Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / Why Restricting Party Treats Can Backfire [a Listener Q&A]

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Why Restricting Party Treats Can Backfire [a Listener Q&A] · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:05
Speaker 1: Hello, welcome to the Happy Families Podcast, where we answer
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Speaker 1: your tricky questions. On a Tuesday, a listener wants to
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Speaker 1: know whether a birthday party is a free-for-all when it
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Speaker 1: comes to the junk food or a teaching moment. Our answer,
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Speaker 1: I think, might surprise you. I can't wait to fill
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Speaker 1: you in on what we reckon. The research on restricting kids'
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Speaker 1: treats is fascinating, and we're going to spend some time
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Speaker 1: diving into self-control, what we can teach our kids about
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Speaker 1: listening to their bodies, and and all that jazz if
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Speaker 1: you want your kids to make better food choices, especially
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Speaker 1: at parties when there's a lot of people, there's a
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Speaker 1: lot of energy, and there's a lot of sugar. Stay
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Speaker 1: with us. That is next. G'day. Welcome to the Happy
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Speaker 1: Families podcast, real parenting solutions every single day. It's Australia's
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Speaker 1: most downloaded parenting podcast where Justin and Kylie Coulson, parents
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Speaker 1: of six daughters, grandparents of one grandbaby, and something that
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Speaker 1: we have wrestled with So many times a tricky question
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Speaker 1: about junk food and getting kids to be mindful of
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Speaker 1: what they stuff into their gobs. That in a sec.
1:06
Speaker 1: But if you've got a tricky question, we'd love to
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Speaker 1: hear from you. You just have to jump onto happyfamilies.com.au.
1:11
Speaker 1: Scroll down to our super simple system where you push
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Speaker 1: the button and start talking. It's that simple. Just tell
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Speaker 1: us your name. Tell us where you're from. And off
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Speaker 1: you go. Hey, also, you can send us a voice
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Speaker 1: note to podcasts at happyfamilies.com.au. Here is today's question from Rachel.
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Speaker 2: Hi, Justin and Kylie. Love your podcast. I just have
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Speaker 2: a question for you about treats and how we teach
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Speaker 2: self-control and restraint in our kids. So when they're at
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Speaker 2: a party or a celebration, do we just let it
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Speaker 2: be a free-for-all and they can eat whatever they like
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Speaker 2: because it's a celebration? Or should we be taking that
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Speaker 2: as an opportunity to set some boundaries and teach them
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Speaker 2: some restraint and self-control? Love to hear what your thoughts are.
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Speaker 1: Free-for-all or teaching moment? Kylie, what do you think?
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Speaker 3: Free for all.
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Speaker 2: Yes.
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Speaker 1: I didn't know that you were going to say that.
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Speaker 1: I haven't prepped you for this. I really like doing
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Speaker 1: these questions and getting your initial immediate responses, not filtered
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Speaker 1: in any way. Ask me what I think.
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Speaker 3: What do you think?
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Speaker 1: Do you really want to know?
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: Free for all. Free for all.
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Speaker 3: This is not a moment to teach in front of
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Speaker 3: everybody else.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: You want to teach your children important principles. It has
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Speaker 3: to start at home. And it has to be intrinsically motivated.
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Speaker 1: So are you thinking that there needs to be conversation
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Speaker 1: before the party? Now there's going to be a lot
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Speaker 1: of sugar. What do you think is going to be
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Speaker 1: the right choice to make?
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Speaker 3: I think that you can have that conversation if you
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Speaker 3: want to. But I actually, if everything you're doing at
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Speaker 3: home is counter to it, what will generally happen is
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Speaker 3: children will actually regulate themselves if they understand the why
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Speaker 3: and it's not something that they would regularly do. They
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Speaker 3: may not, though. And I think that that's okay. It's
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Speaker 3: not like they're going to a party every weekend.
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Speaker 1: Well, maybe they are. Maybe they're very popular kids and
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Speaker 1: they're getting heaps of parties. I don't think the parties
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Speaker 1: happen as much as they used to.
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Speaker 3: I was about to say that. I don't think they
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Speaker 3: happen as much as they used to.
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Speaker 1: So here's what happens. I reckon if you turn parties
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Speaker 1: into teaching opportunities all the time, nothing gets learned except
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Speaker 1: that you're under surveillance. Like the kids just know that
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Speaker 1: their parents are watching. And so they start doing the
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Speaker 1: right thing because it's either external motivation or it's interjected.
