Wait, there's more!! I guess the other thing that bothers me is that I love baking so much and treating my kids to something special and homemade. So when there's always processed candy around – and I'm not talking about Halloween right now--home baked treats become less special. But I digress more to discuss at another date 🤍 and I promise to have fun tonight.
I'm really enjoying this and it perfectly timed. Halloween is stressful for me as a parent who just knows way too much about food and what it does to our body, good or bad. It's hard for me not to label (even inwardly) and obsess about the fact that I know my son specifically won't eat all the good food he normally loves and eats if candy is the first in his mouth say at a given event or party or on a day like Halloween.
Even on Christmas, I hardly ever allow them to have more than two or three pieces of candy from their stockings. And I am known to throw candy away after they forget about it.
Mostly, I don't think this is a backlash to my kids behavior or attraction to sugar, which is natural (I also have a sweet tooth-for baked goods), but more because our culture seems to offer candy more often than it doesn't between birthdays Easter, Halloween Christmas school parties, and candy rewards teachers/coaches offer after lessons and sports. It seems excessive.
But I've also witnessed my kids sneaking sweets into their rooms that comes home from school our birthday party and I know it's because of this behavior I've created of restricting it once it comes into our home.
Ironically, my parents never put any restrictions on sweets for us, and I pretty much outgrew the taste for processed candy by age 12. So her logic holds up. It's really just about trusting the kid to find their limits in their own time.
I do wish, though, that culturally, we could slow it down on sugar. When you walk in the aisle of any grocery store and see the sheer volume of candy, then think about the time and money spent on producing it all, I wonder what else that could be applied to that would serve us all far better.
Wait, there's more!! I guess the other thing that bothers me is that I love baking so much and treating my kids to something special and homemade. So when there's always processed candy around – and I'm not talking about Halloween right now--home baked treats become less special. But I digress more to discuss at another date 🤍 and I promise to have fun tonight.
I'm really enjoying this and it perfectly timed. Halloween is stressful for me as a parent who just knows way too much about food and what it does to our body, good or bad. It's hard for me not to label (even inwardly) and obsess about the fact that I know my son specifically won't eat all the good food he normally loves and eats if candy is the first in his mouth say at a given event or party or on a day like Halloween.
Even on Christmas, I hardly ever allow them to have more than two or three pieces of candy from their stockings. And I am known to throw candy away after they forget about it.
Mostly, I don't think this is a backlash to my kids behavior or attraction to sugar, which is natural (I also have a sweet tooth-for baked goods), but more because our culture seems to offer candy more often than it doesn't between birthdays Easter, Halloween Christmas school parties, and candy rewards teachers/coaches offer after lessons and sports. It seems excessive.
But I've also witnessed my kids sneaking sweets into their rooms that comes home from school our birthday party and I know it's because of this behavior I've created of restricting it once it comes into our home.
Ironically, my parents never put any restrictions on sweets for us, and I pretty much outgrew the taste for processed candy by age 12. So her logic holds up. It's really just about trusting the kid to find their limits in their own time.
I do wish, though, that culturally, we could slow it down on sugar. When you walk in the aisle of any grocery store and see the sheer volume of candy, then think about the time and money spent on producing it all, I wonder what else that could be applied to that would serve us all far better.
Obviously, I'm still conflicted. 🍬