My son or daughter at any given time: “I’m done eating, can I have a treat?”
Me or my husband at any given time: “Really, if you are still hungry, eat more of your lunch or dinner, you do not need to eat a treat after every meal!”
This is a conversation we have over and over again, almost daily in our house! Both of my kids feel they need to have a small treat after every meal with the exception of breakfast. For some reason, this is not an issue during that time of day! Usually they want a fruit snack or a small piece of candy, whatever happens to be in the snack bin that week. We take full responsibility of this ongoing habit, because up until this week, we have broken down and said, “Yes, go ahead”, as long as they ate what was put in front of them.
We went to a friends house last week, and they had the same issue. I say, had, because they ended it with this easy change in the house rules… Dessert Night!
They have designated Friday and Saturday nights as dessert nights. Every Friday and Saturday after they have eaten their dinner, they get dessert. Every other night, if they are still hungry, they invite them for seconds at the dinner table. But because it’s not a dessert night, they will not be getting dessert. This includes the fruit snack!
Brilliant!
So my family decided to implement this rule and we will see how it goes. So far, when we explained it to them, they just looked at us like we were crazy! They were lucky because we implemented the rule over the weekend, which happened to be the 4th of July, so of course they did get dessert! We’ll see how much they really understood this week!
In addition to the designated dessert nights, I did set up a snack schedule. I realize it’s not fair for the kids to go throughout the day without snacks to refuel. So I set the time frames for when snacks would occur throughout the day… In the morning they will get a snack around 10am and in the afternoon they will get a snack around 2:30pm – 3:00pm, no snacks after 4:00pm.
And what about those times where they are so hungry, they can hardly stand it… Offer them a banana, if they are really hungry, they will eat it…
I’ll keep you posted on how it goes! It should be an interesting week to say the least!
Do you have any creative ways to keep the snacks contained at your house? Please share..I am sure I am not the only one with this issue!!
(Due to the Holiday Weekend, the weekly podcast is not scheduled for Monday, July 5th, we will be back with a new episode next week, July 12th!)
Happy Organizing!
