49 // Should you hide unhealthy snacks from your kids?
Should you hide unhealthy snacks from your kids?
4 mistakes parents commonly make when it comes to keeping a secret stash of sweets and treats.
On this episode, we are going to talk about a voice message that I got from another mom. She asked if and how she and her husband can eat snacks in the presence of their kids (that they don't want or didn't plan to also offer to their kids). So, whether it is a sweet, a treat, or any food that parents keep in their "secret stash," this episode highlights four mistakes that parents often make when keeping certain snacks a secret, and how to handle them so that we are maintaining a neutrality around food in our home, promoting a routine with our kids and ourselves, allowing a reasonable amount of sugar so that both our kids and our sweet tooth feels the freedom to be satisfied, and to role model an intuitive eating approach that fosters healthy relationships with food for each member of our family.
I always enjoy hearing from you and appreciate when you ask me questions via voice memos. You can go here anytime you have a question you want to ask!
Listen to this episode of The Veggies & Virtue Podcast now!
Full Episode Transcription
Please note this a raw transcription. If something doesn’t read correctly, toggle to that timestamp in the show so that you can listen in on what was actually being said!
[00:00:00] On this episode, we are going to dive into addressing a SpeakPipe message that I got from another mom who was asking about how to handle. For her and her husband that they eat in the presence of their kids. And is there a way to enjoy their dessert if they don't plan to also offer it to their kids and how to handle that, they don't wanna hide it, but they also don't really want their kids to have those foods as often as maybe the parents want.
[00:00:27] 'em. So love this question from the mom. Always appreciate when you guys send me these voice memos, go to veggies and virtue dot. Slash ask hyphen Ashley, if you have a question you wanna ask as well, otherwise let's get into the show.
[00:00:44] Hey mama, I'm Ashley, and welcome to the veggies and virtue podcast. In this podcast, you will find simple menu ideas. Kitchen organizational systems spelled out for mom life and feeding tips and tricks that are both evidence based and grace laced. I believe that you can find flexibility when it comes to feeding your family so that you can feel calm, capable, and connected in the kitchen.
[00:01:03] As a registered dietician and Christian mom of three myself. I want you to break free from the mealtime battles. And to feel equipped while feeding your kids all day long, pull up a stool at my kitchen counter. And let me pour you a cup of coffee and say a quick prayer for you. It's time to chat about the meal times messes moments and ministry of motherhood.
[00:01:25] Hi, thanks so much for your wonderful podcast. I had a quick question about if, for example, my husband, or I want something like dark chocolate or some kind of dessert or ice cream more often, then we want to feed our kids that Well, you know, sometimes we'll go and we'll eat it on our own, but we don't want it to be perceived as something that needs to be hidden.
[00:01:47] So, so far they haven't caught us, but we want to be able to eat it in the open, but maybe eat it and not let them have it. For example, because. We wanna eat it more often than we think is maybe healthy or good for them. So anyways, just wondering how to handle, you know, things like maybe having food that's just for mama or just for Papa instead of food that's for everyone and eating that, maybe eating that in front of everyone.
[00:02:17] Thanks so much. Bye. I love this mom's honesty and I love that she asked that because I know so many parents and I hear this so often. We all have a secret stash. We keep snacks that we eat separate from our kids often after they've gone to bed. But I think this mom is so wise to ask the question of when her kids are awake and they could be aware that she's eating something that they're not being allowed to have.
[00:02:43] How do you respond to that? So I wanna. Four of the mistakes. I most commonly see when this topic comes up and how I think you could best respond to those. The first of which is with your response, because I think that there's times that are unpredictable in life, when a, I should say an opportunity to have a given snack or sweet or whatever the food might be come up that weren't planned and our response might be something.
[00:03:15] To the effect of, oh, that sounds really good. Let's have that on Friday after school, we could go get some ice cream or if you're not deferring to a lit time, your response might be Yu. That sounds really fun to do today. What flavor would you like and just go with it and don't make it a big issue with that given food, cuz really that's how you would respond to any food.
