It’s comforting in a way to know there’s someone out there who understands what i’m trying to say 
It’s not as simple as saying, “Oh, you have a heroin addict in the house? You’re the one in charge! Just DON’T LEAVE ANY HEROIN IN THE HOUSE!”
Smacks head Is THAT all I have to do?!? 
EXACTLY
It’s complicated. I’m so glad parents are trying to figure it out, though.
First, IMO, kids don’t need to be keto. They need real food and not sugar-junk, but I wouldn’t try to take fruit and carrots away.
Make the switch by telling them it is time to learn how to cook- 5 & 8 are plenty old enough. Ask them what they want to make. If it is chicken nuggets, make chicken nuggets. If it is pizza, make pizza, but it is to be prepared from scratch. Just that will improve their diet. Make switches to ingrediants gradually as they get more adventuresome.
I used to keep sugar, flour, etc. in the house and if my kids wanted a treat, great, make it, clean up the mess, and enjoy. Sometimes they did, but often it just wasn’t worth it.
Talk about cutting out sugar. I guarantee they are hearing that at school and on TV too. Teach them how to read a label and what a gram is. I know a teacher that has her students count out gram weights to equal the sugar in a snack they bring before they eat it.
Plant a garden. Ask them what they want to grow and grow it. Every kid will eat something they have grown.
It doesn’t have to happen all at once. Yes, you are in charge, but kids don’t understand rules changing on them overnight.
Unless my kid decides to get a job (too young) or somehow get food into the house, he eats why I buy or he doesn’t eat. He knows what crap junk food is like any kid. That doesn’t change the fact the HE doesn’t get to decide what he eats at home, his opinion isn’t valid on my shopping list.
I’d like to offer my two cents, bearing in mind it’s a tricky subject. I was an obese child along with a very obese mother. Carb/sugar laden foods were always available. As I recall I was the only fourteen yr old in the weight-watchers meetings I would attend with my mom. I learned emotional eating from her at a very young age & dislike of my image due to weight as well, I know that. I would try to eat “healthy” as I understood it ( raisin bran cereal, lean cuisine meals, etc) & when that failed I would console myself with crap. I do not hold this against my mom, I love her dearly & she did the best she could as she understood it- but what I wanted more than the junk food was to be happy with myself, to look at least somewhat like my peers. To be able to look into a mirror without shame.
I understand the issues you’re dealing with. Raising two of my own now I know how difficult it can be. But ultimately what my kids know of food, they will learn from me. What I learned from my mom was not a help, my goal is to be different for my girls.
I hear you, and I do realize it is not that simple. Keep in mind though that not all kids are addicted (yet), and you can try and break the addiction cycle early, before it is too late. Think of it as rehab maybe?
FWIW, we allow 85% dark chocolate, berries, and nut butter, and that is their dessert a few times a week. The kids love it, and do not seem to binge on it because it is always after dinner when they are full, and it also has a pretty high fat content so hard to overeat. We do not have powdered sugar or candy in the house.
Does anyone know if there are any “sugar” movies that that they could watch? My kids were blown away when the watched many of the movies on dietdoctor. I didn’t request that they watch, I just watched myself when they were home and they got sucked in. They have all voluntarily changed their eating habits. I still have traditional sweets for them for something like a birthday if they want but the everyday snacks and sweets are gone. They eat nuts and yogurt and occasional fruit but no junk food is in the house. No more cereal either. We all eat eggs and bacon or sausage if we eat breakfast. They are 16, 18, and 23 and this change came about a year ago. For the most part none of us snack much. Dill pickles or string cheese maybe if we do.
Please do not underestimate the power of carb cravings in a growing child.
I has taken me decades to get over the emotional and physical repercussions of being denied food in the sight of plenty, by parents who (in my childlike eyes) were denying me love.
I got the sugar highs and the crashes after, on the rare occasions I was allowed sweet stuff. My parents were quite strict with food. Lots of veg. Budget awareness. Eat your greens. Finish what is on your plate before you get a pudding… etc. etc.
