SYPM002: Sugar! with Rose Amanda

Jen Lumanlan: 00:02

Hi, I'm Jen and I host the Your Parenting Mojo podcast where I critically examine strategies and tools related to parenting and child development that are grounded in scientific research and principles of respectful parenting. In this series of episodes called sharing Your Parenting Mojo, we turn the tables and hear from listeners. What have they learned from the show that's helped their parenting? Where are they still struggling? And what tools can we find in the research that will help? If you'd like to be notified when new episodes are released and get a free guide to seven parenting myths we can safely leave behind seven fewer things to worry about, subscribe to the show at your parentingmojo.com. You can also continue the conversation about the show with other listeners in the Your Parenting Mojo Facebook group. I do hope you'll join us!

Jen Lumanlan: 00:56

Hello, and welcome to this new segment of the Your Parenting Mojo podcast which we're calling sharing Your Parenting Mojo. And this is where we turn the tables and have a chat with a listener. Today we're talking with Rose Herman about talking with girls about math and how to manage sweets with a child who really really really likes sugar. Welcome, Rose.

Rose: 01:15

Thanks so much for having me.

Jen Lumanlan: 01:16

Do you want to tell us a bit about your family and yourself, and where you are?

Rose: 01:21

Yeah, my name is Rose. And I live with my husband, Derek, and my four-year-old daughter, Alma, in Saarbrucken, Germany, which is a small city close to the border with France. My husband and I met in grad school and we're American, and he got a job here in Germany at the Max Planck Institute for software systems. He's a professor of computer science here and I teach communication skills to the graduate students. And our daughter Alma has been attending a local public Montessori daycare, which is now a preschool. It's all kind of one of the same here since she was one. And she's growing up bilingual, which has been pretty cool. Has nothing to do with us since we just speak English at home.

Jen Lumanlan: 02:01

Okay, I was wondering if you speak any other language with her at home as well. But yeah, I don't know if you remember my bilingual episode. Yeah, it definitely seems as though you're setting her up well, since she will have to learn German to function out in school, but she will also have to retain the English to communicate with you.

Rose: 02:40

Yeah, that's been definitely fun sort of witnessing that process. So here in Germany, right now, she's in what's called kindergarten from three to six. And when she's actually six and a half, she'll switch to school. And I was interested in your whole how to decide about homeschooling course, but then when I looked into, I discovered that homeschooling is illegal in Germany.

Jen Lumanlan: 02:40

Yes, it is.

Rose: 02:42

I can save some money.

Jen Lumanlan: 02:45

Yes, and I have theories about that. I'm not sure if they're true or not. But my theory is that it's because of Germany's history and that the state wants to make sure that they know what children are learning so that there aren't children, you know, learning certain kinds of fringe fundamentalist things that they might if they were a lot of parents homeschooling, but I don't know if that's really true or not.

Rose: 03:05

I suspect that is part of it. Although, here, we're only five kilometers from the French border. If people want to homeschool they just moved their family across the border.

Jen Lumanlan: 03:13

Okay. That would be a more expensive way of doing it. You'd have to take the course and you'd have to move. So do you want to tell us about what is some of your favorite episodes of the show?

Rose: 03:27

Yeah. So can I just say, first of all, just generally, I really appreciate the podcast because it's just so broad. I feel like a lot of podcasts are really focused on sort of how do we get parenting podcasts that I tried at least focus on? How do we get our kids to do what we want them to do? Or how to get them to do what we don't want them to do? Which is obviously very useful. But I feel like I have that pretty well covered. And if I don't, I can go on one of my Facebook parenting groups and ask a specific question and get lots of suggestions. But I think what's a bigger issue for me is sort of like, what are my goals as a parent? What's my philosophy as a parent? What do I want to achieve sort of long term and I feel like that's where your podcasts really shine for that it sort of, it just covers so many big picture issues that I didn't even really thought about before.

Jen Lumanlan: 04:10

Yeah, I'm glad that that comes across. It's definitely something that I try and do. II think there are a lot of resources around there that will sort of one paper about growth mindset and say, “Growth mindsets amazing. Here are 10 ways that you can encourage it,” and I try and step back and say, “kay, is growth mindset, really something that we should be paying attention to in the first place?” And on the goal-setting front, that's actually something we cover in depth in the finding Your Parenting Mojo group. The membership group is opening up again in July. And we spend an entire month working through how to clarify your goals. And also make sure that the ways that you parent in daily life are aligned with those goals as well.

