For many kids, sweets, like candy, can be a powerful motivator for change. 

If you think about it, this is something they’re conditioned to in many situations and at an early age. 

After a visit to the doctor for shots, kids might be greeted afterward with lollipops. 

In the classroom, when students achieve an academic goal or fill up the marble jar for good behavior, they might get to have an ice cream party. 

Inevitability, this can trickle into our own homes, too. 

Candy or treats can be used for a multitude of reasons when it comes to motivating behavior change, or simply, to help persuade our child to achieve a desired outcome. 

Can you relate to any of these scenarios, in which you might use sweets to get your child to do something?

• Persuading your child to use the potty

• Positive reinforcement for good behavior

• Getting your child to stop mid-tantrum 

• Reassuring or comforting your child

• Persuading your child to do something, like a chore or schoolwork

• Getting your child to eat certain foods on her plate

The inverse can also be true, where sweets might be withheld for negative behavior. 

For example, a child might be told that she won’t get to have dessert, unless she eats her veggies. 

Or, she might not be allowed to have any candy if she doesn’t do or chores or have good behavior.

Either way, there is a direct connection between a child’s behavior and being able to eat sweets. 

These situations are very common, so if you’ve done these things yourself, please know that this is not meant to single you out or shame you for your parenting choices. 

Many of us were raised this way, where sweets were commonly used to motivate behavior changes, discourage poor behavior, or even to manipulate feelings or outcomes. 

Here’s the thing: parenting and feeding our kids is HARD. Like, really hard. If you are a parent, raising another human is one of the greatest responsibilities you’ve ever been entrusted with. Am I right?

Ultimately, we’re all doing the best we can with the information and resources we have at the time. 

So if you’re trying to navigate this particular situation of using treats as rewards with your own kids, please know that all of this information comes from a place of utmost understanding and compassion. 

As a mom of 5 kiddos, I totally get. You might feel desperate to get your kids to behave or to listen to what you’re asking them to do, but it’s just not happening.

You might want them to feel comforted after a scary situation or reward positive behavior. Whatever the situation, sweets can seem like a great quick fix solution.

Again, many of us were brought up in this way, where sweets and treats were used as rewards.

If you weren’t brought up in this way, this was reinforced in our culture, where we’ve all been told that we need to “earn” our food, especially desserts. 

In the short-term, we may achieve a desired result: get my child to do something or to act in a certain way.

Hey, we’ve all been there, where desperate times call for desperate measures. 

However, remember that feeding our kids is a long-term game, and when you think about the type of relationship you want your child to have with food as an adult or how you want her to feel about eating down the road, what do you picture?

Making choices about food now can produce long-term results: namely, helping your child have a positive relationship with food. 

Using sweets as rewards is one of those things, where in the moment, we might get a desired outcome, but in the long-run, this can make things around food more complex. 

Why is it Bad to Use Food as a Reward?

It’s important to understand that this repeated association of using sweets to incentivize behavior changes over time can create a complicated relationship around food for your child, especially over the long-term.

Studies have found that controlling feeding practices, such as using sweets as a reward, could unintentionally teach a child to rely on food to deal with emotions. 

AKA: This can set your child up to become more of an emotional eater down the road. 

The repeated practice of using food as rewards, especially sweets, can also influence a child to potentially:

• Eat in the absence of hunger (meaning, a child may not be able to self-regulate her intake with her innate hunger/fullness cues)

• Rely on food to self-soothe and navigate emotions

• Experience increased incidence of emotional eating over time

• Associate her self-worth with food

• Have an increased risk of disordered eating, eating disorders, and poor self-esteem

Here are some other risks of using sweets as rewards with kids:

1. Kids might become obsessive with sweets

The other downside of using sweets as a reward is that this can make these foods even more desirable for your child, or potentially cause an obsessiveness around sweets. 

For example, if your child is only allowed candy as a reward for good behavior, there’s a good chance she will become fixated on candy.

In the long-run, when your child’s food choices are no longer under your control, she may tend to overeat candy or other sweets once she has free access to them. 

As a kid, I could vividly remember how candy wasn’t allowed in our home, except for special occasions or as a treat for good behavior.

