Mood Food

I've always stood pretty firmly on the belief that food doesn't have an effect on my kiddos. Like, I've seen some kids eat one cookie or one pouch of artificially colored gummies, and they are off the walls mental. But not my kids (and I'm not saying this facetiously).

I've pretty much always known food effects me. Carbs and sugar bring me down, make me sluggish and zombie-like. Even J will say something to me when I start getting in a funk about eating better foods for me.

But I've never seen either effect on my kids until recently.

Oh boy.

After having a few fun-filled weeks of eating things that they are privy to on occasion, but certainly not every day - lots of crackers, Annie's fruit snacks (AFC free), macaroni and cheese and spaghetti, and more pancakes than could possibly fit in my children's bellies, I started to see it.

Badly.

The meltdowns were continuous and inconsolable. Whereas I can typically talk to H and she'll get her head together and calm down, she looked to be in a foggy haze and totally not coherent half the time. The sleep was more minimal than typical with crazy wakings. They were just bonkers.

It didn't happen from eating some graham crackers or a package of gummies, but from eating that daily.

J and I have always tried to have a pretty open policy to what they kids are allowed to eat, especially in other people's homes. It just seems to be the most respectful way of going about things. But from here on out, I think we'll have to be more leery on that.

The one thing that kept going through my mind during these epic meltdowns was how awful it has to be for some kids, who have these kinds of behavioral effects from the things they're given to eat, and then are also disciplined for how crazy they food makes them eat. What a lose-lose situation for little kids.

So if you're like me, and you're pretty certain food does not effect your kiddos, then try an experiment and see if their behavior changes if you take the sugar and processed foods largely out of their diets. It's like night and day.

Obviously H and B aren't angels all the time (don't tell my sister this - she might decide not to move in!), but the difference in their behavior and reasoning skills, as well as their sleep, is drastically different depending on what they eat.

I get it now.