Hey there, I have a problem. My son has a sweet tooth. He loves sweets and desserts. Today it finally broke me, for the millionth time, during dinner, all I hear is "is this enough for dessert? How about now? What time is dessert? Is it dessert time now???" It's driving me crazy. Plus, I know it's not healthy. I've bought more fruit, but should I just cut dessert out altogether? Or make sweet desserts just for Sundays or something? I feel like they're not really enjoying dinner because of being so obsessed with dessert!!!! Thanks for your help ladies!
Mine get dessert on occassion. Some nights it's just "none" I don't always have stuff in the house. That helps a lot. "Sorry - we don't have anything tonight for dessert"
we never have dessert, never did so I am sorry I can't help you. Maybe just tell them sorry we are out so it's best you fill up on your dinner tonight.
Mine are pretty much always allowed dessert unless we eat unusually late....BUT, anyone who doesn't eat ALL their dinner doesn't get any. Period. There's no discussion about it -- they know the rules. If they ask about it more than once or twice during dinner, they lose 'dessert' whether they finish dinner or not. It's rarely cookies or cakes or really rich things like that, though. The only times we have those on hand is around birthdays or holidays. We have 100 calorie packs, gummies, jell-o & pudding cups, yogos, granola bars, graham crackers... things like that. Those are our snacks & "desserts" most of the time.
Thanks for your tips. I think i'm either going to limit it to weekends only or maybe just stock the house with fat free snacks or fruits and have that be dessert and maybe a rich (cake type) on Sundays. I have to do something, we've already decided to start eating better but it is making dinner not enjoyable when that's all I hear. Thanks again ladies!
Hi! I just wanted to share a few of my fave dessert ideas (we have desert ALOT!! LOL). Sugar free/fat free pudding.....You can use banana flavored and add fresh bananas,crumbled up grahm crackers and fat free cool-whip for a "banana pie parfait". Sugar free jello with fruit added and again fat free cool whip. Baked apples are also good and fruit kabobs dipped in a little chocolate are YUMMY! You can use any kind of fruit/berries and make a short cake....just use a light pound cake or angel food cake. I try to have my kids help also. We learn about math, patterns, nutrition, reading and following directions just from making a simple recipe. Plus and most importantly we get to spend a few extra minutes together having fun! Hope some of these ideas help! Peace
When my husband grew up he had dessert every night, when I grew up it wasn't even an option. Kids use energy differently than adults, kids are active and their bodies simply require more sugars. They CRAVE it, I remember being a kid and it felt like an addiction. I don't want my kids hoarding and hiding and lying about sweets. In my house, I hardly ever serve highly processed refined sugars, or artificial sweeteners. I mean to say there's nothing wrong with letting them eat as much fruit as they want, or honey sweetened whole grains, some vegetables are sweet (my 3 yr old has picked my tomato plants clean this year) . For dessert at our house, we serve whole wheat cookies almost every night, sweetened with honey usually. Carrot cake is popular, as are whole grain pancakes (strawberries or real maple syrup, not flavored corn syrup) We make brownies with whole grains and refined sugars occasionally. I have yet to find a brownie recipe that I like that doesn't use refined sugars. Other than that, we don't serve refined sugar in our house very often- I can make a lot of nutritious desserts without it. Smoothies are probably the most popular dessert in our house. Unflavored yogurt, frozen strawberries (or peaches, mangos...)and honey. I don't like buying flavored yogurts because they often use chemical sweeteners. We really pay absolutely no attention to fat content or calories, My "big thing" is avoiding chemicals and eating foods as closely to "natural" as possible. And none of us is overweight except my husband. I don't know if it's because of all the crap he ate as a kid ruining his metabolism or what.
okay hows this, Dessert in our house is occasionally usually held for special occastions. We have fat free sugar free jello pudding. or Low Fat sugar free ice cream. They taste great less sugar and often times I have fruit for desert, just an apple or orange or peach! that is enough sugar as it is! When I grew up we only had dessert on sunday or special holidays.