Rose: 04:48

Okay, I'll definitely have to look into that. The last time, I was, “Oh, I don't need to join. I've got everything covered.” I'm a computer scientist, but I consider myself a scientist and a pretty skeptical one at that, so I really like that you not only use one of these in-depth reviews of the literature but you kind of cast your own critical lie on the literature. And I feel like it's pretty rare to find parenting resources that have that sort of spirit of criticism and inquiry that yours has. And so, I really appreciate that. And I love that, it's not really personally that meaningful to me, it doesn't affect sort of my day-to-day, but I love that you always, you know, ask what does the research say about anyone other than sort of White privilege parents. And so even when the episode doesn't really apply to my own personal situation, I feel like I always learned something.

Jen Lumanlan: 05:38

Cool. Thanks very much.

Rose: 05:39

That's what I love about your podcast. Question about an episode—I don't know that I have a favorite episode. But I think the one that most personally impacted me was the one about parenting beyond pink and blue. It's always been important to me that I sort of tried to parent in a gender-neutral way, I've always tried to just follow my daughter's interests, whether it happens to be you know, vehicles and construction sites, or dolls and cooking. But until I listened to that episode, I hadn't really thought about some of the other aspects of gender. And in particular, the person you're interviewing, because there's something about some quotes a number from a study that when they sort of looked at mothers of toddlers, they found that mothers of toddlers sort of talk about numbers in this sort of just very general way with their toddler boys three times as much as their toddler girls. And I was shocked. That's amazing. I could not leave that number. And I only have a girl so I don't have anything to compare it to. But I was like if I had had a boy, would I be talking about numbers more? And from that moment on, I started to like, be very conscious about how I talk about numbers and mathematical concepts and use all of that in my daily life, so that's been something that's been stuck with me, and I haven't dropped it. And it's something that's really personal to me, as well, because I'm in computer science. I have a Ph.D. in computer science from a very good department, but it was actually I felt like I didn't have the math skills that I needed to do what I wanted to do in grad school. And it's one of the reasons I actually, I think, ultimately didn't pursue a research career. So I don't want her to have that, right? I want her to be able to do whatever it is that he wants to do, whether it's not related or not.

Jen Lumanlan: 07:17

Yeah. So what are some of the really practical ways that you sort of bring that home for her?

Rose: 07:20

Oh, we do so much. So in the beginning, it was just sort of talking about, “Oh, you have to strawberries” or whatever, and counting stairs, we live on a fourth-floor walk-up, so we get a lot of practice counting stairs. And as she's gotten older, we do sort of more advanced things. So instead of counting by ones, you know, we do skip counting and count by twos, or by fives or by threes, or we count backwards, or we also do a lot with time, she's very interested in time and weather, and temperature. So we talked a lot about numbers, I tried to make it to keep it childline, which I think is something I struggle with a little bit. Not, I don't want to shut down a throw and have our heat map. So it's hard to find that balance sometimes. But I tried to just respond to our own interests and she will say like, “When is Nana gonna be up? And my mom was in Texas, and so I'll say, “Well, you know, Nana, wakes up at seven. And we're seven hours difference here,” whatever it is. And so we sort of count and say, “What time will it be when she wakes up here?” Or, “When's daddy going to be home?” “Well, what time does dad get home? And what time is it now?” And then we do the math there. And just sort of bring it up whenever it arises. I remember once she was very upset because she was trying to distribute some post-it notes and she couldn't make it, so we had the same number. And he wanted it to be fair, and so we have to talk about like odd versus even numbers. In some ways, these kids are like sponges. I remember we talked about like very briefly, and then like a week later, she was emptying the dishwasher. And she's like, “Mom, there’s an odd number on plates, but I need an even number of bowls,” and I was like, “What?” She was emptying the dishwasher with one plate in each hand, and when she got to the end, you know, there was one left and she couldn’t do it. She instantly realized, “Oh no, there’s an odd number, whereas, with the bowl, she emptied them all. And then there were none left, so.