Once, I found a whole bagful of MnM’s hidden away in the pantry. I sneaked them away in my room and literally chowed down on the whole bag in one setting.

When I went to college, I had such a chaotic relationship with desserts and sweets and didn’t know how to self-regulate them.

This spiraled into a chaotic eating disorder that I suffered with for many years. 

Now, please know that I don’t blame anyone for this.

For one, eating disorders are complex conditions that are influenced by a variety of factors. I know my family did the best they could with the information and resources they had at the time.

It’s not uncommon for parents to use sweets in this way with their children without really knowing what the long-term implications might be. 

When sweets are only given as rewards and not accessible outside of this, then these foods become scarce in children’s minds. Kids will naturally become obsessed with desserts and fixated on what they can’t have.

A scarcity mentality around sweets will naturally make these foods even more desirable for children.

2. Kids lose their ability to self-regulate their intake

When sweets are used as rewards for behavior, this can also put those foods up on a pedestal.

Finally getting to eat these foods means that a child is more concerned with access rather than how those foods might feel in her body. In other words, this creates a “feast or famine”, type of mentality around desserts. 

This means that a child will be more likely to overeat those foods when they are available for fear of missing out or not having them available later.

Kids will be more likely to override their bodies’ innate appetite regulators in order to prevent feelings of deprivation around these foods. 

This will also make it more challenging for them to learn how to self-regulate their intake of desserts when they’re available outside of “reward” times.

Like they say, “You better get while the getting’s good”. 

For example, if your child is only allowed to have treats as a reward, it might be harder for her to know how to self-regulate desserts on other occasions, like birthday parties or holidays.

This can create a struggle and chaotic relationship with desserts from an early age. 

When kids eat in this manner, they are learning to depend on external rules to eat rather than being able to listen to intrinsic and innate hunger and fullness cues to self-regulate

On the other hand, if certain foods, like sweets, are not put on a pedestal and are available consistently, a child will feel more relaxed around eating them.

Kids are more readily able to listen to what their bodies’ need and have a decreased risk of overeating these foods over time. 

In order to help preserve our kids’ innate ability to self-regulate their food intake, it’s important to keep a neutral approach to all foods (more tips for this below!)

3. Kids Can Connect Self-Worth With Food

Another downside of using sweets to reward behavior is that a child can begin to connect her self-worth with food.

She will learn that her morality is attached to eating certain foods; i.e: “I got to eat this food, so I am good”, or, “I didn’t get to eat this food, so I am bad.”

Using food as rewards can also create the belief that a child does not innately deserve to eat, which can be a damaging mindset from which to live. 

We want our kids to know and trust that they are deserving of eating all foods, no matter what.

We want them to know that food, including sweets, are not something they have to earn through exercise, behavior choices, chores, etc. 

I’ve worked with many mothers who are trying to undo the mindset that desserts are something that have to be earned: through exercise or by following rigid food rules.

Most of them can trace it back to a time in childhood where food, especially desserts, were something that had to be earned.

When kids inherently know and trust that food is readily available for them, this will help decrease a risk of disordered eating and poor body image down the road. 

4. Kids won’t learn how to cope with emotions outside of using food

When food, especially sweets and desserts, are only given during emotionally charged times, this can become a primary way through which a child learns to cope.

This can be especially true when sweets are given as a response to ease pain if children are upset.

This pattern around sweets, especially if ongoing, can inadvertently teach children to use sweets to cope with their different emotions.

In turn, this may teach them to emotionally eat later in life in response to the experience of difficult feelings. 

Again, this is not the intention of any parent who may approach desserts with their child in this way.

So many parents I know just want to help their children feel better in any uneasy situation; food is that tangible comfort that so many kids understand and connect with. 

Let me also clarify here that eating for emotional reasons or connecting food with comfort is not a bad thing. We just don’t want food to be the only means through which our child associates comfort. 

When sweets are not directly used as reward or are not offered as a means to immediately quell uncomfortable emotions, this can help a child slowly learn and develop an array of healthy coping skills.

Back to Basics By Focusing on the Big Picture

With all that shared, it might be helpful to come back to the big picture goals that are important with feeding kids. 

