Children and Sugar

Hello,
   I have a child, (12 yrs.) her name is Ann, and she was diagnosed with ADHA a while back.  Her medication seems to have not much of a affect on her, so our doctor sugested that we try a no-sugar diet.   This works pretty well, it seems to keep her calm, but she is almost addicted to the foods with sugar.  It is very hard to keep her away from sugar, and it so hard to keep sugar out of the house, especially since we also have a 15 year old daughter.  I really need some help trying to come up with a way to keep her from wanting to eat sugar.  It is so hard though because she doesn't care about much.  She doesn't want "gifts" and there is really no way to punnish her when she does eat it, because she doesn't mind being groundid, and when you take away things from her, she doesn't care either.  I would just eliminate sugar from our house, but that would be competely unfair to our other daughter.  Please help me think of modivation to keep her from intaking sugar, and other things that she could eat that contain almost no sugar, that actually taste good, (and will help her gain weight, she is very skiny).  Any help you can give me would be great! Thank you.
Laura

[Kevin Kennedy, Ph.D.]

Dear Laura,

You needn't think of the goal as eliminating sugar entirely. A more reasonable goal would be to achieve a significant reduction in the whole family's ingestion of processed sugar by being cautious about what you bring into the home, particularly snack foods, candy, baked goods, etc. Enlist the help of the children by developing suggestions about alternatives that seem appealing to them, so the process can be a joint venture and appear less as something that you're imposing on the family.

[Kyle's Mom]

I eliminated as much sugar as I can from our diet because my 6 yr old has ADHD.  You don't have to eliminate it all just don't eat it every day.  I let Kyle have cookies and some candy on the weekends, but limit the amount he can have.  He is fine with this as he likes how much better he feels since we limited sugar items.  When we go to the store he asks if something contains too much sugar or if it contains artificial dyes (we eliminated those too).

The best way to do this is to not buy so much items that contain sugar, especially junk food, cakes, cookies, donuts, etc.  Get good snacks, such as raisins, fruits and vegetables, etc.  But fruits contain sugar too so you can't eat a ton of them all the time either.  If your whole family limits sugar you will feel better and think clearer, and it will not be so hard on your ADHD daughter if she sees her whole family is supporting her.