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Speaker 1: They feel like They've got to police themselves just in
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Speaker 1: case they get asked about it. Not a healthy way
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Speaker 1: to go. The child who is calm around the lolly
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Speaker 1: table got there by being trusted around food when it
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Speaker 1: wasn't a big deal. Making a big deal of it
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Speaker 1: just creates a whole lot of pressure around food. And
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Speaker 1: I just don't think it's that important. Plus, so long
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Speaker 1: as your kids are active.
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Speaker 3: I've got two friends that I can think of right
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Speaker 3: off the bat. Both of them have restricted sugar. One
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Speaker 3: family have restricted it and as such they have not
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Speaker 3: all of their children but one child in particular, she
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Speaker 3: would literally go to parties and she would stuff her
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Speaker 3: pockets full of all the sugar that was on offer.
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Speaker 3: There was no restraint whatsoever. I have another friend and
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Speaker 3: her children have just grown up understanding what is good
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Speaker 3: for their body and their mum will talk to them
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Speaker 3: about what they can have at the party but it
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Speaker 3: doesn't bother them.
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Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
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Speaker 3: Because they don't eat it any other time. So they're
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Speaker 3: really happy if they're allowed to have three or four
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Speaker 3: little treats at a party. They don't feel like they're
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Speaker 3: missing out, but they don't indulge.
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Speaker 1: I think it comes down to a whole balanced life.
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Speaker 1: So there's a bit of evidence on putting restrictions on
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Speaker 1: kids when it comes to eating. Restriction actually backfires. One
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Speaker 1: of the big studies back in the late 90s, Fisher
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Speaker 1: and Birch, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers restricted kids'
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Speaker 1: access to a palatable snack. When access was later granted,
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Speaker 1: those children selected more of it, ate more of it,
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Speaker 1: and talked about it more. I think it's worth highlighting,
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Speaker 1: when you make a food special, and that's what we
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Speaker 1: kind of do with treats, right? That's why we call
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Speaker 1: it a treat, because we're making it special. You also
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Speaker 1: make it irresistible. Like, we don't make broccoli special. We
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Speaker 1: don't make Brussels sprouts special. We don't say, oh my goodness, carrots,
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Speaker 1: we can only have them on special occasions. It's when
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Speaker 1: you say we've got this other food, that's kind of
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Speaker 1: a treat. It's sort of junky. It's not really good
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Speaker 1: for us, but we do have it on special occasions.
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Speaker 2: Cake.
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Speaker 1: Everyone's like, oh, I want cake. I want ice cream.
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Speaker 1: We just want to make sure that it's not an
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Speaker 1: everyday food. It's not an all the time food. It's
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Speaker 1: a sometimes food. And because it's a sometimes occasion, like
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Speaker 1: a birthday party, fill your boots, go for it.
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Speaker 3: I remember seeing online that marshmallow experiment. It's kind of
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Speaker 3: cute watching these kids sitting in a room and Looking
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Speaker 3: at this marshmallow and trying to work out whether or
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Speaker 3: not they can hold off eating it or waiting because
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Speaker 3: they've been promised that if they don't eat it until
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Speaker 3: the person comes back into the room, they get two.
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Speaker 2: Yep.
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Speaker 3: And watching little kids as young as like three and four,
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Speaker 3: you can see the cogs turning in their head. Like
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Speaker 3: they're kind of like, but I really want that. And
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Speaker 3: I remember seeing one little kid who kind of licked
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Speaker 3: his finger and like touched it and, you know, kind
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Speaker 3: of kept trying to taste it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Speaker 1: So that was done by Walter Mischel. It's quite an
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Speaker 1: old experiment. It is a classic. It was redone in 2018.
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Speaker 1: It was republished with a more diverse sample. So the
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Speaker 1: kids that participated in that, if I recall correctly, it
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Speaker 1: was Stanford University, the kindergarten just there. So a really
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Speaker 1: restricted sample of kids who were basically the children of
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Speaker 1: university employees, professors, and that kind of thing. In 2018,
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Speaker 1: they published a new study doing the same experiment, but
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Speaker 1: with a much more diverse sample. what they found is
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Speaker 1: that family background kind of washes out the effect. And
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Speaker 1: what it really comes down to is not a question
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Speaker 1: of self-control. What it really comes down to is, do
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Speaker 1: the kids trust the adult and whether their word is reliable?