Ultimately, I know you want to raise a healthy, intuitive eater, who has a positive relationship with food and who is confident in his or her body. 

The good news is that this goal is not as far-fetched or as out-of-reach as you may think. 

I know that feeding kids is a TOUGH job. 

When you keep the big picture goals in mind, it can help you make parenting and feeding choices that will make food more enjoyable in your home. 

More importantly, the way you approach food with your children can be a strong foundation from which they develop a healthy relationship with food and their bodies. 

Keep in mind that your kids are born with the programming needed to eat intuitively and to grow at a rate that is best for THEM. 

In order to preserve this in our children, it’s crucial to build a trusting feeding relationship with them, where we stick to our jobs with feeding and allow our kids to do their jobs with eating. 

Food rewards can send confusing messages to our kids when we’re trying to teach them that they can trust their bodies.

Instead, we want to help our children trust that they don’t have to earn their food, especially sweets and desserts.

When food is reliable, neutral, and when access is not dependent on their performance, this can help them better listen to what their bodies need.

This not only helps them trust their caregivers but themselves and their bodies with eating and food.

So if you’re trying a new approach to feeding with your children, keep the long-term picture and goals in mind:

-You are helping your child develop a positive relationship with food

-You are helping your child learn effective coping skills for emotions so that food is not only source of comfort

-You are preserving a child’s innate ability to regulate eating and growth.

 Tips for Keeping Sweets Neutral for Your Kids

So how can you achieve these goals and raise a healthy, intuitive eater? 

One important piece of the puzzle is to keep sweets and desserts neutral. Here are a few ideas to help you get started with implementing this in your own home:

• Serve desserts with meals/snacks:

If sweets have been used as a reward or incentive to eat certain foods as dinner, you might try switching this pattern up to help neutralize desserts. Try offering dessert alongside meals.

Give your child the choice of when to eat dessert.

Remember, all the food is going in the same place anyway.

What’s most important here is that your child is learning to listen to her own body’s needs to regulate what she needs, rather than following external food rules.

Making dessert as part of her meal is a powerful first step to making all foods neutral, where one food doesn’t have more power over another.

When a child has access to desserts without any strings attached, this also helps her trust that these foods are available and that her behavior is not attached to food in any way.

This is important for diffusing any fixation or obsession around sweets that a child may have.

This approach will ultimately. help you raise a child who respects and listens to her body and is able to respond to what her body needs, not based on any outside food rules.

• Language around desserts:

We tend to categorize food, but this can unintentionally make food choices confusing for kids.

Keep in mind that any health related concepts around food are abstract to kids; meaning, they don’t interpret foods as being “healthy” or “unhealthy”, but are making food choices based on what they enjoy and what is satisfying in the moment.

Again, to help remove labels from food, simply refer to them for what they, especially desserts.

Desserts are often labeled as treats, sweets, etc. and this can make them more emotionally-charged for kids.

Instead, call it for what it is: a cookie, lollipop, ice cream, cake, etc. 

This helps your child remove any judgements/rules around sweets and ultimately, learn to make food choices based on innate body needs (not arbitrary food rules).

• Serve them more frequently:

I know this might sound counterproductive, but when sweets are a novelty, a child will only desire them more.

In order for a child to feel more relaxed and neutral around eating sweets, they may need to have more frequent exposure to these foods.

If sweets are only given for rewards, this can make it tricky for a child to navigate these foods in other settings.

Allow your child more frequent opportunities to learn how to self-regulate these foods within your own home.

You may need to offer dessert more frequently than what you feel comfortable with, but again, this might be necessary to help your child trust that these foods are available and accessible.

This may be especially true if your child is frequently asking you for sweets or if your child is conditioned to having to earn sweets.

You can read more about how to approach this here: “Kids Candy: Growing Healthy Children Need to Eat Candy, Too”

• Use non-food rewards for positive reinforcement:

As much as possible, try using non-food rewards for positive reinforcement or to acknowledge a job well done.

From stickers to screen time to play dates or a special toy from the treasure chest, there are a variety of non-food ways to reward your child and positively reinforce good behavior. 

