What should kids have for breakfast? Cereal, toast, some fruit? Well, according to some parents, a big bag of blue sweets and a slice of chocolate cake are wiser options!

My friend Faye, who is a Childminder, popped round to my house the other evening to get my opinion about some holiday clothes she’d bought online.  Well, we didn’t even get a chance to look at the clothes, since she was ready for a rant about the parents she deals with.

Faye opened by telling me about an article she had read about some scientists who had concluded, from years of research, that sugar consumption doesn’t make kids hyper…  What a load of CRAP we said in unison!

The children she minds are fed and watered while she minds them.  They have water to drink, fruit to snack on and are given healthy meals.

Faye starts work at 7:30 in the morning and welcomes the little sprogs either shortly after their breakfast or while they’re still smearing it around their faces.

There is a direct correlation between the general quality of parenting, what the child is given for breakfast and the child’s behaviour.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist (or a social worker) to figure it out! 

Example A.  A child gets dropped off having eaten his breakfast, which consisted of cornflakes and orange juice.  The parent tells the Childminder what the sprog has eaten, kisses him goodbye and leaves to go to work.  The child, content after eating a decent breakfast, plays happily until snack-time.

Example B. A child gets dropped off late, he has chocolate smeared around his mouth.  He is squashing the remnants of a piece of white bread covered in chocolate spread with popping candy (YES! This actually exists!) into his mouth.  He is also clutching a refresher bar in his hand.  The parent pushes the sticky child into the Childminder’s waiting arms and rushes off.  The child, on a sugar high, tears around, causing mayhem until the sugar wears off, then the kid decides to scream the house down before practically passing out exhausted.

Maybe these are slightly extreme examples, but they illustrate how too much sugar and crap food can ruin a child’s behaviour. 

The reason a parent gives their child crap to eat rather than what they should be eating is the same reason that parents don’t discipline their kids and let them get away with blue murder!  They are scared of being rejected by their own children!  In this world of instant gratification, kids want to be pleased NOW and parents have fallen into the same trap.  Rather than make a child wait for a treat and give them something to work towards or simply save it for another day, some parents are fixated on making their children happy NOW.  “Now little Johnny will love me, because I give him sugar and fat when he wants it…”. 

The thing is, little Johnny is 4 years old and hasn’t got a clue about all the health repercussions he’ll have to deal with because his idiot parents over-indulged him.  Little Johnny may develop obesity and diabetes.  He may have behavioural problems brought on by excessive sugar consumption which causes energy levels to spike and crash.  Not to mention that sugar is considered to be more addictive than cocaine!

Kids don’t know what’s good for them. generally speaking.  Parents have a responsibility to make choices for them.  So, chocolate spread with popping candy might not be the best idea…

Faye and I discussed all of this, and on more than one occasion ripped seven shades of shit out of the moron scientists who think kids aren’t affected by sugar!  I mean, really, it’s just a bloody stupid thing to say!

There’s a saying which makes a lot of sense; Healthy kids are happy kids.  If you feed a child what their body needs and treat them to junk food only occasionally, they will have a much better chance of thriving physically and mentally.  If you shovel crap into a child, they will rot from the inside out and deteriorate on every level.  Loving a child doesn’t necessarily mean giving them what they want, it means giving them what they need.

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