how often does your child get candy? and do you serve 'dessert' after dinner every night?

[Anonymous]

Too much Easter candy came in our door and I either ate it (didn't need it) or passed it on to colleagues. I really feel like there's too much candy just from party goody bags, holidays (think well-meaning friends and neighbors), etc. Do you let your child have this type of treat daily, once a week, twice a week, once a month, rarely or never?

And while I am at it, I am tired of being asked for ice cream or a cookie after dinner and being met with howls of protest when I say we will have strawberries or oranges or grapes for dessert. (of course the fruit is devoured in no time.) do other families serve more cake/pie/cookies as dessert? how often (see above)?

(can you tell we are going to the dentist soon?)

[Anonymous]

We don't actually have dessert. But I'm by no means anti-sweets. I grew up in a no sugar house and I cannot get enough of the stuff now. So we don't have it in the house but if we're out we'll get ice cream or dessert. At Easter and Halloween DD is allowed to have candy everyday until it's gone. I think you just need to find a healthy balance without being crazy strict. I seriously think the fact that sugar was soooo restricted in my house I'm a sugar junkie now.

[Anonymous]

We usually have dessert 1-2 nights/week. There are other sweets in the house they're allowed to have within reason - granola bars and that sort of thing.

We also have a candy dish on the sideboard that usually has some sort of hard candy in it (peppermints or Werther's or something like that). They're allowed to have one whenever they wish, but actually they rarely do. We get chocolates on occasion as a treat, but not all that often.

[Anonymous]

Rarely have candy. I can't remember the last time. My son will occasionally have an after-dinner dessert. Sometimes rice pudding. Sometimes ice cream. Sometimes a fruit smoothie. But it's a couple of times a week, not every night.

I don't, however, generally use fruit as dessert (or treat). We eat it at most meals and as an afternoon snack, so it's considered a typical food, not a treat. But that's just us. I am not a huge fruit fan myself. Would much rather have veggies.

[Anonymous]

Yes, we do dessert every night. Dessert, however, is a simply gogurt (DS's favorite thing) or fruit of some sort. We don't do cookies, candy, cake, ice cream etc... But they do have fruit every single night after dinner and we call it dessert.

[Anonymous]

The menfolk in my house hate manufactured sweet things.
DH and DS thrive on ripe mangoes and pears - which taste just as sweet to me - after the main course. We hardly ever bake or buy desserts except for celebrations, and they are usually fruit tarts. The candy we get from Halloween, parties, Easter, etc, stays forgotten in little nooks and crannies until I throw it away.

I'm a chocolate addict though

[Anonymous]

We almost never have dessert, except at big mels over the weekend when we have company over.

However, DDs 3&2, get a lollipop or hershey kiss almost every day on our commute home. We take the buss and it keeps them quiet and happy and is a good reward for 15-20 mins of their coorperation. I dont give it to them every day and I have other things to occupy them on the bus, but it certainly helps.

[Anonymous]

We have "dessert" every night but it's usually fruit, with ice cream 1-2x a week. Probably has hard candy once a week, but we share/throw out a fair amount of holiday candy.

[Anonymous]

My kids have dessert pretty much every night. I love to bake, so there is almost always some kind of homemade dessert in our kitchen. No one in our family is even the slightest bit overweight. We are a very physically active family. And for the most part, we eat healthy meals. If I had a child who was even the slightest bit overweight or if my kids were picky eaters, I would cut back on the sugar. Ironically, they just devoured a plate of homemade chocolate chip cookies.

[Anonymous]

Dessert is a dish of plain, full-fat yogurt, with a quarter-teaspoon of colored sugar added for fun. She likes to mix colors. That's almost every night. Once or twice a week, we'll do ice cream or a cookie for snack or dessert (but not both). Her dad is a candy fiend, so I'm sure she gets a mini chocolate or two pretty often when they're hanging out together in his office. I comfort myself with the knowledge that she loves several green vegetables, and prefers water to juice.

[Anonymous]

we have dessert every night---generally a cookie or a popsicle.
I have one child who lives for dessert and one who at least 50% of the time passes it up.

[Anonymous]

We don't do "dessert" because I don't want to instill the habit of automatically expecting something sweet after dinner. The meal is the meal. We do give ice cream once or twice a week just as an afternoon snack/treat, and sometimes a cookie or brownie if we eat out.

[Anonymous]

My son has dessert every night. I bribe him to eat his dinner with it. There. I said it.

Dessert is usually an all fruit popsicle, a chocolate soy pudding or some chocolate covered sun flower seeds. He also eats lots of fruits and veggies and healthy foods. I was also in a house where sweets were off limits, and I struggle terribly with my weight and a nasty sweet tooth. My son is quite slim, so I'll keep giving him dessert until it looks like it's becoming a problem.

[Anonymous]

Almost every day. Ranges from candy to ice cream to fruit to cookies or cake or pie (I'm a baker). We love dessert in this house.

[Anonymous]

They have dessert pretty much every night, though if the kids forget to ask for it, we don't offer. They probably forget twice a week. I find that by not making a big-deal about it, they care less. So, lollipops (small Dum Dums) are often thrown away half eaten. Or they eat something small, like a couple of Hershey's kisses or a popsicle. We always have fruit as well and serve that before the junky stuff comes out, not as a reward, but just as the standard order of our meal. Often they will eat some or all dessert, then return to the fruit or even some of the savory regular dinner food.

It's funny, because I rarely got dessert as a kid other than fruit. But my parents also never made a big deal about forbidding particular foods, alcohol, etc. and as a result neither my sister nor I thought that it was some mystical thing. We rarely drank as teenagers or young adults or even now. My approach to sweets is similar for my kids as my parents' approach was to alcohol. Just another substance in the world to be enjoyed in moderation as part of a varied diet.