When non-food rewards are used in connection with children’s behavior and/or performances, this helps reinforce their trust in knowing that they are deserving of eating all foods.

This trust factor is absolutely crucial for helping kids develop a positive relationship with food and their bodies.

• Address emotions in other ways outside food and sweets:

If you’ve used sweets as a main way to comfort your children or distract them from the emotions they’re feeling, that is OKAY.

Again, this is something many of us learned from our childhood, or simply by growing up in a culture that discourages feelings.

The good news is that you can help your children develop positive coping skills outside of food that will benefit them throughout their lives.

To begin, simply try to create space for their feelings as they come up. As parents, we naturally want to fix things, especially when our kids are in distress.

Just remember - it’s okay to not always have the solution or the right words to say. It’s okay to let them feel whatever is coming up for them.

Affection and presence are enough to help console your children when they are dealing with hard emotions. It might be helpful to name what your kids are feeling and let them know you’re there for them. For example, “I can see that you’re feeling sad right now.

It’s okay to feel sad. Mommy is here for you. Can I give you a hug?” You can customize an approach that feels right for you. Most importantly, you’re validating what your child is feeling, which is important for her to know that her feelings are okay. 

• Healing your own relationship around desserts/sweets:

Do you feel like desserts or sweets are something you have to earn?

If sweets were approached with you in this way as a child, it’s likely that you might have unresolved issues around desserts that might be beneficial to work through. And that is okay!

Many of us have food issues that stem from childhood. Your own history with sweets in your upbringing can influence how you relate to your kids around sweets.

The most important thing is to recognize it and to understand that these are not things that have to be passed down to your own children.

Simply having awareness of this can help you create new patterns and behaviors with your own kids.

Just remember that you can still work through resolving your past with food while supporting peace with food for your kiddos.

And don’t forget: you deserve to eat and enjoy sweets and desserts NO. MATTER. WHAT. You don’t have to earn your desserts. Believing this for yourself will help you live this out for your kids. 

Should teachers give candy to students as a reward?

Lastly, I wanted to quickly address some of the common scenarios your kids might encounter where sweets are given as rewards. 

I see this most commonly in the media, in classroom settings and with other well-meaning relatives (AKA - Grandparents). 

If you’re working hard on keeping sweets neutral for your kids but are encountering other adults approaching this differently, don’t be alarmed. 

The greatest impact on how your child learns and feels about food will primarily come from home.

If your kids are coming home with outside messages that sweets have to be earned, you can gently reinforce that they are deserving to eat no matter what.

Remind your children that they don’t have to do anything to enjoy their sweets and desserts and that those foods will always be available for them. 

This stance on your part will speak louder to them than any outside messages they may be encountering about this. Diet culture is LOUD, and they will undoubtedly hear that they have to “earn” their food, in some shape or form.

But your actions and words will speak truth even LOUDER to them, and that is all the reassurance they will need. 

If your kids spend a lot of outside time with other caregivers who tend to reinforce this message, you might consider having a conversation with these individuals to let them know where you stand. 

Try an educational versus confrontational approach.

For example, you might share, “At home, we’re working really hard to help [child’s name] feel relaxed and comfortable eating all foods. We want her to know that she doesn’t have to earn her food and that she’s able to enjoy a variety of foods.

To do this, we’re using non-food rewards for her behavior, like stickers, puzzles, etc. Can you help us do the same thing when she’s with you? We can share some of these non-food rewards, if that would be helpful!”

I’ve had similar conversations with some of my kids’ teachers. Of course, things like popsicle parties or popcorn parties are not inherently a “bad” thing.

What can be more tricky is the way a teacher might talk about it or approach the subject. In general, I’ve found that teachers do an amazing job rewarding and recognizing academic achievement and good behavior with non-food awards.

This can be highly effective with kids.

Again, if your child is picking up messages from school that sweets have to be earned, you can counter this message with what you do at home. 

Overall, know that what you do with your child matters, and how you talk with your kids about food can make a difference in how they grow up to feel about food and their bodies.

Stay connected with the big picture goals with feeding your kids to help you stay motivated through difficult situations.

The work you’re doing today will be the foundation for helping your child develop a healthy and positive relationship with food.