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Speaker 1: So it's not so much about the treat. It's much more,
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Speaker 1: and child self-control, it's much more about how reliable are
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Speaker 1: the adults in my life, which really, I'm glad you
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Speaker 1: asked that actually, because it applies to this conversation that
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Speaker 1: Rachel has brought up with us. And that is, what
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Speaker 1: are we doing in terms of trust for our kids?
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Speaker 1: Because if our kids trust us, then they're going to
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Speaker 1: make choices that are more aligned with values that we've
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Speaker 1: been teaching them. After the break, if we're not policing
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Speaker 1: the party, what do we actually need to do? All right, Kylie,
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Speaker 1: three things that need to happen to get the job
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Speaker 1: done so that our children are being reasonably healthy or
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Speaker 1: Do you know what? Again, I don't think that it's
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Speaker 1: that big of a deal if this isn't happening frequently,
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Speaker 1: but three things and none of them happen at the party.
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Speaker 3: I'm curious, what do you think the first thing is?
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Speaker 1: You're in charge of the food at home. And I
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Speaker 1: think that's kind of where all of these conversations begin.
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Speaker 1: Discussions around what food is offered and when it's offered
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Speaker 1: and where. There's somebody called Ellen Satter, Division of Responsibility
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Speaker 1: is what she came up with. And this has been
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Speaker 1: promoted for a long time now. And It seems to
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Speaker 1: be the received wisdom and it feels right. We decide
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Speaker 1: what food is offered. The child decides whether they eat
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Speaker 1: and how much. Some people would disagree with that and
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Speaker 1: push back. But I think that we get in trouble
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Speaker 1: as parents when we cross into their half of that equation.
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Speaker 1: We say three more bites. We've just got to give
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Speaker 1: them the right food. They decide how much they're going
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Speaker 1: to eat and whether they're going to eat it at all.
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Speaker 3: I've been watching this with our 12-year-old. So she has–
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Speaker 3: she would fall into the category of a very fussy eater.
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Speaker 1: She's pretty picky.
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Speaker 3: And she's had a very, very– again, I would consider
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Speaker 3: it a bland diet compared to the rest of our kids.
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Speaker 3: And in our house, our rule has been we just–
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Speaker 3: we try new things. And so it actually has been
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Speaker 3: three bites. You just have to try three bites. Once
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Speaker 3: you've had three mouthfuls of something– you can at least
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Speaker 3: say that you've given it an honest try. How often
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Speaker 3: have you tried to give something to a kid and
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Speaker 3: they don't even open their mouth? It just touches the
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Speaker 3: tip of their tongue. We're like, just give it three
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Speaker 3: honest tries. And if you say that you don't want it,
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Speaker 3: then we'll respect that. But we're going to give it
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Speaker 3: three goes. And she's actually done really well with that.
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Speaker 3: And there are plenty of times where she's looked at
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Speaker 3: us and she's gone, I'm done. That's disgusting. But the
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Speaker 3: other day she sat down and we ate a meal
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Speaker 3: that I know she does not like. And I offered
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Speaker 3: her A meal that she did like or she could
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Speaker 3: have what we were eating. And when we sat down,
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Speaker 3: I thought that she had served my meal up for me.
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Speaker 3: So I went to sit there and she said, no,
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Speaker 3: this is my dinner. And I was so proud of
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Speaker 3: her because she was willing to give it a go.
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Speaker 3: And she just said to me, she said, it's not
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Speaker 3: my favorite. She said, but I'm really, I'm willing to
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Speaker 3: give it a go.
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Speaker 2: Yeah.
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Speaker 1: So we do need to encourage them to try stuff,
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Speaker 1: but that's about as far as it goes. Other than that,
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Speaker 1: the Ellen Sutter model is, here's the food. You get
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Speaker 1: to decide how much you're going to eat. It's not
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Speaker 1: meant to be a power struggle. It's not meant to be, well,
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Speaker 1: that's it.
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Speaker 3: You're not having anything.
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Speaker 1: That makes it horrible. It's just, well, this is what
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Speaker 1: we're having tonight. You can try some or you don't
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Speaker 1: have to. It's up to you. I still think we
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Speaker 1: need to give them some kind of an alternative. Corn
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Speaker 1: chips and chocolate milk is not an alternative that is suitable.
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Speaker 1: There still has to be a reasonable alternative. Second thing
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Speaker 1: that we need to do, take the drama out of treats.
