Dinner with a side of sweets, anyone?

I see and hear a lot of parents being concerned about their child's daily intake of food. Everything from picky eaters to kids who just don't eat enough is brought up. My own two children are opposites when it comes to eating - and almost everything else!

In my classroom we never, ever serve "sweets" in the traditional form. All of the food we serve has good nutritional content. The biggest "sweet" the children get is a muffin for breakfast or snack. And I can tell you, 100 percent, there has never been a child in my class who asked me for dessert or candy after their meal.

At home, I never really served dessert to my own children, either. After dinner or anything. I didn't get dessert as a child due to financial limits (that is not the case for my family now); it was, however, something I fantasized about. I knew my peers got dessert on a regular basis. The initial reason I never started serving dessert was because it seemed like a tremendous waste of food and money, but after thinking about the negative association I thought about the positive: I want my kids to remember having a special treat after dinner - sometimes. However, I didn't want them to expect or crave all that sugary goodness (or evilness) after dinner every day.

First and foremost, I want to address the idea that dessert should be served after dinner. Every night of the week. When we do this we are triggering a sugar craving in our child's brains that says "I need sugar" after their evening meal, which is not true. It does not need sugar; it has been taught that it's supposed to have sugar. An easy solution for my family, without totally obliterating desert, was picking a desert night once a week. Additionally, we make dessert something not totally junky. Frozen Go-Gurts are great. Or maybe starwberries with whipped cream. These might seem silly and slight to us adults who know desert as being a big slice of German Chocolate Cake, but to the children it becomes a "treat" when it is not a nightly occurrence. In all honesty, since I added a dessert night my kids tend forget desert is an option on Saturday... and so do I.

This particular idea might not fit your family, but brainstorm ideas to cut out the obligatory sweets-after-dinner as part of your evening routine. Mind you, I said "sweets" and not necessarily "sugar". Their brain is not distinguishing between healthful and not-healthful foods. Be it yogurt or M&M's, it is associating the taste, not the type of sugar. When your child is an adult, chances are they will skip dessert most of the time if they haven't been trained to expect it and - let's face it - traditional dessert's are packed with oils, sugars, and empty calories.

Ask yourself this: When is the last time you spent 7 days of a week craving a big handful of fresh green beans to follow your dinner? When you weren't pregnant... What if I replaced fresh green beans with ice cream/cookie/donut/cake/anything sweet?