Jen Lumanlan: 08:59

That sounds very child-led. You're directly sort of building on her interests, you're responding to her questions and helping her to figure things out for herself. And that sounds very interest led to me.

Rose 09:1

I try. I think we probably do more. Like I said, there's a lot with temperatures and times. She's been reading numbers for a long time because she was very passionate about automobiles and got into license plates. And so the time is now very important in our lives, so we do a lot of sort of time math. And so right now she's in a board game phase. And so I've been ripe for like, as long as we're gonna play board games, we might as well try to play some with a sort of a map twist. Even something as basic as Chutes and Ladders, which she loves. Although it's definitely boring. So instead of just counting four spaces, we'll be like, “Oh, you're on the five, but you have to go 4 spaces. What number do you think you'll end up on?

Jen Lumanlan: 09:52

Yes, Domino's is good for that too, it teaches Servitization which is how to know what a number is just by looking at it instead of having to count each time.

Rose: 10:01

Yeah, I saw that on your infographic. And I thought, “Oh! Our Domino's have trucks on them.” We got her best friend’s triominos set, which I don't know if you know that. So they're triangles have three sides. It was like even more fun. So I thought, “Okay, we got to borrow her friend’s triominos set to work on our Servitization.” Is that what you said?

Jen Lumanlan: 09:52

So when you said you were interested in appearing on the show you mentioned the one thing that you wanted to discuss was around sugar and dessert. Do you want to tell us a bit more about that?

Rose: 10:41

Yeah, so it's definitely been something we've been struggling with for a while, now. Before she was one. Before she sort of went to daycare, it wasn't an issue because she just was, you know, whatever we had at home we had and mostly for desserts, we had things like berries and yogurt and things. But sort of once she got exposed and realized that there's sugar out in the world, it's been somewhat of a struggle for me. So I tried to follow Ellen Satte’s division of responsibility, not perfectly, but more or less. And she says, you know, serve dessert occasionally. And you can limit it to one serving. And then every once in a while, also serve unlimited sweets for a snack, for example. And then in situations like parties or something, just basically let your kid decide how much to eat. And I tried that at the beginning, but there were two problems. One was that the amount of sweet she ate at parties was enormous and then I didn't know what to do. So like the first time we were at a party or at a Christmas party and they just had 25 Different kinds of German Christmas cookies on the tables, and all the other kids ate a couple cookies, and then went and played, and she just sat there for two and a half hours eating cookies.

Jen Lumanlan: 11:55

My daughter does that with smoked salmon.

Rose: 11:58

And, you know, she was, as you would expect, did not feel very well afterwards. And I thought, “Okay, well, maybe that'll just be a learning experience,” but she was so little, then. I don't know if she was too little that she didn't remember those two, that they were too far in between the situations or what, but it didn't really seem to stick. And we had the same thing happen the next time and my husband says, “You've got to cut her off. She's making herself miserable.” And then I didn't know what to do. And then at home, she was started saying, “I don't want berries for dessert. I want chocolate, I want cookies,” I want whatever the other kinds of things she’s been exposed to at daycare were. And so we started mixing that in occasionally but then it would be this sort of constant, “Are we having cookies tonight?” You know, in tears and just being really upset about it no matter what you say. And we're okay with letting her be upset about it. But it just wasn't fun for anyone. And I thought, “Well, maybe it's just that she doesn't know what to expect,” right? Like, she doesn't know when she's gonna get the cookies. And so it's always this question. And so I thought, “Okay, maybe we just need a little more structure.” And so we decided she could have one sweet thing a day. And she could decide whenever she wanted. And as most of the time, that means she wakes up at 7am and goes out. And so like, whenever she gets, whatever sweets, anyone gives her sweets, we keep around and she's gonna go pick whatever she wants, it happened, which was seemed to be helping for a while. But now we have a situation where you know, for not paying attention, she'll go hide and eat things. Like she clearly feels restricted. And then another situation is that later in the day, she gets an opportunity to have something sweet. And then we have this sort of one-day policy. And we've already she's already had it, then I'm like, “Oh, what do I do?” And it'd be fine if it was every once in a while but it's very frequently like we often go to the playground after preschool and every day, between four and five o'clock with ice cream trucks around, rolls around, and every other kid on the playground goes and gets an ice cream cone. And we eat dinner at 5:30. So it always feels to me like it's crazy to have an ice cream cone at 5:30 every day. Or if we go we'd go to sort of like a kid gym class twice a week, which is four to five and all the other kids, every single one of them is eating croissants, they're eating cookies, they're eating candy, whatever it is that they're eating so constantly between four and five. And then I don't know what to do. She clearly feels like why does everyone else get all of this stuff and I don't? And I don't want to just do it and give it to her all the time. You know, everyday at the playground and ice cream and every day at gym class. I suggested to her that, you know, she doesn't have to eat her sweet in the morning. She could bring it to gym class and have it like the other kids there. But she didn't like that idea, of course. And I suggested to her that you know, she complained sometimes that the amount is too small. And I say well you know if you want to have more you can have more but then we're going to have the less frequently we're not going to have them every day and she doesn't like that idea either.