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Speaker 1: If you're going to a party, the expectation is there's
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Speaker 1: going to be sugar. The expectation will be that the
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Speaker 1: kids will eat it. Don't make a big deal about it.
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Speaker 1: We don't have to bang on and on. And the
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Speaker 1: last thing, and I think I really want to wrap
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Speaker 1: it up here, is that if you do want to
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Speaker 1: have a debrief, if you do want to have a
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Speaker 1: teaching moment, don't do it during it. Do it afterwards.
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Speaker 3: I was about to say, when your child comes home
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Speaker 3: and they're feeling sick or they've got a headache or
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Speaker 3: they're really, really crazy or they're angry.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: Like that's, you know, maybe not in the moment of anger,
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Speaker 3: but let's kind of, once everything's chilled down, let's, let's debrief.
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Speaker 3: Let's look back at this.
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Speaker 2: Right.
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Speaker 3: When you're at the party.
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Speaker 1: It's that noticing. That's the skill.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
10:56
Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: It's, it's teaching them to recognize the signals their body
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Speaker 3: is giving them. Cause that's where the power is.
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Speaker 1: And when you tell the kids to stop, they never
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Speaker 1: have the opportunity to notice it because you're policing them. Uh,
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Speaker 1: It took me until I was in my 40s to
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Speaker 1: realize that every time I went past a KFC drive-thru
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Speaker 1: and smelled those 11 secret herbs and spices and turned in,
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Speaker 1: my brain was lying to me. You had Pavlov's dogs.
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Speaker 3: Pavlov, yeah, that's right. Yeah, response.
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Speaker 1: My body eventually said, Justin, listen to me, not your brain.
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Speaker 1: And I haven't had KFC for three years or more
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Speaker 1: because I started listening to my body. But our kids
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Speaker 1: will struggle with that. And also, let's remember, when you
11:33
Speaker 1: were a kid, you could eat copious amounts of crappy food.
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Speaker 1: not feel sick at all right like you could really
11:41
Speaker 1: go hard at it so for some reason children's systems
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Speaker 1: can just take it in a way that we can't
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Speaker 1: so i.
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Speaker 3: Don't think it's that they can take it i just
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Speaker 3: don't think that they've learned to read their body.
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Speaker 1: Yet maybe yeah you're probably right so the uh the
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Speaker 1: take-home message the the summary here the the wrap-up is
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Speaker 1: as follows and and hopefully this will be useful uh
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Speaker 1: i just think let the party be the party nobody's
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Speaker 1: health is going to be determined or changed forever because
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Speaker 1: of one afternoon in front of the lollipop with the
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Speaker 1: cake and the soft drinks and the hot dogs and
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Speaker 1: all the other sugary stuff.
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Speaker 3: I think parents these days are, for the most part,
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Speaker 3: more conscious of that. Yeah. They really are. Like the
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Speaker 3: parties that our girls have gone to, there has been
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Speaker 3: sugar on offer, but there has been plenty of other
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Speaker 3: options available. which never used to be the case. You
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Speaker 3: think back to the typical party foods, you've listed them all.
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Speaker 2: I know, I know.
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Speaker 3: But that's not generally what's on offer these days.
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Speaker 1: I think the biggest thing for me is that most
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Speaker 1: of us, we're working against how we were raised on
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Speaker 1: this one. We were raised with all of this policing
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Speaker 1: around food. And what I'm really trying to get to
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Speaker 1: is if we watch our language around food, recognize that
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Speaker 1: there's special occasions and And then trust them at the
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Speaker 1: table the rest of the time when it's not a
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Speaker 1: special occasion. The special occasions aren't going to be a
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Speaker 1: big deal. Just let them have fun. And then if
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Speaker 1: they do feel lousy, you get to have a conversation
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Speaker 1: about it. Say, well, my favorite line with our kids is,
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Speaker 1: sometimes our brain tells us lies. What lies do you
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Speaker 1: think your brain told you when you saw all that
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Speaker 1: sugar on the table? To me, that's the real learning
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Speaker 1: and the teaching that comes from it. And that's that
13:24
Speaker 1: night or the next day, something like that. Anyway, we
13:27
Speaker 1: really hope that that's been a useful answer to a
13:29
Speaker 1: tricky question. The Happy Families podcast is produced... by Justin
13:32
Speaker 1: Roulon from Bridge Medium. M. Hammonds provides our admin and
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13:47
Speaker 1: have a great day. And tomorrow we're back with more
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Speaker 1: on the Happy Families podcast.