[00:03:39] So we don't wanna elevate our responses to particular foods to be a certain. Way. So oftentimes what I see is parents respond differently to certain foods. Because it is considered a sweet or some sort of a treat or what parents might perceive on their own as junk food. And so as parents, ourselves, as we learn to work through our own relationship with food and our own perception of neutrality, Or excuse me, neutrality between each food.
[00:04:12] I think that our responses start becoming more neutral in the way that we speak to these foods. Because even with this mom, I don't know if this is just Sweetss and treats. I think that was somewhat implied, but since she submitted this question on my site, I didn't get the chance to dialogue with her about it, to know, is this all snacks?
[00:04:34] Is this, if the parents want a bag of chips, is this, if the parents. An apple and they don't want their kid to have an apple. Is this, if the mom is eating peanut butter and banana, cuz she's truly hungry, but it's not time for her child to eat peanut butter and banana because maybe they already had their snack or their dinner.
[00:04:50] And so the caution I would give here and one of the mistakes that I see parents make is that their response is different. Based off the food that they're actually discussing or responding to. And so my recommendation would be that you neutralize these responses. So whatever your response is, it could be used for any of the given food.
[00:05:12] So just as I gave those samples of how you might respond here, and now if you were going to allow it versus what you would do, if you were gonna defer it to later, that response should be interchangeable. With any given food that your child might be asking for in a way that you would consider kind of quote unquote out of, out of turn or out of what your routine is.
[00:05:34] And that gets us into talking about what the routine might be. Because another mistake that I see parents make is that they don't have a routine for how. Things we're just gonna stick to sweets and treats for the context of this episode, but how thi how things like sweets are routinely offered so that our children are familiar with them.
[00:05:56] They know when to expect them. They see them regularly enough that it doesn't have such an increased in elevated interest that it is kind of an elevated food or one that's been put on a pedestal. And so if we neutralize our responses and we can also normalize these foods as a regular part of our routine, then our kids aren't as interested when they see us eat it because they know that it's regularly available.
[00:06:24] And so I wanna encourage you if you haven't listened to episode 42 or episode 18, I touch on how to kind of start introducing sweets to younger kids. And then also how to handle it. If you see that maybe your child. Taking candy into their room and you're finding rappers and kind of the opposite effect of what we're seeing here is in this situation, the mom's trying not to hide it from her kids, but if you have found a situation where your kid is hiding it from you, I encourage you to go listen to episode 18 or episode 42 on setting up kind of that sugar feeding foundation with your family.
[00:06:57] But I would encourage you. And something I touch on in these episodes is having some sort of. Dessert policy. And this isn't a hard, fast rigid food police rule based policy. This is just having some perspective as a family of how often you anticipate having desserts this doesn't account for those spontaneous moments.
[00:07:18] Like I addressed at the beginning where you might respond. Yes. That sounds fun. That pop school truck is here at the park. We are here. We are gonna enjoy. Leave it at that, it doesn't need to be a thing, but that might not have been a thing that was actually planned on your dessert policy for the week.
[00:07:33] However, what might be planned as part of your routine is knowing that you guys are going to offer dessert every other day or that on Wednesdays, you bake cookies. And then on Friday nights you do ice cream, Sundays. And at church on Sundays, you have donuts or something like that. And so you may kind of build in some of these regular times so that when you are deferring.
[00:07:56] A request and you are responding with neutrality. You don't have to make it be about the sugar. It's not, you can't have that. It has too much sugar. Instead, your response and you're deferring is we're not gonna have that today, but, but we are gonna have cookies again on Wednesday. What flavor do you wanna bake this week?
[00:08:13] Or, you know, we're not gonna have ice cream today. That's not on the menu, but I'm really looking forward to our ice cream Sundays on Friday. What kind of toppings do you think we should do? Or, you know, that's not on the menu for right now. we're having X, Y, Z for snack, but I know you love donuts and that's gonna be something we're gonna have on the Sunday menu.
