I kinda liked that message when I was a kid.

If you could visit as many classrooms as I have, you'd be more worried about the Soviet-style candy-reward system that happens regularly there. I think the school district teachers keep Sams Club's candy aisle in business.

(Why yes, it does concern me that Morgan Park School meets their children at the door each morning with a candy sales rack. Tradition sometimes sucks.)

Tell them your kids only accept money.

Whether or not the individuals giving out the candy know it or not, they are just part of what companies consider sound kid marketing strategies.  Candy now makes the child have a warm and fuzzy feeling about the office or product, and this feeling will last through adulthood.  Kids can also influence parent decisions about products, and the kids will prefer the product as an adult.  There is a ton of psychological evidence for this: candy is cheap and it works to get loyal lifelong consumers of a product.

"Kids are tomorrow's consumer - tomorrow's adult consumer - so start talking with them now, build that relationship when they're younger, and you've got them as an adult." -Child Advertising Expert Lucy Hughes, who works on Child Marketing Psychology 

http://youtu.be/Hi63rXnuWbw

"Psychologists and anthropologists and sociologists and behavioral scientists are used by marketers to really shape and cement children's brand preferences. They want to be part of the fabric of children's lives." -Enola Aird, Child Marketer
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1337599/quotes

I remember my daughter getting coupons to Pizza Hut for reading.  If you are upset about which businesses are donating then complain to the resturaunts and places you shop and encourage them to donate as well.  And if candy being offered to your kid is the worst thing that is happening then it's a pretty darn good day or week.

I love candy.  A lot.  

As a former educator, I will say that the school I was employed at (not a Duluth Public School) did provide hard candy/allowed students to bring in hard candy during standardized testing.  

Testing days are stressful.  Here is a link to a study that shows that gum chewing/hard candy can improve attention during standardized testing.  Other studies have been conducted to see if gum chewing/hard candy can improve memory, but those studies are less conclusive.  If you begrudge a kid a lemon drop(granted they are not allergic) while staying still in one spot for 4 hours I think you might be the devil.  

Effects of chewing gum on mood, learning, memory and performance of an intelligence test

Oh, and this should in no way be construed as my endorsement for standardized testing.

I want candy.

michellep, I see your point, but the kids were instructed by the teachers, my kid said, to chow down on the sugar in prep for the test. I'm fine with gum or hard candy to reduce stress, but don't shoot the stuff into people's veins!

If I take my kid in for a doctor's appointment, then hit the bank, the grocery store and then the muni, three people will offer my kid candy.

Udarnik, I know exactly which "beer store" you are talking about. My kid was the same way there, in fact, she'd start asking them to give her candy before they could even offer it to her! Needless to say, I stopped taking her along when doing a liquor run.

Well, it depends on what kinds of errands you're running.  Some insurance agents will have candy, some won't. Some vets do, some don't.  At some places (eye doctor, lawyer, retail shops), the secretary or counter worker will offer something from the personal stash just because you have a kid; other places have a bowl on the counter for everyone.  

So IME, it's hard to quantify.  But in places where you go often (see also "beer store"), it becomes a drag.  And it's not even the amount of candy, it's the fact that it's always there.

And I'll admit it, I hate being set up to be the bad guy and say no.

Wow, I hope that I never try to make your day a little nicer.
I enjoy places that do a little extra in order to make my time there a little more pleasant. When drive-through windows and pizza guys give my dogs a biscuit, I appreciate it and think it's nice. Even if I did not want my dogs to have a treat for whatever reason (weight, health, behavior, etc.), I would say "Thanks, but my dog can't have a treat," and still view it as a nice thing (like a normal human being).

True, a dog is not the same as a child (I can legally lock my dog in the basement when I leave), but asking a parent if the child can have a small piece of candy is a nice thing, even if you choose not to take advantage of it (which I can totally understand and respect).

Bitching about some place giving candy directly to your child without asking your permission is crappy and should be bitched about, but offering an extra nicety and waiting for your permission should not.

I totally understand that it puts you in a difficult position of having to explain to your child why you turned down free candy, but this is what being a parent is all about. Parents go through most of their lives saying "no" to the ridiculous requests that their children ask for. Being able to say "candy isn't healthy for you," "you are allergic to that," "we're just about to have supper," or "we don't accept candy from strangers" shouldn't produce a blog-worthy rage. Yes, we need to move away from candy as a reward system, but getting pissed at your bank teller isn't going to get us anywhere.

"Bitching about some place giving candy directly to your child without asking your permission is crappy and should be bitched about"

Clarification: people who give your child anything without asking permission should be bitched at (my sleepy brain is not clear this morning)

1. This post is not a joke; it's a rant.

2. I love sunshine and rainbows.

3. Candy is not the worst thing happening.

4. I tried to quantify it, feared I was exaggerating and then left that part out. Yesterday we were offered two lollipops. The day before it was one. I'd say, on average, it happens twice a week.

Because I'm homeschooling, I thought it happened more to me because the kids are always with me when I'm running errands. Some of the comments above would tell me that it happens in school, too. My oldest son just started school. I'll ask him about that.

5. I don't think this is something you'd notice unless you have kids. I'm not patronizing anyone; I'm just saying that it's easy to change your point of view when you're responsible for feeding a 2-year-old, for example. Consider an adult's 2,000-calorie-a-day diet, and a lollipop is a drop in the bucket. But consider the small amount of food little kids eat, and a lollipop could be enough that they don't want to eat lunch.

6. I don't live in fear, but I agree it's good to teach kids not to take candy from strangers. Cliché but true.

Udarnik, it's Mt Royal Liquors in my experience. 

What I would do when my kid was offered candy in front of me anywhere, was to accept it and then tell my kid she couldn't eat it until after her next meal. Except at the allergy clinic, where she *earned* that lollipop every time and I let her have it then and there.

That's why the schools giving out candy when I was not there to put some controls on it really ticked me off. And it's not just one or two schools in Duluth, it seems to be all of ISD 709.

Taking your kid on a trek through aisles of booze is fine, but damn the person working for offering them a piece of candy! 

And offering fast food (like when book-it does Pizza Hut person pizzas) for reading books or something is obviously the height of evil. How dare a child not eat healthy constantly.

Twice a week is two times too many for a child to be offered candy. I say we march on the State Capitol and demand that the Governor pass legislation banning candy from the state! 

Next, we can push to have toys taken out of kids meals at fast food restaurants because then kids won't demand them and their parents won't have to worry about being good parents and saying no.

After that passes, we go after crayons at places like Perkins.

Parents can't be expected to be parents without the states help, and kids should never be allowed anything that can give them any sense of good childhood memories. The children must be over protected!

How many trees have to die to create those stickers?

Okay, I want to see a story in the DNT--with two photos, one with the caption "Duluthians Disgruntled by Strangers Giving Kids Candy" and a second, "Other Duluthians Disgruntled by Duluthians Disgruntled by Strangers Giving Kids Candy."

Arms must be crossed, frowns on all sides.

I couldn't find the earlier post about the prevalence of such photos, but this topic seems to becoming ripe for such a take. 

Seems classic that a blog post trying to get people to think more clearly about social behaviors (giving away candy) gets turned into a chance for some people to make smarmy comments about how parents should be more responsible, or that people who raise objections to certain things in our social habits must always be whiners who want the state to regulate other people's lives. Welcome to what passes as civil discourse on the Interwebs.

Have you thought about taking the offered candy and saving it for a special occasion?

You could have Halloween in the spring, or as a "good job, you ate all your peas, you can pick out a piece of candy for dessert".

And I know how completely annoying it must be to get parenting advice from non-parents, but the ability to say "no" to children seems like a basic requirement. I remember asking for all kinds of weird/impractical/dangerous items as a child and having my parents say "no." Once I was done with mega-tantrum, I forgot about it and moved on.

If you don't want your child to eat candy do not allow them to eat it.

Ha!  ^ This.

Jadiaz wrote sarcastically,"... kids should never be allowed anything that can give them any sense of good childhood memories...."

I really don't think being offered candy by a stranger at the doctor's office, at the liquor store, or at the bank is going to provide my kid with happy memories. What she **will** remember is Halloween and walking up and down Grand View Ave, getting candy; Easter, and searching for eggs and getting candy; Christmas, and getting presents and candy. The candy is one reason these holidays are special. To get candy from strangers whenever she leaves the house kinda ruins the specialness. It's like, when I was a kid, my parents let us have root beer (no other sodas) only on birthdays. *That* made it special to me, if I had root beer all the time when I was a kid, I wouldn't think of it as fondly as I still do. Because I associate it with happy memories, not with going to the grocery store or the bank with my parents.

As a non-parent, I find this discussion funny.

This is my 3rd favorite PDD thread ever.

I'll chase that errand thing some more:

I started thinking about when I go to the bank.  I've gone into it three times in the past month -- to get something notarized, to get rolls of quarters and to sign a check in person.  But I go through the drive-through at least once a week because as a freelancer, I receive the majority of my income as checks.

I don't want this to sound all Secret Parent Club the same way Barrett didn't want to sound (and didn't, IMO) judgy, but running errands -- in fact, the whole flow of one's life -- is different with kids.  I'm out and about almost every day taking kids to events or friends' houses anyway, so I might as well swing by and grab that one thing I remembered I needed at the hardware store, even though I was just there five days ago.  It makes more sense than making a twice-a-month chore day like I did back in my single days -- take a Saturday and do all the laundry, change the oil, do the shopping, deposit the paycheck, and so on.

