“Ahhh, they’re still young.”
“Let them live a little.”
“A little treat won’t hurt them every once in a while.”
“Loosen up a little.”
“You don’t want to be ‘THAT’ Mom.”
“Let them enjoy life!”
“It won’t kill them.”
How many other clean-eaters out there have heard this advice from fellow parents?
I agree to a certain extent that kids can have a treat every once in a while, or they can splurge on a sugar-filled concoction once in a blue moon (my son just had an ice cream treat the other night in celebration of a friend’s birthday).
However, I also know that when children are allowed an inch of flexibility, they will stretch it a mile and run with it. They will test their boundaries with you moving forward & expect you to give in every time.
That is part of the reason why we were so stringent with our kiddos & their eating habits at an early age. We wanted them to establish healthy limits with food, giving them a solid educational base and teaching them the principles of food. Life is already challenging enough, adding health/food issues on top of that is not something we want to welcome.
Our children actually prefer to munch on fruits and veggies than packaged foods, or sugar-filled items. And they certainly don’t feel ‘deprived’ by not eating any of these artificially-flavored food products.
Any other Clean-Eating parents out there?