[00:08:33] And so you're deferring because you have a routine in place. And so these desserts don't have to be given on demand. And so, well, I know I'm kind of speaking around this. Mom's. Question. I think it'll all come together for help you to understand how you can kind of avoid some of these mistakes. Because one of the way that we set up this routine is by having realistic and reasonable expectations, because the third mistake that I see parents make is often their unrealistic with what they expect of their kids.
[00:09:07] Kids like sweets just as us as adults do, maybe even more because proportionately, they tend to crave those really sweet, easy to digest, quick carb sources, and they have less developed pallets off often. And so. We need to be realistic that it's not wrong for them to want these foods just as it's not wrong for us as adults to crave or want some of these foods on occasion, but in order to be realistic and reasonable about setting up what our family's routine might be and offering these is we need to have some perspective on how much sugar our kids maybe should have.
[00:09:44] And the same goes for us because proportionally. In general, if we're looking at very simple math and kids, young children on a thousand calories per day, and adults will say on 2000 calories a day, again, this isn't the context of the episode. So I don't wanna get too nitty gritty into the math of that.
[00:10:00] But for some really basic math, if we look at the recommendation of having 10% of our calories coming from sources of added sugar, Naturally, there's going to be a difference between the a hundred calories or 25 grams of sugar that allows a child on a thousand calorie diet versus the 200 calories and 50 grams of sugar that is within healthy limits for our adult diet, because proportionally it's the same because we eat.
[00:10:28] Proportionally twice as much as them. And while I absolutely do not advise counting calories for 99.9% of people, I do think it's helpful to have realistic and reasonable expectations because I see that being a mistake, families make that they're overly restricting their child. And they're trying to.
[00:10:46] You know, they're not paying attention to where the sugar is just kind of sneaking into the everyday foods, but they're being overly restrictive of the sweets and the treats and the foods that are highly palatable and very much permissible. And, but they're sources of known sugar. And so we're not setting realistic expectations because we're.
[00:11:06] We are often restricting our kids from these foods and it can create more in of obsession because they feel forbidden. And so particularly in this mom's question, as she talks about not giving it to her child, and she said, you know, they're wanting, the adults are wanting these foods more often than their kids and they want to eat it on their own and they don't wanna hide it.
[00:11:29] Applaud that, because I think it's wise that this mom doesn't want to do this in secret because what we don't want is our kids to walk in on us hiding or sneaking certain foods, because again is our, is there neutrality there? Are we going to do that the way we would hide an apple? If versus hideable of ice cream.
[00:11:47] And if we're, if our answer is no, we likely need to take a step back and reconsider. Are we being neutral in our responses to any food being offered outside of when we're offering it to kids? And then do we have a routine set up so that our kids are also routinely getting such options? Around reasonable standards, because if this mom feels that this is being offered more than what is healthy, I would ask her, well, how often is that?
[00:12:17] Is that this is happening maybe once or twice a week, once or twice a day, every day. How, how often is this and how does that fit within the overall routine and dessert policy that your family has established for the children and the adult? Because this is where I think we put this all together and we practice.
[00:12:36] The response that we have being neutral. We practice making sure that we have a routine in place that is fitting and it helps to satisfy not just our nutritional needs, but also our appetites as intuitive eaters. And it helps us to set realistic and reasonable expectations because the fourth and final mistake I see parents make is.
[00:13:02] We don't always role model to our kids, what we want them to learn. And so just as we say, more as caught than taught, I think that's the case here too, because so often we wouldn't know what response to given this because we don't necessarily know how to role model, intuitive eating to them. And while as adults, we can work through the framework and apply intuitive eating on our.
