Reply to WWYD - 13 yr old just binged on an entire bag of Oreo cookies

Forum Index » Tweens and Teens

Reply to "WWYD - 13 yr old just binged on an entire bag of Oreo cookies "

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here.  Let me be clear that we do not restrict healthy food. He gets to eat as much as he wants of non-junk food. Yes, he gets enough proteins, fats, and carbs.

My mind is blown that intelligent, well-educated parents think it's okay to let their kids eat unrestricted quantities of unhealthy foods.  It's really OK if your kid wants to have six pints of Ben & Jerry's at a sitting on a regular basis?

As I said, we allow small amounts of junk food as occasional treats but I cannot fathom allowing kids of any age to free-feed on food that crowds out healthy calories.

Sugary junk food is made to be addictive and kids, especially teens, do not have the forebrain to fight the addiction.

Think about inserting other kinds of addictive substances -- vaping, meth, alcohol instead of junk food. Of course forbidding something cannot make it attractive. Does that mean we should allow free access to vapes, drugs, and alcohol?

What a total dereliction of parental duty. [/quote]

OP, We understand you mean well, but this is not normal.  Even just your language around 'allow' and considering all junk food addictive is really telling. Assuming that kids will want to have six pints of ice cream on a regular basis?  This is really abnormal. Please pursue some therapy (with a mental health professional, not a dietician).

As an aside, we purposefully do not allow our similarly aged child to buy 'treats' like this with her own money right now.  When she asks to buy candy or cookies using her own money because I won't buy it for her, we discuss that we (parents) provide food for her (including treats from time to time). But, the issue about her not getting candy is not about money.  We also discuss alternative 'treats,' which might include watching a movie at home, working on an art project, reading a book together, or even having a small serving of ice cream at home (which at least has milk/calcium, instead of completely empty calories from twizzlers or the ringpop or whatever). If she is actually hunger, we can get/make a healthy snack alternative. Of course, the time will come when she can use her own money to meet her friend and get candy or snacks or ice cream as a social activity or something-- but we are not there yet. Of course resources are not unlimited, but my husband and I both experienced perceived scarcity around treats/special foods.  We purposefully try to not set this up for our kids, obviously within reason. 
[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics