As a registered dietitian and mom, I believe eating dessert regularly is part of a healthy relationship with food. But I also know from working with parents that dessert can feel anything but simple to navigate. Diet culture complicates relationships with dessert, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
It’s natural that parents often feel stuck and uncertain when it comes to navigating sweets. We’re constantly flooded with messages about how sugar is “bad” and that we need to limit dessert or our kids won’t be healthy. So it makes total sense if you’re not sure what to do when your child asks for dessert.
How do you feel when your child asks for dessert? Do you find yourself worried, or unsure what to do or say? You’re not alone.
We get so many questions about how to offer dessert to children. And we want to help parents feel confident about offering desserts as well as raise kids who don’t feel conflicted, confused and ashamed about sweets. So keep reading for my realistic tips to take the stress out of dessert.
Diet culture message about dessert
- Diet culture messages tell parents that kids need to “earn” their dessert either by eating all their dinner or by doing something parents want them to do.
- It puts dessert on a pedestal. If a child has to eat their peas before they can have dessert, they’re being asked to ignore their internal cues and eat the peas they aren’t hungry for. They’re also being given the message that dessert is something you have to earn.
- Parents are also taught they need to offer dessert as infrequently as possible. This sets up a scarcity mindset which in turn may lead to an increased interest in dessert.
- It can also set up all or nothing/”bad” vs “good” mindset about sweets and sugar. This is where some of the confusion, shame, and conflict about eating and enjoying desserts comes in.
Diet-free tips and messages around dessert
You’re likely wondering, what’s the alternative? Please help me with what I can do to raise my child to have a healthy relationship with sweets?
In our work as dietitians and in our own homes, Anna and I often recommend that parents offer dessert more often and with meals and snacks. We have other useful posts about navigating sweets: What About Dessert, Parent Guide to Navigating Sweets at Halloween, and The Best Easter Basket Ideas for Toddlers to Tweens.
Research shows that offering dessert with a meal or snack neutralizes it. Kids get to choose in what order they eat their food. And offering dessert with dinner or other meals and snacks will help take the pressure off both you and your child.
Serving dessert with dinner (or other meals and snacks) can be an especially helpful approach for parents whose kids are overly interested in dessert.
In these situations, you’re not pressuring them to “earn” their dessert and they don’t feel pressured to eat food they’re not hungry for.
How to offer desserts with meals and/or snacks
Most importantly, allow your child to decide what they eat first. Many parents worry their children shouldn’t eat their dessert first because they’ll fill up and won’t eat any of their dinner ever again. Over time, the dessert will be less exciting and kids will know to expect it regularly.
Often, it’s those children who aren’t allowed to eat dessert who eat it first. Many kids will eat a little of their dessert and then eat some of the other food on their plate and then go back to the dessert.
Offer desserts family style sometimes and allow children to have as much as they want.
Anytime works as a time to offer dessert. Dessert before dinner even works. For example, you might be out running errands and stop for ice cream on the way home just before dinner time and it’s easier to have it then than it is to pile in the car and go back out after dinner.
With a meal – with breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Yep! You read that right. Muffins, pastries, pop tarts and donuts for example, are similar to desserts. A muffin is essentially a cupcake without frosting.
And each of these foods contain flour, sugar, butter (or another type of fat) which we find in many baked goods. I know we don’t call those items dessert, but there’s no reason you can’t think of giving your child dessert with breakfast.
A good example might be if you have leftover peach pie, or leftover cake from a birthday and they ask for it with breakfast, there isn’t anything wrong with saying yes.
Be sure to enjoy dessert with your children. Kids learn by watching us.
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Common questions and concerns about serving dessert with dinner (and other meals and snacks)
- What if my child only eats dessert and not the rest of their meal or snack? That may happen sometimes, especially if sweets have been restricted or if they’re just not that hungry.
- What about desserts for toddlers? I offered my toddlers dessert. Any toddler sized dessert that’s not a choking hazzard works well.
- How often should kids eat dessert? At the end of the day, that’s each family’s decision. I’m not suggesting kids be allowed to have dessert anytime they want. As the parent, you get to decide when they have it. Bear in mind, if they’re not allowed to have it often, that will likely feel like restriction. If you’re worried about giving them sweets more often, think of that as an opportunity to explore your resistance to offering daily dessert.
- What if they ask for it constantly or sneak it? What if my child only wants to eat sweets? This may be a sign that your child feels restricted. And if you’ve only recently started offering desserts with meals and more regularly, it may take your child some time to trust they’ll continue to get sweets. If it continues, it’s likely a sign they’re still feeling restricted and it’s an opportunity to get curious and look at your own relationship to sweets. Are you offering sweets, but saying things like, “don’t eat too much”, or when they ask for a dessert, saying, “no, you already had dessert today.” In these cases it’s important to practice remaining neutral and not making comments. If you’re not offering dessert at least once a day, try offering it more often.
- If your child has had dessert a number of times today and you don’t want to offer it again that day, that’s completely reasonable. Just a friendly reminder that you don’t have to say anything. So, no need to say, you’re not having dessert again, you already had it twice today. Many kids may not be interested in dessert in such a situation. But if your child asks for dessert at a time you’re not offering it, you can decide to say yes, or you can decide to say, something along the lines of “we’ll have dessert again tomorrow, would you like a yogurt and granola or cheese and crackers?”
Dessert ideas for family dinner (or any meal or snack)
- Apple slices with caramel dip
- Nutella and graham crackers or pretzels
- Fig bars
- Candy – I have always bought candy before candy centric holidays to give to my kids. For toddlers and preschoolers, be sure to omit any candy that may be a choking hazard.
- Store bought or homemade muffin or mini muffins (for desserts for toddler or preschooler, I’d offer mini muffins because they’re easier to manage for little hands and mouths).
- Teddy Grahams or your favorite store bought cookies
- Homemade cookies, like oatmeal craisin cookies, molasses spice cookies, or m&m cookies.
- A regular cupcake or mini cupcakes
- Quick breads like pumpkin bread, banana bread or zucchini bread
- Ice cream or popsicles
- Rice Krispie Treats (homemade or store bought)
- Strawberries with Nutella
- The possibilities are endless!
Key takeaways
- It’s important for your kids to see you enjoying dessert too.
- Offer dessert with meals and snacks and allow your child to decide in what order they eat their food.
- Restricting sweets or making kids “earn” them doesn’t help children eat less of them, it creates increased interest in them.
- If you’re feeling worried or having a hard time allowing dessert, it’s an opportunity to slow down, check in and ask yourself where the worry is coming from? What are you worried will happen if you allow your child to just eat dessert?
- Eating dessert regularly helps kids learn to trust themselves and their bodies.
- Eating dessert is fun and it tastes great.
Serving dessert with meals can help take dessert off the pedestal and help children trust their body’s cues. You may find that mealtimes are less stressful and you’re getting fewer requests for sweets because kids learn that desserts aren’t a big deal and they trust they’ll get them again soon.
Moving away from diet culture and towards a non-diet, intuitive eating approach to food can have a positive and lasting impact on your child’s relationship with food. As we like to say, the goal is to raise kids to be able to trust their bodies and navigate the foodscape as they go out into the world.
To goal is for our kids to grow up feeling calm, confident, and in charge of their relationship with food — including dessert. Offering sweets regularly, is one facet of supporting kids to feel confident around food.
If you’d like more information and support about raising kids with a healthy relationship with food, visit our Sunny Side Up Membership: Take the Frenzy Out of Feeding.
References
Practices and preferences: Exploring the relationships between food-related parenting practices and child food preferences for high fat and/or sugar foods, fruits, and vegetables. Appetite. Volume 113. 2017. Pages 134-140. ISSN 0195-6663. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2017.02.019
Loth, K.A. Associations Between Food Restriction and Pressure-to-Eat Parenting Practices and Dietary Intake in Children: a Selective Review of the Recent Literature. Curr Nutr Rep 5, 61–67 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13668-016-0154-x
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It’s great to have you here. We’re registered dietitians and we share tips to support you in raising kids with a healthy relationship with food.