[00:13:25] Ultimately children do still need adults to help them understand what, when and where to eat. So we, we can still help shape intuitive eating habits in kids without letting them have a free for all around the same foods that we're speaking about here, being these sweets and treats. However, I think the mistake being made is that oftentimes we feel that we need to focus on the food itself.
[00:13:48] And so rather than role modeling, intuitive eating. Or role modeling that we have reasonable expectations of ourselves, and we have routines to how we eat and snack during the day. What we're role modeling to them is secrecy and shame. And we're trying to cover up something if it's it's bad. And so that's a missed opportunity because we're making the mistake.
[00:14:11] That is reinforcing that diet culture within our family. And so what I would encourage and recommend families to do here is to recognize that what you can role model is the very thing that you would want your kid to do. And you can very reasonably, just as we talked about neutral responses, what your role, what your role modeling to them is neutrality in your response, a routine that you eat routinely throughout the day.
[00:14:37] This isn't, you cheating this isn't you sneaking this isn't you needing to hide. But you have very realistic and reasonable expectations of yourself and your appetite. And you can simply say, this is my bedtime snack. I stay up a little bit later than you and I found my body needs a bedtime snack. This I haven't.
[00:14:53] And I would, if you're eating at a time, that's not one of their meals or snacks, I would position it as it's one of your meals or snacks. Because again, going back to the neutrality of whether or not it is dark chocolate or ice cream or a banana with peanut butter or a yogurt. Or apple slices, whatever that food is.
[00:15:12] If you are eating it when you don't want them to have it, for whatever reason, the neutrality comes across. When we say I'm having a snack, it doesn't matter to me. If it's a dark chocolate or celery of peanut butter, what matters to me is that it's a time that it's not available to your child. And then you can re.
[00:15:33] You've already had your snack and we're going to eat dinner in an hour. Would you like to have celery and peanut butter tomorrow? Because your response would be the same there as you've already had your afternoon snack. I haven't had mine yet, but if you'd like to have this, you can have it with your snack tomorrow.
[00:15:47] If it's dark chocolate. Or ice cream, so you can defer, but in a way that's so neutral that you could insert literally any food into that response. And so to recap, the mistakes that I want you to avoid and the responses I want you to instead consider are I want you to have a neutral response. I want you to ask yourself, could any food be substituted in what you say?
[00:16:09] If you were caught eating it at a time that you wouldn't offer it to your kid. Second, I want you to ask, do you have a routine in. For yourself, do you eat regularly meals and snacks? Does your child have that routine in place and where do desserts fit within that routine? So your child knows that Sweetss and treats are routinely available to them.
[00:16:30] Third. I want you to ask yourself are such foods like Sweetss and treat. Is available in a reasonable way. Are you overly restricting and making them feel unnecessarily forbidden because they're not very allowed or are you reasonable about how you can make all foods fit for your family and the fourth and final mistake?
[00:16:50] I would love to encourage you to do differently. Is to role model, this intuitive eating approach, utilizing these three other mistakes and areas of opportunity that we've talked about so that you can shape for your child, what, when and where they can decide to enjoy at any given food in varying amounts, and to make sure that your.
[00:17:14] responses to them are reinforcing all of these principles, but in a way that allows them to see that these foods aren't forbidden instead, it's just a differing routine. That is more reasonable for you as the adult. Thank you so much for spending the time with me today. I'm glad to hopefully just get to pour into you and help give you and your family some direction in your relationships with food and how you approach feeding your kids and raising them.
[00:17:43] To be healthy, but also adventurous and competent eaters. I would love to come alongside you in this process. If this is something you struggle with, or if the context of today's episode felt like a little bit too big of an ask to do alone, I would love to partner with you in this journey. All you need to do is go to veggies and virtue.com/schedule, and you can schedule a 30 minute coaching call with me where we can hop on and discuss some of the hurdles that you might be having in feeding your family.
[00:18:13] And help you come up with some easy, actionable steps that you can implement right away so that you don't have to feel stuck anymore, but can instead begin moving forward in how you feed your family?
