How Often Do Your Kids Get "Treats"?

My kids get a treat if they want one every day. The fastest way to create food issues is to make food an issue!

Leftovers? 2 words: Gingerbread Houses.

But as to how often? No idea. Whenever we feel like it. Popsicles all summer long. The occasional brownies for breakfast. Freshly baked cookies when we want something warm and melty. S'mores over the campfire, or 'just cause' in the middle of winter. Mochi Icecream. Pina Coladas. Popcorn with movies. As rare as every couple months, and as often as every day.

I'm also an 'All things in moderation & balance' kind of parent. We deny food treats as often as we deny hiking, or school, or playdates. Is there any reason NOT to do something? Sometimes. Can we make it happen? Usually.

We don't offer them daily or even weekly. We do offer "healthy" treats: homemade granola bars, frozen popsicles made with fruit puree and yogurt, yogurt pops (just buy the Gogurt tubes & freeze), homemade fruit smoothies (frozen fruit + yogurt in blender). The healthy treats are offered 1x or 2x per day, depending.

The chocolate/cake/cookies/pie/ice cream stuff is maybe 1x every other week, if that.

probably every day. more than I would like, but my daughter is active and eats very well. So a small treat once or twice a day is fine with us. Sometimes the treat is just graham crackers or yogurt too.

I don't withhold from my kids...I teach them moderation....

cookies - if they aren't pre-packaged or processed...2 each if they are packaged...one package (the snack size!!)

I guess I'm lucky - my kids eat a variety of things - they aren't stuck on sweets only - they love bananas, asparagus, artichokes, broccoli, carrots, apples, oranges, mandarin oranges as well as chocolate....and since I feel they are well-balanced, I don't withhold candy/snacks.

At least every day.

I'm an all-things-in-moderation believer and depriving kids of sweets (or anything!) only makes them covet it all the more.

As for the holiday junk--large baggie and it's pitched at the next holiday. (Christmas stuff gets tossed at Valentines Day, Valentines Day stuff at Easter, etc.) He never even notices.

Anything "good" leftover or excess, I take to work or DONATE!

He gets something little each day... small dish of ice cream, 2 or 3 chocolate covered pretzels, handful of M&M's. He eats really well and is very active, so a little sweet treat each day is no big deal in our house!

I packed some sealed left over easter m and m's for on our vacation and it was a nice treat to have on the car ride. I admit i think I still have halloween candy in the cupboard. I just toss it all in a "treat" bowl, some i have taken to work if I think my coworkers would like it. philosphoically (sp) I would love to make it so that my kids only has something sugary once a week, but i believe in being polite and if the neighbor offers a popsicle or daddy brings home icecream, or they are given a goodie bag at a party then I allow them to have it, and i think baking cookies together and going to the icecream shop are lovely summer memories. I just try to make sure the rest of life is as healthy as possible, and I DO NOT allow soda.

At Halloween, we have a "eat as much as you want" rule. Last year, the kids gorged themselves for less than an hour before they got tired of the candy. We bagged all the extra and have been doling it out every once in a while. Lately, the leftover Halloween candy has been a helpful treat for our potty-training daughter. Our kids don't get sweets every day. If the grandparents are visiting, there's usually treats involved as part of the normal meal-and-dessert thing that seems to happen at family gatherings.
One rule that I have made, that cuts down on the overall candy quantity and the messiness of candy all over the place (on Halloween, for example) is that if the kids, say, open a fun-size candy bar, take a bite, and wander away, I swipe up the partially consumed candy and throw it out.
For sweet stuff, we generally give the kids fruit and yogurt, with an occasional ice pop thrown in. Oh, and waffles with syrup on the weekends.

The Easter and Halloween treats do not stay! I took them to the teacher's lounge at school when I taught and my husband takes them to work for his employees. I just don't keep that much candy in the house. Otherwise, my kids may have a treat every other day, sometimes every day. A treat may be a pudding cup, popsicle, icecream, marshmallows, piece of dark chocolate, ect...

Our kids have candy maybe one a year, if that even. As far as cookies and goodies, I get the healthy fruit popsicles, Breyers ice cream or gluten-free all natural cookies once a week. Everyday treats would be fresh fruit, dried fruit or canned fruit with no added sugars. =) If they get a lot of candy for Easter, Valentine's day parties or halloween parties, I throw them away. I let them chose one and throw the rest away. It's just sugar and artificial flavors and colors.

Every day - even though I try and limit them. I tell my son to read the serving size, and he can have a serving size of whatever if he eats his food. I keep my candy locked in a box though, otherwise they would mow through it in a day. They have to ask me first.

Right after Easter and Halloween I sift through the stuff and take a HUGE chunk to work and put in the breakroom. Them my son gets 2 (small) pieces a day (if he has been good) for about a week. After that he may get a couple pieces a week. Then after a bit the rest of it disappears. He loves Pez, so they seem to stick around longer. He will not eat hard candy or candy bars (I don't think he is mine), so once the nerds and like candy are gone he loses interest anyways.