Gosh...I run a ton of errands on a daily basis with my boys and we are NEVER offered candy.    Maybe this is because my kids are usually: (1) either already crying before I would even need to politely say no to candy (due to severe allergies) or (2) are wild as heck and people likely know not to add sugar to an already out of control situation.

Thank God my parents were not like some of you here...  And why would anyone care about where you run errands or that you have all this time as a freelance douche that hates candy for their kids?  This thread makes me want to start one bitching about the people who support this thread.  

If this is an issue you need to look around your tiny child/errand world and see all of the real problems to bitch about.  

Teachers give your kid candy before a test and you complain?  Some people who are in their 60s and female offer your kid candy and you attack them.  You are a douche if you don't see people going a little out of their way to brighten a child's day.  The candy from an old lady is more to get the kid to remember to be polite and it is an elder reaching out to a child.  It is sad that you focus on the candy and not the gesture.  I would bet a lot of those old ladies spend their own money to buy that candy... The teachers too, to help your kid score higher or reward good behavior so you can sit with your PBR or growler and brag about your little genius because they did well on their ITBS testing and ranked a grade higher.    

To those who give candy, don't stop.  There is always someone on PDD complaining about the dumbest of things. Who can forget the  annoying "Critical Mass" people who think they own the road too?  

The funniest thing about this thread is that the thread starter sees the problem as the candy, but then people bring their kids into the liquor store with them.  What a joke...

Christ, Andrew, there's a **big** difference between taking a kid along to the liquor store to pick up some adult beverages and giving your kid some of that adult beverage!

The nuns at my elementary school were more likely to slap our hands with rulers than give us candy -- and my siblings and I did pretty damn well without any sugar rushes before testing. 

Candy --and pop too --- should not be dispensed in schools. Ironically, ISD 709 teachers won't even give a kid with a headache an aspirin w/o parental permission, but think it's OK to load 'em up with sugar before NCLB testing and other occasions.

Claire - I had nuns who spanked you if you didn't have your homework done in front of the entire class and I once got slapped across the face by Sister Theresa for talking during an ITBS test in 2nd grade. 

Those days are gone though.  If a teacher hit a kid they would be sued and tossed in jail.  So teachers are forced to find other ways of reinforce good behavior and lower the amount of punishing for bad behavior.  Candy can be a nice gesture from a teacher trying to reinforce good behavior unlike the old days where kids were beat to stop bad behavior.  It also has been proven with testing scores.

**Liquor stores** How can someone be so mad about what candy represents to their child and then not feel that having them walk through a liquor store would have no effect?  It doesn't make sense to me.

I rescind the part about women in their 60s because stereotyping should be avoided. It has been a personal observation that this group of people is more likely to offer, and even hand my kids candy directly — candy which I then decline — but I shouldn't be painting with such a wide brush. What I was implying by pointing out a generation gap is that decades ago, children weren't surrounded by candy as much as they are today. I wonder if some people, perhaps older people especially, think they're helping in an "it takes a village" kind of way, to give kids these treats. My argument, from the point of view of a parent, is that it isn't helping. It's making my job as a parent more difficult. I'm not throwing my hands up, crying for help because I can't handle the situation. I can handle it. But in case you've never given it any thought, I'll tell you again: I really hate it when you offer my kids candy. Try to understand another person's point of view.

I went too far with name calling and apologize...    

I disagree on this issue because the poster wrote such a long rant about people (mostly old women) giving her child candy.  There also were references to teachers and how horrible it is to give out candy.  I loved those little things as a kid and appreciated the old lady nextdoor while growing up who invited me into her porch with stories and a piece of candy.  

With all of the issues we face how can giving candy to a child be worth a huge rant like that?  How is it bad to offer a child candy as a treat when that candy is usually paid for by the kind person who is offering it?

You can remove my post calling a few posters names, I usually try to not post here and not call people names.  Someone talking about the errands they run is more boring (Twitter) than the damage of offering candy to a child IMO.  

Having someone go off their rocker about giving kids candy and then talk about bringing their kid with them to the liquor store sounds hypocritical in my view if it is all about principle.

A Sister Theresa accused me of making Jesus cry. Maybe it was the same one...?

Yes, lots and lots of teachers give out candy to children as rewards, and not just during tests. The main issue I take with this is that of course many of these teachers think they're the only ones offering them candy in any given day. But quite often, they are not. It's bubblegum, it's jolly ranchers... It is a rare day when I sub in a classroom where there isn't a giant bag or container of candy behind the desk somewhere. 

And yes, Morgan Park meets the kids *each and every day* first thing in the morning with a candy sale cart. They might sell them at lunch too, but I'm not sure. I'm sure it's a long-standing tradition, and that it raises pennies for the school or boosters in some way. I still find it to be sad. 