Yet because of those sugar highs and sugar lows (childhood reactive hypoglycemia) I was like a junkie for sugar. My body was always screaming for carbs, and never felt like it had enough. I was obsessed with food. Always hungry, arms and legs aching for sweet foods.
So, of course, I stole. At that age, the body dictates behaviour and the mind is defenseless against it. I also stole money and kept my own secret stash of food, and spent every penny of xmas, birthday and pocket money on sweets. Secret shopping of course. I learned not to ask for food even when I needed it. I also lied to the school and asked (begged) for food from my classmates.
I cringe to remember this.
In retrospect, I needed medical help to deal with the sugar dysfunction, yet back in those days no one had ever heard of RH so that help wouldn’t have been available even if my parents had thought to take me. Instead they used discipline and denial.
Realistically they were in an impossible situation. Keto would have helped if anyone had ever heard of it. Or knew what a carb was. Or believed that food affected mood. Things have changed a lot. And of course there would have been keto flu too.
However, unless your child is supervised 24/7 they will find a way to eat sugar. I did. And one piece of delicious sweetness will set the cravings off again. And I hated my mother for denying it to me.
Even now, 5 decades on, I have to mentally prepare myself for staying with my parents. I accept that they are how they are, but I STILL need to take keto snacks in my luggage, and have a deep vulnerability about being denied food by them, and I fight an instinctive rage at the portion sizes that are placed on my plate.
So, be careful. If your kids are 7 and 8, then this is when you are building your lifetime parent-child relationship. After the food issues of my childhood I left home and barely contacted them for years. Unless I wanted something. It wasn’t a healthy relationship at all. Now, I am in my 50s, they are in their 80s and I am very sad at the wasted years, yet those deep seated emotions are still there if triggered.
…and this is what I’m trying to avoid. I went through roughly the same thing as you, with many of the same issues. I’m trying not to make the same mistakes my parents made. With everyone taking heavy-handed and oversimplified approaches to the problem, they are losing sight of the longer-term implications such as yours and mine. By solving one problem, they are creating another, leaving the child with life-long issues to deal with.
It seems a lot of people get ostrich syndrome about it (“not MY kid!”) even while the kid’s off blowing a $20 allowance on snickers bars right under their parents’ noses. I just wish there was a more practical way to deal with a kid’s obesity in a manner that won’t make him or her resent me in some kind of life-long way like you’ve eloquently pointed out. I have many of the same issues as you, and they’ll be forever unreconciled as my parents are no longer alive.
You have very valid points! I wish people who were not in your shoes would stop saying “cold turkey”. “Let then scream” “They won’t starve themselves”.
With a 12 year old - it has to be his choice! He needs to be involved. What does he want for himself in terms of health, fitness or physique? Brainstorm together about things he can do to reach those goals. Find healthy stuff he already likes and play that up. Maybe move towards whole foods for now. Let him know that he has agency. You know you can’t force him and you don’t want to.
My son is 15, not Keto, but interesested. He wants to “be ripped” 
. He also wants hunger control and mental clarity for school. I did a lot of work with him when he was younger to help him make healthy choices for himself because he wanted to.
I’m just starting to work with my 7 year old. Due to various circumstances we were not as strong about her eating and her taste buds are in bad shape. It’s going to be a slow process. At 1% for her age in weight I’m makIng choices that work for my family but I’m focused on moving the needle every day!
Hope that helps 
I am so with you on this. Its all fruit, goldfish, mac n cheese for my 6-year-old son. I wish he would eat PBJ; he likes nutella sandwiches instead. At least he likes Caesar salad and fried rice with tons of oil
There IS a balance. At no point did I say my kids are keto 24/7. I am, and my kids are keto in my home (I do allow some fruits for them though).
But they also go to school and eat school lunch, they eat at friend’s homes, they eat at grandma’s, and they sometimes buy a treat at the store with their own money. Sometimes, they even go these places and opt to stay low carb all on their own.
