Are you an "obsessive" parent?

[gypsydoodlebug]

We already have a beer joke going at the Busch Gardens Hospitality House. We get to the front of the line where I ask for the beer I want, and then turn to Aiden and ask him what he wants. He says "I don't feel like beer today" and then he bursts out laughing.

OMG! You're training this boy right!

 

[Nancy]

OMG, I love frappucinos and I do not generally like coffee. People should mind their own business...but I think I would play with them a little bit..."Hey Aiden, next we can go to the liquor store and you can pick out your favorite mixer...how about strawberry margarita mix this time?"

Hey...I mix my girls margaritas! (no alcohol of course). In the summer we make strawberry ones while we hang out by the pool! Heck, they make their own if I'm not around.

I have never been obsessive over food or drinks, I think that sets the kids up for huge rebellion when they get older. MY DH loves, cookies, junk food and Pepsi. I always have tons of that in the house. BUT my 3 do not drink any kind of pop if they can avoid it. They don't eat all that much junk food either. They will eat fruit and yogurt. I have fat free pop corn and butter popcorn in the hosue, they eat the fat free stuff. They eat and drink way better than I do.

 

[paigevz]

Most everything in moderation! I was never obsessive, even with my older kids, but it doesn't mean that I allowed unlimited sugary drinks and snacks, either. Our kids have always been encouraged to drink water when they are thirsty, but I don't forbid other drinks.

I am amazed at the way some kids drink Gatorade, etc in place of water. IE, at baseball games. Some kids bring the big bottles (64 ounce) and drink the whole thing.

I was about to agree with your whole post, as usual, um...........until the Gatorade part. Eeek! That's my boy. He is "prescribed" Gatorade by his dr. It's the only way to cool his body down enough at the time of year he plays football. He gets very hot anyway, then he has hay fever. Hay fever season is football season. He actually runs fever with his hay fever (apparently that's how the name came about........though not many kids actually do). Add to that 90 degree practice days and football gear. He drinks a whole bottle..........though not 64 ounce, I think it's 32, at each practice. He must, or he can't play.

At home, my kids are encouraged to drink water, but we do allow koolaid in the house. We generally limit it to lunchtime in the spring/summer. We have them drink milk with both breakfast and dinner, and generally orange juice is their drink of choice in restaurants (or lemonade). They do occasionally get sodas.........especially at Disney World.

 

[paigevz]

Not only do my kids drink soda sometimes-I have been known to send them to a filed trip with LUNCHABLES

Yep, me too. It's always his field trip lunch. I don't even get one with any meat in it, he loves the "nachos" one.

Bad, bad mommy.

 

[Planogirl]

Where is my "sister in crime"....Planogirl?! We both give our kids "sunkist"....we are damned...

My DH is worse than me. I limit DS to one Sunkist per day but DH bought him a 12 pack today. The kid is in heaven!

But he drinks tons of water and milk too and I'm happy with it.

 

[shortbun]

My 4 year old LOVES frappucinos from Starbucks. He got his first taste taking a sip of one I got for myself. We don't go to Starbucks all that often, but when we do I do let him get a decaf one. The number of dirty looks I get for that are amazing, but I know it is a treat for my child, its only ocassionally, and it is decaf. I don't care that those people think I am a terrible mom.

Mine got addicted to the gingerbread lattes during the holidays! Lol! Also decaf but people love to comment anyway!

 

[shortbun]

Once my son was offered two sodas to choose from at a party. He asked if he could have water. The mom sternly told him soda was what he was drinking. lol! I went in the house and got him a glass of water. Glad I was there.

 

[pirateofthecarolinas]

Mine got addicted to the gingerbread lattes during the holidays! Lol! Also decaf but people love to comment anyway!

I'm an addict too! I'm glad the gingerbread is a seasonal drink.

I try not to let my kids have diet drinks. They get lots of water, milk and the occasional Pepsi.

 

[MUFFYCAT]

Hi all! This is my first thread. I am a resort board regular and saw something there that inspired this.

There was a lady on the resort board that had a FIT because her neighbors kid's drank pop, crystal light and gatorade. She was quite passionate about it and thought her neighbors were bad parents.

My kids drink the occasional pop as well as tons of gatorade and powerade. Just wondering if everyone else is "obsessive" like this lady or more laid back like myself.

I hope this is the right forum to post on.

she'd be calling social services if she lived next to me

 

[MoniqueU]

I used to be obsessive but realized I was fighiting some battles I should be banking energy for much more important things.

 

[MUFFYCAT]

okay you got me curious, where is that thread?

 

[hppy2bhome]

Our girls 4 and 8 drink milk water or O.J at meals (sometimes 100% juice watered down). Just this past April we went to Disney and the girls got to have Sprite most of the week. Of course they loved it. Junk food yup it's in our house all the time. Our youngest is in remission with leukemia so her cravings were salty snacks. She is currenly off treatment but after 2 years of treatments and junk food it's hard to take it away. My girls are healthy and active so I'm okay with what they eat.

Hppy2bhome

 

[va32h]

Despite the horrible dietary example that I set myself, and with no special effort on my part, my kids ended up with pretty healthy eating habits. It's a mystery to all of us.

They prefer milk or water to anything else, and the girls at least have healthy, varied diets.

My son is a picky eater, and his doctor would like to see him gain a few pounds. But he doesn't actually like junk food! He eats yogurt, chicken, pork, any kind of citrus.

Anyway, I drink Pepsi, daily and in front of my children. Although they have all asked for a sip at one time or another, it's never occurred to them to ask for or take an entire can. Those are mom's drinks! (The 2 year old will even chastise our guests "that's mommy's Pepsi!")

I will get them soda or lemonade if we are at WDW or some other outdoor event and it is hot. Hot weather + milk = my kids barfing all over the place.

