Thank you for your thoughtful comments! It’s so great to get education from like minded parents.

So for us, the key has been to make the connection between sugar and tantrums etc. by keeping a food/mood diary for one week; drawing pictures of the foods we ate and a face corresponding to the mood at the time. We made this connection: jelly on toast before bed meant that my oldest girl had difficulty waking up in the morning – now SHE decides not to have jelly before bed. This is the crucial step – it has to eventually be THEIR decision: so our goal as parents is to give them the knowledge they need to make these decicions!!!!

Little Sugar Addicts gives you the complete protocol for doing this.

Lou x

In December, after a few days of no sugar, Alex was allowed a snickerdoodle, and the change in his self control, impulses, and mood were startling. No longer able to control himself, he threw tantrums, cried at every little thing, and was honestly just unhappy. So we started to give him half a cookie, instead. I tell this to people who say I’m depriving my child. What am I depriving him of? Bad behavior and empty calories with no nutritional value? The inability to get a hold of his emotions and control his impulses? Wow, I’m a bad mommy!

Besides, we don’t deprive our children. We have ice cream in the summer, and birthday cake, and plenty of cookies. But not every day–not nearly every day–not even close. And as much as I would love to give my child an ice cream cone and have him finish it without any negative repercussions, well, it just doesn’t happen. It’s OK–there are *other* things I can do to make him feel good–sugar doesn’t have to be part of the equation. So what if we don’t buy Twinkies, fruit roll ups, M&Ms, Skittles, cupcakes, Ho Hos, Entenmann’s, etc.? Those are not part of my regular diet, so why would I give them to my children?

I’m also concerned by how much sugar there is in juice and juice snacks. I’m often horrified to see parents giving their small children fruit rolls ups, or other chewy fruit snacks (even the organic ones!), and think it’s OK because they’re “100% juice,” or “Made with real fruit juice.” (I’m not criticizing the parents, BTW. They have just been duped.) There is SO much sugar in those things–and the benefit of eating those/drinking juice vs. eating the actual fruit is very small. Juice is a rare occasion in our home, as well.

I’ve often wondered what it would do for us if we eliminated gluten and all sugar from our diet. I buy gluten free food items here and there, but not with any consistency that would allow me to see a difference.

Thanks for making me think!

Good luck to anyone wishing to take up this challenge, it will absolutely change your life for the better, I have to say that I saw on a friends shelf the other day a book called something like ‘how to tame your unruly toddler’, and I felt like saying, “no point reading about naughty steps and time outs, you know what, this has NO IMPACT whatsoever on a child who’s brain is chemically imbalanced because of the sugar in its bloodstream”.

My 7 yo daughter still does not know why she does what she does when she is under the influence! If parents cannot work out why their baby’s behaviour changes for the worst from two years old onwards – there is no point reading books that try to curb the child’s tantrums, they need to address the cause of the tantrums and strangely enough around two years old is when parents usually start giving the kids sugar – but it is a downward cycle – the parents sugar consumption usually rockets too, both must be tackled for any lasting change!!

great post btw
Louisa x