Saving Our Kids from Junk Food
Someone asked me, how do you handle junk food with your kids? How do you keep the balance of good and bad food in check? Fortunately for me, my kids are still plenty young. Being only three and four years old, their interactions with peers and such are minimal. We can’t afford cable and since the only cartoons available are on PBS they’re not exposed to cereal or candy commercials. That being said, they STILL insist on ice cream sandwiches every time we’re at the grocery store. I tend to cave on that. It’s summer, and it’s bloody hot out. It’s also cheaper than buying ice cream a la carte from the sinister looking van that sells frozen treats in our neighborhood. It’s a beige converted camper that plays a muzak version of the theme to Love Story. The word ‘Ice Cream’ is misspelled.
Ice cream sandwiches aside, my kids don't have too much access to junk food right now. Treats are pretzels, or cheese crackers, yogurt with cereal, peanut trail mix, graham crackers, or gingersnaps. Sometimes we’ll make pumpkin bread or nut bread as a treat, and we make it together. We’ll make brownies and cookies for school events and since the leftover cookies/brownies end up at the school, the kids get to have sweets there and I don’t have cookies calling to me in the kitchen. We have candy only on rare occasions, except for jelly beans, which we are using to teach the kids to use the potty. In a given day, they eat a grand total of 10 jelly beans.
On birthdays, I let my guard down and the kids get a lovely, gooey, chocolaty birthday cake and can even have seconds. The boy, however, has declared that he’d rather have a pumpkin pie for his birthday, so that’s what we make him every year. He still thinks pumpkin pie is “happy-birthday pie.” Christmas, Easter, and Halloween are the only other real health hazards junk food-wise. Again, since the kids are pretty good and don’t get chances to eat a lot of candy and junk, I’m pretty lax on holidays.
More to the point, instead of asking me everyday for cookies and sweets, my kids instead ask for grapes and raisins and trail mix. They’re always shocked and surprised when I offer them a cookie or a popsicle, which I take to be a good sign. Treats are still treats and while I strive to make sure that everything else they eat is kind of good for them, I can relax on rare occasions.
That being said, I don't always have the healthiest foods in the house. I have to shop the sales occasionally. Every few months I have to load up on regular white bread instead of multi-grain bread, because the price has been reduced to $1 a loaf. I stock up and keep the extras in the freezer until I need them. (This sounds gross and weird but it really works! I swear!) Sometimes the fruits and vegetables in the supermarket look bad, or the ones I have go bad and I’m without either for meals. Those are the days I fly to twitter and ask frantically, “lil-monmon: OMG! HELP! Do pickles count as vegetables???? 0_o;; ” I freak out, feel guilty and walk around with this knot of parental anxiety in my stomach.
I have to get over those days. I need to take a deep breath, acknowledge that I really am doing my best and bad days happen. Some days my kids won’t eat – just plain will not eat. The boy is terrified of trying anything new and lil’ girl eats like a bird. I’ve had those days where I’ve worked HOURS over something I think everyone will like and that’s healthy and comes out looking just like the picture in the recipe book! Only to have the boy say, “I want a sammich!” and lil’ girl will take two bites and say, “I’m done. May I be excused.” On those days, I tend not to offer cookies or ice cream.
Of course, these are the golden years of my totalitarian control. I'm terrified about what's going to happen once the kids get into public schools and are exposed to things like “ring pops,” and “pixie sticks,” and when that happens, I’ll need to relax a little. I know from experience that a house needs something between no junk and lots of junk. No junk food in the house makes kids go nuts and buy/eat as much as they can outside the house. Too much junk sends kids the message that junk food is harmless. Really I think the best move (and I’m still working out the kinks) is to have a few special treats in the house that are not forbidden, but given out in small helpings on occasion after healthy meals. That’s my plan and until it blows up in my face I’ll try to stick to it.
Oh, and it helps to buy treats that my do kids like, but that I don't like, like black licorice. That way I don't eat it all.