We carry water bottles, but will also get a cold fountain drink.

 

[aprilgail2]

I am not obsessive about other peoples kids and the only thing I am really adament about with my daughter is absolutly NO diet drinks or artificial sweeteners. Even her Dr said not to give kids an diet products until at least 12 sinethey are so damaging so that is where i stand with my own kid on that...but if someone elses kid wants to eat packets of nutrasweet I could care less! My daughter drinks soda and only caffeine free, she drinks water, lemonade and lots of orange juice with calcium since we are not a milk drinking family. She does eat yogurt every day of the week for lunch since she doesn't care for meat or sandwiches. She will also have peanut butter on crackers for lunch or snack.

 

[Christine]

I am not an obsessive parent but I don't disagree with how that other mother thought (in the other thread). I do allow my kids to have Gatorade, sodas, Starbucks, etc. and, quite frankly, I wish I had never allowed it. It is junk and the other mother is right.

Hopefully, she was just *venting* on a message board and did not get up in her friend's face about it.

 

[HeatherFeather]

Wow...I guess I am a bad parent. Not only do I let DD 5 have Coke once in awhile, but I also let her jump on our trampoline AND play on old style play ground equiptment, you know the kind...the spinny round thing, etc. All the stuff that we now know is hazardous to children and unsuspecting adults.

Sometimes I wonder with all the "danger" in the world, how any of us children of the 70's made it to adulthood, and I use that term adulthood very loosely when applying it to myself.

 

[Tigger&Belle]

I was about to agree with your whole post, as usual, um...........until the Gatorade part. Eeek! That's my boy. He is "prescribed" Gatorade by his dr. It's the only way to cool his body down enough at the time of year he plays football. He gets very hot anyway, then he has hay fever. Hay fever season is football season. He actually runs fever with his hay fever (apparently that's how the name came about........though not many kids actually do). Add to that 90 degree practice days and football gear. He drinks a whole bottle..........though not 64 ounce, I think it's 32, at each practice. He must, or he can't play.

My son does drink Gatorade when he's at baseball and exercising, esp in the hot weather. He has his normal Sunday double headers today and will drink a couple of the 20 ounce bottles. I'm even letting my 6yo bring a bottle today since it will be warm and he runs around playing the whole time. But we also bring water.

Oh, and about alcohol--want to know what a truly bad mom I am? Alcohol has never been forbidden to my kids. They could always have a sip of our drinks--just not a taboo thing. It was forbidden when I was growing up and I more than made up for it in my teen years. My DD made it through high school without any issues (and believe me, I was watching). She's now in college and was home last week and I let her have a little wine. I'm not fooling myself into believing that she's an angel at college, BTW, but I'm fairly certain that she's much smarter about that sort of thing than I was.

My kids have also had their fair share of coffee, etc. Not on a regular basis, but they've had it on occasion. I do agree about limiting the artificial sweeteners.

 

[2sweetangels]

I am not obsessive over what my children eat or drink. My 2 year old gets pop once in a great while, DD prefers to have milk over pop and juice most of the times. DD also drinks alot of water and she loves foods that are healthy, she just loves banana's, yogurt, vegitable's, ect.

 

[VSL]

Not a parent yet, but I probably will be obsessive - but only about my own kids.

BF and I only drink water, so they will only be drinking water. We only consume OJ (Tropicana at that) after running, and we only use sports drinks when doing our longer/harder runs. When our [future] kids are playing in the summer I will probably have them drinking some kind of sports drink - they keep you better hydrated as they are isotonic. When I was younger I collapsed in Tunisia due to the sun and don't cope well in it even now (although my skin seems to lap it up - which results in very odd tan mark lines due to my running clothes), so who knows how my kids will be.
Other than that, it's water all the way.

Neither of us like fizzy drinks and I don't have chocolate (or any junk food, for that matter) in my house, so I don't see us buying it when we move in together. I'm not exactly into ready meals either, so they're going to have to deal with my cooking .

I imagine that as they get older I'll get more relaxed about it, but I'm at least going to give them a healthy start and am not going to keep rubbish in the house.

 

[slk537]

I was obsessive about DS's food and drink until he started on primarily solids...I did the whole "baby food start with orange veggies, give them for a week each to check for allergies, go through all veggies before introing fruit" thing, which his daycare did as well. I refused to buy him any of the baby food that said "dessert" like the "Hawaiian Dessert" and only the ones that were actual fruits and veggies. If anyone has ever seen DH and me and watched what we eat, you'd know how out of character this was.

Soon he began eating real food and then I gave up and figured as long as it was all balanced, I'm good. This child is addicted to candy. He can actually smell it, I swear! He found a stuffed M&M toy with a sealed bag of M&M's in a box in the middle of our garage after moving to our house when he was TWO!! However, he loves yogurt, broccoli, chicken, cucumbers, green beans, all fruit, and most other veggies almost as much. Given the choice between broccoli and french fries, he picks the veggie.

As for drinks...I lazed out into water. We would fill his night time bottles and sippy cups with water instead of milk (because I would find congealed milk cups under his crib, etc and I gave up), and I drink a lot so he would poach from me. Now it's part of his normal drinking routine. That said, he loves chocolate and white milk, diet coke with lime , real sugar sodas and juice too. DH is from Chicago and his water growing up tasted like sulfur so he isn't a big water person. Thank God DS and I are.

I guess I would say we're very laid back mostly because he does like the good stuff. I don't sweat the sugar and fat and therefore he doesn't see the treat difference between full fat ice cream and a cup of strawberry lowfat yogurt. I have an eating disorder and I refuse to raise a child with food issues that he gets from his mom.

All that said...I think I'm going to try a Frappucino today since they seem pretty popular...any recommendations as to flavor??