I wouldn't worry about it so much if 1) my son didn't seem obsessed with it (he has very often sneaked into desserts behind our backs...over and over again) and 2) he has developed a weight problem. I'm working on keeping the worst stuff out of the house and think dh is finally on board. Thanks so much for your tips!
my son can do with out the sugar and dh and I can do with out the fat, thats why we combine the ff sf pudding is the easiest to find that is low cost and if you add bananas you can make a crustless pie ( thats what I call it) I put it in a pie pan to solifify as well! there are ways around the sugar for sure!
We're the same as many people who have already posted-- We have dessert almost every night. Occasionally, we skip it "just because." (Just because I want to exert the right NOT to serve it!) I don't make sweets a reward or a bribe--really, it's just in the wording. They only get dessert if they eat all (or whatever we think is "enough") of their "real" vegetable (ie, not corn or potatoes). I've never required that they eat everything else because I really only care about the veggies and don't want to raise clean-your-plate addicts (like me!). We use the same rule for seconds--you need to eat your other stuff before you can have more of something you like. We talk a lot about healthy foods versus foods that taste good and aren't good for you (Cookie Monster's anytime foods versus sometimes foods). In my house, one kid might not have dessert even if the other kid can. I serve organic cookies (vanilla wafers, Annie's choc bunnies, TLC choc chip cookies), yogurt-covered raisins, organic m&m--things I feel really good about them eating. We rarely serve anything with refined sugars because they get those things incidentally enough as it is (birthday parties, rough doctor visits, etc.). Sometimes fruit or fruit salad is dessert, but that's certainly not their preference (they eat fruit all day, anyway). Just my two cents--
Dessert around here is usually fruit, because we always have fresh fruit on hand. Sometimes I'll make banana bread or pumpkin bread & they'll eat that (also good for breakfast). We only buy ice cream occasionally & I don't often make cake, cookies, or brownies. Those are generally only for special occasions (holidays, birthdays). When I do make sweet stuff, I make it from scratch. That way, I can control what goes in it. You can cut the amount of sugar in half, in pretty much all baked goods, without affecting the texture or flavor, and applesauce can be used as a substitute for oil. Sometimes, we don't want raw fruit, so I'll cook it. I don't cook them in butter (or any other kind of fat), I use juice instead, and I never add sugar to fruit (they're sweet enough). My family loves having a bowl of homemade applesauce, baked pears, grilled pineapple, etc. Also, no one gets dessert unless they finished their dinner. No exceptions.
Autumn, cut back on how often you make dessert. When you do have it, do not give him any when he asks. Stick to your guns. After about a month of no dessert, he might stop begging for it. Tell him he has to earn dessert by eating his dinner and by not asking for it. If he asks even once, he gives up his dessert for the evening. He will catch on eventually, I think!
Great tips Patty. I bought a few 100 calorie packs and some frozen fruit things (I think they're new, they were in the canned fruit/fruit cup section and you just sock them in the freezer). I'm going to give that a try. I think I will put into effect the no asking or you don't get it. not even asking if you've eaten enough for dessert. I also bought a bunch of fruit. Papaw had gotten a huge pack of candybars for each of them at hershey pa last weekend so they were expecting an entire candy bar every night! I decided that I'm going to toss those in the freezer and just get one out maybe for Sunday or something.....maybe I'll set up some kind of reward system for reading books w/o complaining during quiet reading time....I don't know. we'll see. But I do like the no getting anything if you ask. Thanks!
I don't know why I thought of this, but my grandmother used to make a simple dessert for me and my sisters. She would layer a dish with graham crackers and then a layer of applesauce and repeat the layers until she got it as thick as she wanted. I remember it having 6 or 8 layers. Then she topped it with Cool Whip and put it in the fridge for several hours to let the cracker soften. We loved it.