Jen Lumanlan: 14:48

Yeah, I love that you've been trying different ideas to try and make it work. And you also said that you have a hard time with self-control around sweets. Were sweets banned when you were a child?

Rose: 14:57

No, they weren't. So we weren't one of these sort of all sweets all the time family. We remember having like chocolate chip cookies after school and we always had birthday cakes. And my dad ate ice cream every day in my life growing up for breakfast. Okay, it was still a chocolate ice cream that he made himself but still full of sugar. So, no, but I think there definitely was this sort of attitude that you know, sweets are not healthy. That sort of like treat food. That's not the real food.

Jen Lumanlan: 15:30

Yeah. Well, I know every parent listening to this right now is thinking, Okay, now Jen is gonna give the answer. And I'm gonna know what to do about this. And so I just want to say, you know, firstly, there is no one right answer, because every child is different in this regard. Some children don't care about sugar at all, when my daughter's birthday party, she'll get a slice of cake. And she'll eat as much of it as she wants to. And she'll just leave the rest on the plate. And that's not a statement about her self-control, or whatever. It's just, she feels like she's had enough of that thing and moves on. And some children just want to eat more sugar, or, you know, sort of seems like they have a little less self-control on this. And partly, you know, it may be a genetic thing. Partly, its food manufacturers have gotten really good at making these kinds of foods very appetizing. And so when we're thinking about this issue, we're sort of thinking, okay, that when they're older, they're going to need to learn how to function in this world where sweets are essentially unrestricted when they're grownups. But when they're young, I sort of feel as though it's not really fair to pit a four-year-olds developing brain against, you know, a multimillion-dollar research facility and Frito Lay runs one in Texas that I think has a $4 million a year budget. And that's just for potato chips, for one company. And so all of these companies have these facilities, and they're trying to make foods so that we want to eat more and more and more of them. And so I do think that we need to fall somewhere in between this realm of no sweets are allowed ever and all sweets are allowed all the time. And it's navigating that path that I think is the really tricky part.

Rose: 17:08

Yeah, and I think it particularly in the context of you're in a culture where everyone else is doing something different than you do, that makes it hard, right? Because of us in our house and you sort of have nothing to compare it to then feel this sense of restriction.

Jen Lumanlan: 17:21

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's one reason it's really a lot easier to have children eating a healthy diet when they're young, when they haven't yet sort of, you know, been to birthday parties and been to these events and realize that this stuff is out there, and it's really good. You mentioned that you're using Ellen Satter’s division of responsibility and we mostly use that as well. And so, for parents who aren't familiar with that, is the idea that the parent is responsible for the what, when and where of eating, and the child is responsible for whether and how much. And so they get to say, “Am I going to eat now or not?” And if so, “How much am I going to eat?” And so we do generally follow that. But I do think that Ellen Satter has this really rosy view of children's vegetable consumption, because in one of her books, she talks about how the majority of children do get their recommended amount of vegetables. But then she goes on to say that a decent chunk of it is in the form of potatoes and a form of French fries. And so she didn't cite any studies at all in support of that idea, so I did some research and sort of tried to figure out are children getting enough vegetables? And all the research I can find says that no, they're not. They're getting about half of what we think they should be getting. And so I think sort of the the unlimited sweets idea makes a lot more sense when the child is otherwise getting a balanced diet.