On any random day in any middle school or high school in Duluth, the main garbage in the halls is candy and junk food wrappers. Now it might be true that it is included in kids' lunches from home. I don't know. But I suspect that most of it comes from purchases away from parents' eyes. 

Also in any given Duluth classroom, 10-15 percent of the class is *grossly* obese. I'm not talking a little chubby; I'm talking unable to walk without waddling side-to-side and getting out of breath running around. 

Yes, I do think the candy culture is a contributor to this problem.

Also, I second what Paul said.

Andrew, I can totally relate to your stories about power-mad and sadistic nuns. But that's for another thread...

Anyway, do you or do you not have a problem with a (male) school playground supervisor giving his "favorites" (all young girls, maybe 7 or 8) candy at recess? I'm not happy when people give my kid candy in front of me, but I am gracious, accept it, then tell her when she can eat it. But, to give my kid candy behind my back.... Not cool. In this instance -- it was downright creepy.

And Heidi is right. There is an obesity epidemic in this country. You want to give a kid something as a treat, give him or her a tangerine or a pencil, you don't have to give them candy. Hey, ever hear of sugar free gum? Only kind I want my kid chewing. I'd be OK with it if someone gave my kid a stick of sugar free gum... There are alternatives to candy, you know.

"Come for the fun, stay for the righteous indignation!"

I am regretting posting as I am not good at blogging.  

claire: I think it is horrible that a playground guy gives only the girls candy.  What I have learned is that kids sometimes see something as biased when in reality it is not though.  Without meeting the playground guy or observing this you never know.  If someone was favoring one gender then it would be totally wrong.  My experience with kids is that there is usually more to the story than what they perceive (and sometimes how they present it).  Maybe the boys are misbehaving and there are three girls who continually behave properly are getting all the candy and causing some animosity?  

I would have much rather have gotten a piece of candy for being quiet during a test than to have a nun slap me across the face at 8 years old.  The nuns I met later in life were all great women and excellent teachers.  Sure they could break a kid down in seconds with their yelling, but they always cared and were usually justified.  

Those days are gone today... 

I usually stay out of these complaining rants, but with this one I thought, "now someone is ranting about their child being given a free piece of candy... what is the world coming to?"

Next there will be a post about the evils of someone letting their puppy come up to their child to be pet... "Why can't people control their puppies?  This horrible dog owner let their puppy come to my child to get pet, oh the humanity."

BAH HA HA HA HA HA.  That is a great story.  My favorite part: "...and tell her that jesus in fact was not crying and was probably having a good day, because I was not lying."

It's elitist attitudes like this that closed down the locally owned Hip Hop Candy Shop on 4th.

Who cares if kids get candy or not. After all, isn't it bad for their teeth? On the other paw, don't mess with my damn milk bones. Especially the red ones. I've got ten more pearlies than you and not a spot on em. I credit my red milk bones. Tasty little biscuits of joy. Even better when the lady behind the glass sends them in that little chute.

Amen.

Barrett:  3x1=3
               3x7=21
               3x30=90

So... someone made a comment (B-man?) about dirt-flavored candy... I present the good readers of this blog with:

BeanBoozled Jelly Belly jellybeans available at Hepzibah's in Dewitt-Seitz. Weird and nasty flavors mixed with regular ones. Flavors include: 

Canned Dog Food
Chocolate Pudding
Skunk Spray
Licorice
Rotten Egg
Buttered Popcorn
Centipede
Strawberry Jam
Booger
Juicy Pear
Baby Wipes
Coconut
Barf
Peach
Moldy Cheese
Caramel Corn
Pencil Shavings
Top Banana
Toothpaste
Berry Blue

Childhood obesity is out of control in our country.  You start adding up all those little treats and rewards and tell me what that leads to.  Furthermore, that delicious sticky candy causes cavities up the wazoo, especially in little kids.  Those are two excellent reasons to leave the candy where it belongs, on the counter.

When the Harry Potter jelly beans came out, we had a bean-off at work, where people would each pick up a jelly bean and eat it (and eventually chicken out when they encounter "earwax" or something like it). The winner was the person who was either lucky enough to get good-tasting beans, or had an iron gut that outlasted the opponent's.
I cheated my first time by picking the "tutti-fruity" ones (the only one I could identify by sight) and dropped out as soon as those were gone. The second time I played legit and got horseradish my first pick. I walked out and never played again. (BLEH!)

Is this post for real? 

Oops, guess so, as it was posted April 13th, not April 1st.

Sheesh, some people's kids. Get over yaselves.

...and who walks out of a bean eating contest? ffs. wuss.

also, dontcha kinda wonder who knew enough about what ear wax tasted like to create a replica flavoured bean...hahahaaaaa - somethin's gotta be wrong with that sugar daddy. jus sayin