Manic display

AnnieO

Shooting from the Hip
...Or...

"We're trying to limit artificial colorings in J's diet, can we count on your assistance?"
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
We gave the teacher a stash of "insteads". If the treats that came to school were gummies (the worst), or red... then our kids got to pick from the "instead bucket". Sometimes, the other kids were jealous! Tried to put some good stuff in there that wasn't even candy... special individually wrapped cookies, for example. My kids loved soft mints, tictacs (you can make them last a LONG time!), and chocolate...

As J gets older, you can teach him to bring home anything he is unsure about... if its fine, he can eat it, if not you'll swap for something else.
 

Steely

Active Member
Yes, if you find this fact to be true with your son - than it is perfectly normal to state he is *allergic* to red dye - and ask that he be given an alternative.
 

Malika

Well-Known Member
Yes, I don't really know how one establishes that certain additives cause problems other than by eating the suspected foodstuff and seeing what happens? Another idea that occurred to me was to buy sweets from health food stores - sans additives - and maybe provide them to the school or childminder and ask that they be given instead of the rogue sweets...
Incidentally, just wondering what you call in the US the soft, gummy sort of sweets if "candy" is just hard, boiled sweets?
 

buddy

New Member
I dont think of candy as just hard ones... Candy for us is anything sold in wrappers or at a candy store, chocolate bars, wrapped hard candy, little chewie bits like reces pieces (peanut butter candies like m & m 's) or mike n ikes (fruit jelly bean kinds of things). Anything sold in a candy isle. In our area that is how it is and on tv or other usa places seems that way too. I wondered about that post too... is it just in your area or maybe a family definition? at first I thought maybe a typo, like it should have said it is not just those things. But this is a big country and things clearly can vary. Not all my perspective, haha... I'm no difficult child!

In the schools around here now the rules are really strict. No buying anything for birthdays etc. Used to be no home-made things, now they are really trying to control what comes into the schools, especially at the elementary level. But there are treats and people do bring alternatives. i always ask. In Q's class, they are all allowed to have snacks of their own in a drawer, it is important because hunger and difficult child does not work well. He also had tons of gum. But this stuff is not shared. We can bring cute pencils, stickers, etc.
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
Candy is pretty close to the British "sweets", near as I can tell.
We have a British sweet shop in the mall (yes, its called a sweet shop), and everything in there is something I would consider candy. Gummies, Smarties, peppermints, taffy, licorice, all of that is candy.

Non-candy high-sugar stuff is usually more along the lines of baked goods (cookies, cakes, rolls, etc.), or drinks.

Fudge, for example... is a grey area. If it comes in a candy-wrapper, its candy. If its home-made, its not. (really confusing, right?)
 

buddy

New Member
this thread has taken a funny turn, but it is interesting to me, yeah, now that you mention it, fudge is just fudge...all on its own. I suppose if I had to do a kid project where I had to put pictures of foods in categories, I would choose candy? no, maybe it would depend like you said, how it is presented...lol
 

rejectedmom

New Member
just addressing the initial post here. Malika it may be cafiene that is hyping up your boy. It is in chocolate and Mountain dew and all coke products and in root beer also. Really it is hidden in so many of our foods but especially desserts. Cafiene and salisalaytes (sp) which are found in apples and other fruits can cause kids that are sensitive o them to become extremely reved.
 

Malika

Well-Known Member
Thanks, rejectedmom. I did deliberately give J coffee once because I wanted to see if it calmed him - someone suggested this (the ever-wise IC, I suspect :)) - in the way of stimulant medication. The child psychiatrist poured cold water on that idea, by the way (but she didn't seem all that au fait with things, really). Anyway, J did become a bit more hyper with caffeine.
So difficult to identify the culprit, isn't it?
 

AnnieO

Shooting from the Hip
Not all medications work the same way on all people - so caffeine might rev someone, while Ritalin would calm him, and caffeine would calm someone else while Ritalin would rev her. So... Good theory, but not necessarily workable. :wink:
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
(the ever-wise IC, I suspect)

Correction.
IC is not "ever-wise".
In fact, probably "otherwise" a fair bit of the time.

I just throw out there, things we were told by people we grew to trust, and usually if they worked for us (the caffeine thing DID for K2... kept her surviving until we could get a diagnosis and get the Ritalin)
 

Malika

Well-Known Member
Actually, I beg to differ, but I do find you wise, IC - and you seem to have practical knowledge that stretches over many domains...
I can't imagine giving Jacob Ritalin. I expect everyone feels like that. Making no point here about the desirability or otherwise of medications... just that it feels so strange an idea. But maybe I/we will get there one day...
 

AnnieO

Shooting from the Hip
Malika -I know EXACTLY how that feels!!! I didn't want to medicate the kids at all. But... If he needs it... Just keep an open mind! :bigsmile:
 

Malika

Well-Known Member
Oh, yes, Step - I'm much more open to it than I was... because J's problem is hyperactivity which does not yet seem really to go with severe concentration problems, he copes okay at school. And while that is the case, there is much less of an imperative to medicate.. I suppose the fear is that while there may be a medication that makes him less hyperactive and impulsive, it might also make him... not J in some sense. But you don't know until you try a thing. All of this is a process, I reckon - I don't feel the same way about certain issues that I did a year ago and it all seems a constant evolution. At first one is shocked, trying to deny, hoping against hope that there is nothing "wrong" and then... there is an acceptance, a willingness to look for solutions. And if I can come to believe that medications could really be a solution, yes - I'm open to it...
 
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