Rose: 18:43

And my daughter is I mean, I think she's definitely on the high end of vegetable consumption. She's She was just about eat any vegetable. She's not into turnips.

Jen Lumanlan: 18:58

She can be forgiven for that, I think.

Rose: 19:01

But I think part of that is because I don't let her have all the sweets and all of the pretzels and all of the croissants and all of that all the time. So she's hungry.

Jen Lumanlan: 19:09

Yeah, yeah.

Rose: 19:10

Right? I think, if I did, then she actually wouldn’t be interested, right? I can already tell when she's not hungry. She doesn't eat much for dinner. And she he eats lunch at daycare, which is basically pasta and cream sauce every day. And she sometimes eats breakfast at daycare, too. And then basically, dinner is the only meal I have that I can control.

Jen Lumanlan: 19:27

Right. So she's getting a lot of foods that we wouldn't necessarily call super healthy than just because of where she's spending a lot of her time.

Rose: 19:36

Yeah, and that's not something I can control over out of daycare.

Jen Lumanlan: 19:41

And so I'm wondering sort of sticking specifically on the sweets issue. We talk on the show and in resources that I put out about having problem-solving conversations where you really try and understand the interests behind the sort of position of “I want more sweets,” “I don't want you to have as many sweets” and then have a sort of problem solve around how we can meet everybody's needs in a way that sort of keeps everybody healthy. But also allows access to sweet foods in this case. Have you had that kind of conversation with her where you talk through, you know, what is it that you like about candy? And how often do you think you should be allowed to have candy? And sort of brought your perspective as well and sort of tried to work towards an agreement?

Rose: 20:23

I haven't asked her specifically. I mean, I know what she likes about it. And she'll tell me, I have asked her and she said it tastes, “Good,” which I think is a reasonable answer. And I haven't asked her per se, how many times or how much she think is reasonable to have. We did have a little bit of this sort of, like, I know, you want to have things when everyone else is having it, and then I said, “Well, you know, we can do that. But that would mean that we’ll rather have less frequent.” But that wasn't exactly a problem solving.

Jen Lumanlan: 20:54

Yes, exactly. Yeah, that was one thing I noticed in when you were talking about it, you were doing a lot of the suggesting of ideas. And it really gives children a much greater sense of autonomy and ownership over the solution. If they can be the one that generates the ideas.

Rose: 21:09

Yeah, I'll try again, I've actually never managed to have a successful problem-solving conversation with my daughter. We've tried in many different kinds of scenarios, and she's never generated a single idea. I don't know why that is,

Jen Lumanlan: 21:23

Okay. Well, it is a practice. You may want to start on a kind of a less emotionally charged issue. And you know, some other thing that has been a small point of contention, where you could ask her, what's her idea for, you know, moving forward with this and solving this problem? And whatever idea she comes up with, if it's even remotely acceptable to you, you say, “Yes, let's do that!” And she'll get the idea that if she brings these things to you that you'll consider them and take them on and do them if you can, and then move on to the more emotionally charged issues like eating, and then you know, with the additional practice, I think it's going to be something that she'll get better at doing. So that's sort of one potential way to go about doing it. And I think I'm wondering what would happen if you had a period of time where she was allowed to eat whatever she wanted to eat?

Rose: 22:17

Whenever, also.

Jen Lumanlan: 22:19

Yeah, I guess so. I mean, that you would still have meals, and what you ate at meals would be what you decide.

Rose: 22:25

But basically, everything in the house is fair game at any time.

Jen Lumanlan: 22:28

No. At snack times at designated snack times that she would be allowed to have as much of whatever she wanted, as much as she wants. And if she's out, and the ice cream truck comes around, she's allowed an ice cream. If she was at a gathering, and they're all eating cookies, she's allowed cookies, What would happen do you think if you allow that for some period of time that maybe you didn't communicate to her there would be an end to that? Because that might encourage her to think, “Oh, this is gonna be over in a week, I need to shove as much sugar in as I can.” But in your mind, you think, “Okay, we're going to do this for a week or two and see how it goes.” But as far as she's concerned, this is sort of the new normal. And at the end of that period of time, you could have another problem solving conversation and reassess and see where things are.