We used to be much better about rarely giving treats, but now that my son is older (4), he is beginning to ask. I do tell him that they're called "treats" because they're not for every day...but they usually get something most days and it's always after supper. A treat can be 1 Hershey's Kiss or we let them split a fun-size m&m's, and they're pretty happy with that. They do have to eat their dinner, though. Our boys are really active, so weight is not an issue. If they were overweight, I'd definitely limit the frequency or redefine the "treat."

When my kids were younger, I'd let them choose one small piece of candy every day from their goodie bag of Halloween-Easter-birthday-Christmas candy. They usually ate this after lunch but they could have that one piece every day without asking.

They each kept their stash of candy in a plastic tub. I tried to limit their stash to what they could fit in the tub and when they got a new batch of candy from Halloween or someplace, I'd encourage them that it was "time to throw out all that old candy still in the tub that's been sitting there for months."

Hardly ever. Even not we bought s'more making stuff and they'll get one a day until it's gone...we make the in the microwave and I've been sending them as dessert at daycare...enough to share so it's going quick! But we RARELY do sweets or treats at all. My kids barely ever ask for it.

I don't let my daughter have sugar every day, but I have to work really hard at that, its so easy and available (but I'm also including so called healthy foods that contain sugar like flavored yogurt and granola bars). I have no problem throwing junk food in the trash if it lingers too long. After all our bodies are not human garbage disposals. In other words just because you own it, you don't have to consume it. That said, My daughter gets sugary desserts like cake and ice cream and cookies when the family gets together (about 2 or 3 times a month). We go to frozen yogurt atleast 2 times a months. Right now she gets berries with honey and milk almost daily. But as for straight up candy, once a week, and at that I limmit the quantity (one licorice, 5 gummy bears, 10 jelly beans...). The most she has ever eaten on one day was a candy neclace and I still feel gulity about that. But let me be clear, the above is when i'm on top of it. Trust me, it has gotten away from me when she got desserts daily during the holidays. Right now we are being good. I understand being frugal and not letting food go to wasite. But with a better understanding of what candy and sugary treats does to our bodies, its best not to think of it as food at all. Its truly not nutrition. If you feel the need to be frugal, be frugal with thier health and developing taiste buds and condsider the loss of the sugar into the garbade can a gain to thier health.

They get one treat per day if they're AWESOME the entire rest of the day. This usually only happens after dinner, since they have to prove themselves first. I'm kind of slack about it, I mean, if we're playing outside for 6-8 hours, eat all the cookies you want! They're only going to burn off the empty calories anyway. But if we're stuck inside, yeah, no sugar... otherwise they'd all be climbing the walls, literally. I never realized what a low tolerance for sugar my kids had until last year (because I never keep candy or cookies or junk in the house)... now that I know better, it's far and few between when they get that stuff.

Birthday cake, on the other hand, is a perfectly acceptable breakfast food ;)

Usually, like after Easter and Halloween, I GIVE CANDY TO EVERYONE who comes over, like 'Please! Help yourself! Here, take a baggie full home with you'... or I'll send the girls off to their dad's for the weekend with a bag of candy (hee hee hee ;)

After a good lunch or dinner my daughter gets a treat, for example one small sucker or 10 jelly beans or one piece of little chocolate. Sometimes after dinner it is ice cream, my husband always has ice cream or some sort of treat after dinner so I am not going to tell my daughter no if daddy is doing it, I think that is mean. If the meal is not eaten to my satisfaction no treat, my daughter understands that and rarely gets upset about it.

About once a month I go through the candy/treats and anything that has been sitting around for more then two months I toss. No ad feels it is just junk food. I also toss anything that I do not want to give to my daughter or I know she will not like.

My kids get treats more often then I'd like to admit.
Usually after lunch they get a treat which usually consists of one small candy or 5 m & m's or a dum-dum. Then again after dinner they get dessert which is usually another small treat. Sometimes they might get a cookie if we have them or even ice cream. They really love homemade orange juice pop's, and ask for them over anything else, and I give them happily because technically it's a treat that is considered a serving of fruit!
If we are out somewhere like a parade or party/picinic or on Halloween they kinda get whatever they ask for (within reason). I don't give them junk food though, and so I guess it's not too bad to have 2 peices of candy a day.

My kids may get "treats" once every other day or so. Possibly less. I don't offer treats. I only consider it if they ask and even then I don't always give it to them. Being summer, I do allow them to have a popscicle if we're outside playing because it's so hot, but again, only if they ask. Also, I'm trying to get my three year old son to start potty training, so I've offered him Smarties if he'll sit on the toilet and a whole roll if he'll actually do something in it (which hasn't happened yet). We have a basket full of candy from holidays and parties and such, so I just go through it periodically and throw out the older stuff. Like you said, we pretty much always have some around and can't possibly eat all of it, so I just dump what we don't eat.