Ice Cream For Breakfast

I like most people have an addiction, to sugar and salt. Our society has made popular foods, condensed with one or both of these substances.

Our taste buds are effected with a lifetime of salt and sugar over load, making it harder for us to enjoy other flavors the world has to offer. I still struggled to make myself eat and drink the right foods, which if I don't fix, my health will suffer, limiting my abilities and life span.

For my child, I hope to give her a better relationship with food than what I had. It has not been easy, family and society often feel threatened by this notion and it's been an up hill battle all the way.  I do this for my daughter, because I really love her and want to expand her pallet to other taste, than salty and sweet.

One important key aspect is to feed her healthy foods with natural sweeteners like fresh fruit. Sometimes very small amounts of honey, real maple syrup and on occasion sugar can be added, but never allowing the sweetness (or saltiness ) to be over bearing.

Along with trying to encourage a diet low in sugar and salt, but filled with my kids daily nutritional needs. Most important of all, it has to be visually appealing and taste good. Here is a great ideas to help out.

Ice cream for breakfast

Ice cream pops and a blender.

WHAT!!!! You may be maybe saying, but you honestly can make chocolate ice cream a healthy breakfast food.

Ingredients

1 Avocado soft
1/2 lemon
Coconut, almond, rice, cow milk or yogurt.
1/2 cup of sweet fruit
Optional 1/2 cup or less of vegetables you may want to sneak in.
Honey, sugar, maple syrup or any sweetener to preferences. If your family is use too sweets, you can lessen the sugar context over time, to ween them off the sugar.
Unsweetened cocoa powder to preferences
2-4 orange wedges.

First peel avocado and remove pit. Place in a bowl, squeeze lemon on top and around the avocado and allow it to soak.

In blender add your milk, sweet fruit, added vegetables, blend until liquid.

After avocado has soaked in the lemon for about 10-15 minutes, add to mix, along with sweetener and coco. Blend until it looks like chocolate pudding.

Place mix in bowl. Then squeeze orange wedges in mix, add more coco and sweetener for personal preference.

Put the mix in ice pop containers, add stick, put in freezer until frozen.


This can be a dessert or a light meal. You can add infant oatmeal to make it a more filling meal.  I once added slices of strawberries and banana inside the ice containers after adding the mix. It was a big hit.

Disciplining Grandma

Grandma and grandpa, parents to you, but oversize children with disposable income to your children. You say no sugar, grandma a serves chocolate covered sugar cubes with milk.

You tell your children they can't have something and grandpa shows up with multiple of whatever it is, in different colors. Grandparents aren't the only culprits, mean welling aunts and uncles, childless relatives, even siblings will over step your boundaries. You are parent, you wants what is best for your children, but sometimes you can learn something new or even admit to being wrong. However, there are times people need to back off and respect your authority as your child's parent.

Your parent's and your partners parents may feel a sense of entitlement in how they handle your children, their grandchildren. They assert authority over you, your partner and your children. Often they assume theses methods must have worked for you or your partner, hence the methods in question should therefore be repeated to the next generation.

We'll all heard the saying, from our parents that their grandchildren will be their revenge. This is often said in good natured humor, but often it's a self profiling prophecy. The saying is a curse, directed at you by the grandparents, that negatively effective each generation, including the generation enacting the vengeance. It's a cycle, of generations cursing one another, far worse than even the infamous F-word. It's encouraging conflicts between parents and their children and grandma and grandpa often cause many of the conflicts. Grandparents will often undermine the authority of the parent, which can lead to emotional and behavior problems in the children involved.

One method that has given me success is explaining to my parents that their methods, though well intended, was actually harmful. For example my mother took my toddler daughter to a park, where they encountered a preschool aged little girl. My daughter referred to the little girl as a boy. This naturally upset the other girl, when my daughter kept calling her a boy, even after the little girl corrected her.

My mother saw this as cute and amusing. She was telling me about what happened and expected me to be equally amused. I was not. I reminded my mom that she had encouraged this behavior in myself when I was my daughter's age. I explained to her, even though it seemed funny, to the little girl being teased it was abuse.That this was teaching my daughter to be a bully and could cause social delay, which I myself suffered.

Explaining the consequences of the parenting action is often effective. However your child's grandparents may not be willing to listen to reason and you may be forced to constantly supervised them, restrict access to your children or if necessary even cut them off. Though please leave the latter for a last resort.

Sometimes it's better to tough it out, until their method bites them in the ass. Allowing your children to show them the errors of their ways. For example if someone gives your child sugar, make them deal with the hyper active little speed demon, as a consequence of their own stupidity



Usually when grandparents and other families behave in this matter, is a reaction to the changes happening in their life. Empty nest, loss of a spouse, a move, loneliness, depression, etc... while your life is speeding up with a family, a relationship, work, school, and whatever is on your plate, these trouble makers in your life could be crying for help, as the dinner table for them becomes smaller.


It sometimes helps to be the bigger person and react with sympathy and kindness.