Rose: 23:14

So should I wait until we established some success with problem-solving before I try.

Jen Lumanlan: 23:18

I mean, I would have that as a potential idea in the problem-solving conversation. I mean, ideally, what's going to happen is you're going to have this conversation, and she's going to say, “Okay, well, I think it's fair for me to have X, Y, and Z,” and that might not be exactly what you would choose, but it's acceptable to you. But if she is not able to generate that, and she doesn't find any of your other ideas acceptable, then it seems as though the thing she's going to find acceptable is, you know, at non-mealtimes, I'm allowed to eat sweets. And so, what you can do is allow it for a defined period of time in your mind. And then after a couple of weeks, if you feel as though it's still completely out of control, and she has not been able to begin to self-regulate, then you could say, “Hey, can we talk about this again? Because we said that we were going to have unlimited access to sweets, and you've been eating a lot of sweets. And do you remember how we talked about how it's important to eat all different kinds of food to keep your body healthy? It's my job to keep you healthy. And I'm wondering if we can talk about how we can get more healthy foods into your diet, as well as some of these other foods that you really seem to enjoy.”

Rose: 24:29

So you propose telling her that I'm changing things when I start this?

Jen Lumanlan: 24:33

I mean, I think if you can arrive at it through a problem-solving conversation.

Rose: 24:37

Oh, I see what you mean.

Jen Lumanlan: 24:38

Then it's not so much telling her as we are deciding together. And hopefully, first she will have proposed something that isn't unrestricted sweets that you will find acceptable and you can try that first.

Rose: 24:50

I see. So ask her how much do you think is okay. And when do you want to be able to eat sweets? And she says, “Whenever the ice cream truck rolls around, and whenever the other kids are having a gym class in the morning,” and whatever else, and I say, “Fine.”

Jen Lumanlan: 25:04

Well, and if that is fine, if you're not able to negotiate to a better point, then I think it's worth giving it a try for what in your mind is going to be a defined period of time because she obviously feels restricted. If she’s sneaking food, she's feeling restricted, even if you feel as though she's getting too much. And we know from the research, that if children grow up feeling restricted, then those are the kids that—they're the ones at the dessert table, and stuffing their faces throughout the rest of their lives. And so what we need to try and do is to give her some autonomy over this as much as we can, while still making sure to the extent that she's getting a balanced diet, and that she is eating foods that are good for her body as well. So hopefully, by putting this sort of defined limit on it in your mind, you know, again, not that you're communicating it to her, so she doesn't feel as though she has to stuff it in. You're allowing her to sort of take more responsibility for what she puts in her body. And you can have ongoing conversations. It doesn't have to be, “Okay, we'll talk in a couple of weeks,” and I hope this goes well. But it can be, “Oh, yeah, you had the ice cream, and you didn't feel hungry at dinnertime, right? But now you're super hungry again. What can we do about that?” “Oh, you had five cookies for snack, didn't you? You're running around the house, and you have so much energy,” and then in half an hour when she's crushed out on the sofa, “Yeah, that's what sugar does to your body—it gives you all this energy super-fast, and then it wears off. And this is what it does. And if you eat different kinds of foods, they give you different kinds of energy.” And so, allowing her to experience that.

Rose: 26:38

I've never actually seen any of those things happen, though.

Jen Lumanlan: 26:41

Oh, really?

Jen Lumanlan: 26:42

I've never seen her have a sugar high or crash. I've seen the main symptom of not eating what I consider a reasonably healthy diet for her is constipation.

Jen Lumanlan: 26:50

Well, that's another thing. Absolutely,

Rose: 26:55

So, I guess we can talk about that. But then she'll just say, “Oh, I need more prunes.”

Jen Lumanlan: 26:58

We tempt sugar. Yeah, we definitely talk about that, too. You know, how is your poo looking? And does it hurt when it's coming out? “Oh, yeah, that means your body needs more fiber,” and some of the foods that have fiber are vegetables and beans and these other kinds of things. And this is why we eat all different kinds of foods, and not just the foods that taste really good to us. So, I think that this is going to be an ongoing journey for you. But the more that you can have her feel a sense of autonomy over the decision-making process, the better I think it's going to get in the long term because we know from the evidence that even if you still feel as though she's getting too much sugar that if she's feeling restricted, then those are not positive outcomes in terms of health and weight, as well.

