis on vegetables during the week and save desserts for the weekends. I have yet to actually stick to this even though we discussed it a few weeks ago. This week I set a goal to only have sweets if we are having dessert as a family at the end of dinner. I have meal plans with lots of vegetables and have already stocked the fridge. Another thing I want to do is stick to baked goods that I have made myself so that we don't end up with added ingredients and highly processed sugars. Gelato is a completely different story- we can eat that from a local Gelato shop on occasion! I am really enjoying your posts here.
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