“for candy, for example, it could be eating meals...”

There`s a pitfall here of which you should be aware. If your current standard for meals is not, “eat everything on your plate,” it may be hard to determine what constitutes having “eaten” a meal. If she’s “too full” to eat all her peas, for instance, does that count as having not eaten the meal and proving that she can`t handle unlimited sweets?

Something that we are planning, in order to ensure balanced eating without restricting sweets, is to make free access to sweets for today contingent on filling your “food card” yesterday. The “food card” is simply a business-card sized card with checkboxes for each serving of each food group that a person in that age group needs each day. For example, a ten-year-old boy is said to require six servings of fruits or vegetables, six servings of grain products, three to four servings of milk or alternatives, and one to two servings of meats or alternatives each day.  His card, thus, will have six checkboxes beside “Fruits and Vegetables”, six beside “Breads and Cereals”, four beside “Milk and Dairy”, and two beside “Meats and Alternates”. (Yes, we did make a deliberate choice to bias in favour of the larger amount of healthful food rather than low-nutrient-density food.)

If he eats so much candy today that he’s too full for the foods he needs to grow, well, tomorrow it won’t be an issue because he will not get the unrestricted access to sweets until he has eaten a day’s worth of healthful food. If he eats all his daily servings from the four food groups, then tomorrow also has unlimited access to sweets. Simple, child-led, and doesn’t allow for no-consequences “I don’t have room for another carrot” without being punitive.

It would be interesting. but these are not the choices that will influence my elder child I think. She doesn’t watch much tv (We offered but she like other activities more) and while she likes her candies ( I limit by rarely purchasing any), in recent days, candies are not a solve-it for all her demands. i.e. she has refused out-right candy bribes from me.

She much prefer our constant attention which although I find tiring but I haven’t the heart yet to limit “love”.

I’ll be interested to see how it goes.

We don’t allow unlimited TV or candy, but I think we probably allow a lot more and are much more liberal with it than a lot of people who otherwise have similar parenting styles to us.

I tend to watch my kids for signs about whether something is working or not, rather than going in with a predefined idea of how much TV or how much candy is too much.

If they are getting obsessed with it, not sleeping well, being disrespectful, being destructive, etc. then I take those as signs that something needs to change. I know that for my kids, ensuring sufficient fresh air, time to connect with us, good nutrients in their bodies, etc. are essential to them staying somewhat level. If they don’t have those things, then it makes life difficult for them and for us.

I guess we sort of play it by ear and pull in the reigns or let them go a bit as we see fit. I would hesitate to set firm rules about how much or to say that they can have unlimited.

It is really hard to describe food freedom. It isn’t that my kids “are allowed to eat as much candy as they want”. It is more that we don’t weigh candy with loaded emotional value.We have a variety of food available for them at all times. We prepare healthy delicious food. We have snack that our children choose regardless of their “nutritional” value. And there isn’t scarcity.

I am very hands on with my children. I am very observant. They aren’t eating to meet unmet needs. Food is food. They eat when they are hungry, choosing what feels right for them at that time.

This morning Zola (3) asked for a snack platter. It had a Smart Dog (faux hotdog, two pickles, string cheese, 2 trader joe’s chocolate bars (small). She asked for a sippy cup of cow milk. She ate the 2 chocolate bars, the string cheese and 1/2 the hotdog. She is now munching on tortilla chips. And recently asked for water. She also has 2 multi vitamins and a vit D supplement.

Without restrictions or perceived disappointments from parents my kids make healthy choices. They chose foods based on their bodies cues.

We have a huge bowl of TJ’s chocolate bars the kids could eat the whole bowl, they know we won’t control what or how much they eat. We rarely question what they are eating. Yet they don’t want chocolate right now. Zola like I wrote is eating tortilla chips. Easy is eating cheese crackers and string cheese.

we allow unlimited tv. she gets bored with it quickly and turns it off herself. she rarely turns it on - we turn it on more than she does.

with candy at my house, it has to be no artificially colored candy. pez & the like changes her behavior. it’s like nothing i’ve ever seen. i got a giant bag of yummy earth lollipops and i used to give her 7 a week and let her eat them whenever she wanted, but no more until the next week. at first she’d eat them all in a day or two. but eventually she’d have 3 or 4 or more in “her” drawer at the beginning of the week. so now i just give them to her when she asks. there are other foods she can reach in the fridge/pantry. she snacks when she likes. i’ve started insisting that she eat her vegetables because otherwise she won’t. but i try really hard not to tell her what or how much to eat. we talk often about food and how it makes us feel in many different contexts. i try to make sure the tv is off for most every meal. basically, i want her to be able to recognize when she’s hungry and when she’s full. if she’s constantly asking for snacks but doesn’t want fruit or something else healthy, then i figure she’s bored and i need to find something stimulating for her to do.

i could go on and on… :) but i look forward to seeing what happens at your house.