Rose: 27:46

Yeah, and one thing I wonder is to what extent do I have to do that now? Like, okay, clearly, if she feels restricted when she's not able to go out and buy things at stores, then that's gonna be bad. But like, if it's four versus like, six, does it matter? Can I let her feel restricted till six and then try to open up and let her be more in charge of her own intake and do more of this problem-solving when I feel like she's a little bit more ready? Or is that unreasonable?

Jen Lumanlan: 28:13

Yeah, I'm thinking back to the interview we did with Alfie Kohn on rewards and the idea that you can sort of use rewards to get the child to do something you want them to do. And over time, it will become something they're intrinsically motivated to do. And he said, “No, that's not how it works.” You know, it is our job to keep our children healthy, I'm not going to say that we need to give them unrestricted access needs to mean that they are eating junk food for every meal, what we need to work towards is the idea that unrestricted access means a structure around meals and that over time there, we support them in developing this capability to regulate the sugary foods that they eat. Does that make sense?

Rose: 29:02

Yes, I just wonder how that looks over time and how much of that needs to happen now at 4. Because I am providing structure and I'm not completely restricting.

Jen Lumanlan: 29:10

Yeah, yeah, it's an ongoing process. But you seem fairly clear that it's what's happening now is not working for you. And it doesn't seem as though it's working for her either, because she's sneaking food. So you need to sort of figure out some path forward from here. And you're going to attack a bit, you know, you're gonna go to the left here and then the right here and then the left and the right and sort of that's going to be an ongoing process throughout her life probably, but you need to be heading more in the direction of autonomy over decision making, so that she can feel as though she has a sense of control and that she is not being restricted as much as she feels she is right now. So it doesn't have to be you know, flip a switch overnight, this is what has to happen, but over time on this journey that is the direction that you're moving more in. Any other questions to clarify anything on that?

Rose: 30:08

No, I think we've covered it.

Jen Lumanlan: 30:10

Okay. Okay, well do check in. Let me know how it goes. I know you're in the Your Parenting Mojo Facebook group so you can always put a post up in there. And anyone else who's listening, feel free to join that group as well, and we can start a thread on this conversation. If this is something that other people are struggling with. And they have aspects to this issue that we didn't quite address in this conversation, we can certainly do that in there as well. And yeah, this is, it's not going to be something that gets fixed in one problem-solving conversation, you're probably going to have a number of them over the years. And it's going to iterate and you're going to learn and grow on this issue together. And that problem-solving tool is something that is going to serve both of you so well as you move forward and have inevitable conflicts, to work them through together and in a way that meets both of your needs.

Rose: 30:58

Great, thanks.

Jen Lumanlan: 31:00

So, thanks so much for taking the time to talk.

Rose: 31:01

Oh, thanks so much for having me and giving me your thoughts on this sweets challenges. I think I'm definitely going to think about how to apply some of what you talked about with these, sort of involving her and these sort of problem-solving sessions. I think I might do what you say and try to get that moving first on something a little bit easier to get her used to the idea. And in the meantime, perhaps try to figure out a way to give her a little more autonomy until we get there where I feel like she's sort of can be involved in the problem-solving process, perhaps let her pack her snack herself each day and let her choose how much or whatever she wants to put, in order to have an ice cream at the park or whatever it is. So give her at least a little bit more feeling of autonomy in the meantime. And then once I feel like she understands this idea of sort of proposing solutions that we could have a discussion of how we might go about sort of handling her sweets needs and my needs for other kinds of foods also.

Jen Lumanlan: 31:55

Yeah, that sounds like a great way to see some progress and move forward. So thanks again for taking the time. Thank you. Thanks for joining us for this episode of Your Parenting Mojo. Don't forget to subscribe to the show at yourparentingmojo.com to receive new episode notifications and the free guide to seven parenting myths that we can leave behind and join the Your Parenting Mojo Facebook group for more respectful research-based ideas to help kids thrive and make parenting easier for you. I'll see you next time on Your Parenting Mojo.