Our children are being bombarded with candy from all directions. Chocolate bars, gum, lollipops and assorted gummy candies line grocery store checkout lines. The school’s fundraisers sell chocolate bars, cookies, and brownies in the hallways during lunchtime. Every mall, skating rink, soccer complex, movie theater, and even the video store has a place to buy candy.
And then there are the holidays. Halloween trick or treat bags are filled with every kind of candy imaginable. Christmas stockings are covered with gum and chocolate bars. Valentine’s messages are stamped on candy hearts and candy boxes are the staple for communicating love. Easter baskets overflow with jelly beans and chocolate bunnies.
Sweets are everywhere and their presence wreaks havoc on our children’s teeth and waistlines. Every year, children with serious cavities visit the dentist at younger and younger ages. Obesity in children is a national concern.
Since sweets are universally and regularly available for children to see, what are parents to do? How do you combat its influence on your children? How do you decrease the influence of advertisers and control the consumption of sweets in your family? How can you win the candy war?
The following suggestions can help you reduce your children’s consumption of sweets. Use them to increase the health and well-being of your family.
1. Start by being a role model for your children.
If you’re a chocoholic and find yourself rummaging through the cupboard for the last candy bar or eating an entire bag of M&M’s once they’re opened, reflect on the message you’re sending your kids. It will be difficult for you to curb your children’s consumption of sweets when they see you unable to curb yours. Then model the message. Eat a small portion of sweets and save the rest for later. Talk to your children about their desire and willingness to stay mindful and make healthy choices about their own sweets consumption. Positive images you provide of giving up sweets will help them be more likely to give up sweets themselves.
2. View candy as a wonderful opportunity to set limits with your children.
As parents, we set limits around television, computer time, video games, bedtime, friends, and a variety of other items. Setting limits on sweets doesn’t mean you make them totally off limits. It means that you provide opportunities for your children to enjoy sweets within some clearly defined parameters or guidelines.
Children want guidelines. They thrive on structure. It is the structure provided by the adult that allows them to relax into being a child. Of course, they will push and test the limits. That’s the job. Pushing and testing limits doesn’t mean your kids want to change them. Most of the time it means they want to see if the structure is really in place.
Set your limits early before you go to the store, before the Easter bunny arrives, before the Halloween bags are full, before you bring candy into the house. “Let’s go buy a treat at the store today,” sets the limit. He does too, “Let’s go grocery shopping today. This will be a trip without sweets.”
Discuss with your children how the candy eating will take place before they head out to fill a bag at Halloween time. Agree on a portion to eat each day and a place to store it. Do not allow sweets to be brought into your bedroom. Keep bags of candy out of the cupboard for easy access. This is part of setting limits and it is your responsibility as a conscientious and committed parent to make sure it is done.
Setting a limit doesn’t mean you have to say “No.” Sometimes saying “Yes” with a qualifier helps you avoid power struggles.
“Can I have a piece of candy?”
“Yes, you can have one right after dinner.”
Another important way to set limits and structure your family’s sweet eating while reducing resistance and resentment is to offer children choices.
3. Give your children choices when it comes to eating sweets.
“You can choose five treats from your Halloween bag for today and put the rest aside for a different day. Spread out all your treats and see your options.”
“You can choose one sweet now or two sweets for after dinner. It’s up to you.”
“You can choose to have your Easter candy basket kept in the kitchen cupboard where we can keep track of them, or you can choose to just have access to your candy.”
With candy, remind your children that responsibility equals opportunity. Your children have the opportunity to eat some sweets. If they are responsible for following the parameters you have set, the opportunity continues. In that case, access to sweets is removed.
This could mean that you may have to remove all the candy from the house and make it unavailable to anyone. That would include you.
4. Make eating sweets something special.
Educate your children that sweets are not food. It is garbage and has no nutritional value for their bodies. Sweets and the opportunity to eat them are something special and are reserved for special moments. Keep eating sweets rare and enjoyable. Once the line is crossed and sweets become an everyday thing, the special character disappears and their presence is now expected.
Have different candies around at different times to draw attention to the special event the candy may represent. Focus on the event and how different types of candy are significant at different times of the year. Discuss the cultural or family significance of what a particular type of candy might represent. Shift the focus from mass consumption to one of importance to you and your family.
5. Don’t use candy as a reward.
When you use candy to motivate your children to perform a particular task or behave in a certain way, you are positioning it as a manipulative tool. Using candy to make children behave is a form of bribery and produces children who act for a substance. In this way, you end up producing a “candy addict”, someone who is chasing the next dose of the desirable substance.
Parents, teachers, or any professional who works with children should never use candy as a reward. This distorts the role that candy should have in a young person’s life and teaches children that the reward (in this case the candy) is more important than the task performed.
6. Help your children create an inner authority.
You won’t always be around when your kids have access to candy. You will not be there to impose a limit on your children or give them options. You want the ability to curb sweets already within them. This inner control will develop in children if you can start early and consistently use the above suggestions.
Another way to help your child develop self-control is to tell or talk to him about your child’s choices after he returns from a place where you know sweets are readily available. Help him think and talk about her decisions. Ask him to articulate what he would like to keep the same and what he would like to change next time. Help him create a plan to build on her successes.
Your child’s inner authority is the only authority he will take with him wherever he goes. Help him learn to trust her ability to decide and make healthy, responsible choices.
By following these six suggestions, you and your children will be able to enjoy the wonderful taste of chocolate and other sweets. Parties can be filled with pleasant moments of special consumption of sweets. The “candy wars” will no longer be necessary. Instead, eating sweets will go from being a weight problem and tooth decay to a wonderful moment where one can simply enjoy a sweet taste on the pallet.