I feed them keto in my home, because it is my job as their parent to teach them. The oldest 3 are even responsible for planning, prepping, and cooking every other Saturday night. If I teach them only with my words, and don’t actually implement it as the practice for our home, why should they believe me?
I don’t fuss too much about what they eat outside the home, b/c I know better than to turn that into a battle. As someone who has been in therapy for both food addiction and food aggression (like a dog. Snarling, growling, and stabbing at anyone who reached too close to my plate. Brought on by a sudden drop into poverty when I was 9) I never said to take away food options outside the home.
I simply said that being keto IN the home gives your kid the tools NOW, so that he can learn to make better choices (all on his own) everywhere. Kids can’t do better until you teach them. Being keto in the home reduces the kid’s carb load overall. Being and teaching keto in the home means maybe not having to deal with the gut-wrenching guilt of watching your child suffer through depression and other life-threatening conditions as they get older. I’d rather work to make my home keto for them now, than wring my hands with “I don’t knows” and watch them suffer later.
With that, I’m out. My parents failed to teach me proper food choices, and I have suffered with that since I was 9 (26yrs). This subject seems to be a trigger for me, and makes me angrier than is reasonable for anyone.
Interesting topic. I have a 5 and 8 year old. Its not as simple as not having it in the house. My 8 year old will starve herself. To the point that doctors were threatening me because she was all bones! With that said, she isn’t the one I worry about with candy and crap (she doesn’t eat sweets) but the fact she loves carbs (potatoes and rice). Instead of withholding, I talk openly about sugar and its impacts and we are focusing on education, and trying to eat better but its painfully slow.
My youngest is a crap eater. I am the enabler. Why? Because I spend so much time fighting with my oldest just to eat. I work full time and I am still learning myself how to eat properly! Something had to slide. I am hoping good habits rub off and I am limiting what I buy. I am shocked how much crap they get a school, after school activities etc! Its sickening!
Can I go better? Yes. Am I trying? Yes! But I am trying not to make food an obsession like it is for me! I don’t want my girls looking in the mirror worried about their images and all the food they put in their mouth! So while I am learning how to dance this minefield, there is still crap food going in their mouth. But its a battle I will win! I found my way - hopefully they will too.
I wish I could go back to my pre-pregnancy days and change because I don’t think this would be an issue.
The guilt is strong here. I feel mom guilt over everything.
Can you work in substitutes?
My kids (6 and 10) eat carbs - fruit, oats, beans, sweet potatoes, occasionally rice or gluten free pasta.
PB&J - We buy sprouted grain bread. It’s coarse and dense…if they want a PB sandwich it’s all natural PB and honey on sprouted grain. At the very least I would make sure you’re getting whole grain bread, natural PB and NO HFCS in the jam.
Applesauce - fine, but sugar free…better yet, make your own.
Carrots, fine.
Granola bars - switch to Kind bars or something nut based and not sugar infused.
Cereal - will they eat oatmeal instead? Not nasty instant packets, but stovetop cooked with whole milk? We add coconut oil and chia seeds, chopped up fruit and a little real maple syrup.
Do they like olives?
Also, my kids love it when I plate their meal to look like a face lol. Eggs and bacon can make great eyes/eyebrows. I know you said they don’t like those things, but sometimes with mine it’s a visual thing and they’re just resisting…they don’t actually “hate” it. Not sure if that’s the case in your house too.
I know it’s hard. Just looking at the children’s menu at a restaurant gives a clue that kids aren’t expected to conform to decent nutrition standards from anyone’s point of view.
My “heavy-handed” approach was only in the beginning. Now that their taste buds have adjusted, they find berries, almond butter, and 85% dark chocolate sweet enough. And yes, they do have to eat their dinner before they can have dessert. I also make them Keto burger buns, pizza, etc., which they like very much and say it’s “better than the original “. Every kid is different though, some will voluntarily get into it, and some will fight and rebel. Being a parent is tough, and you try your best to do what you think is right (today), and hope you don’t screw them up too bad in the process.
