Sugar, sugar (Grandma moments)

Ever since she was born, Little G has been on a 'low sugar' diet. Chocolate and sweets, cake, desserts and sweetened drinks have been rationed or not introduced. This is mainly because she is not a big fan of brushing her teeth, and will only do it reluctantly and while watching a Frozen video on You must be mad's phone.

Plus we have all seen the news clips of very small children having to have their rotten milk teeth pulled out in hospital. Little G hasn't seen them, of course, but the rest of us have been suitably scared. Mind you, as the wife of a diabetic, I am amazed by the amount of hidden sugar that lurks in most food nowadays. Bread, fish fingers, pies all contain sugar - sometimes disguised as dextrose, maltose or anything else ending in 'ose'.

However Little G is now three, and the odd sugary treat comes her way in the form of ice cream, the occasional chocolate penny, and homemade or otherwise cake. Interestingly, if she has too much sugary food, she gets very hyper, which I had never witnessed until last week, when I rashly gave her a big jammy biscuit mid-afternoon for her snack.

Having licked out all the jam, we then set off to get the bus back home. I think it was the loud singing that alerted me. Followed by the 'I don't want this toy throwing', and the point blank refusal to sit quietly and look at the nice cars. Little Hyde was making her presence known.

I wondered fleetingly as I hauled her noisily off the bus, what the rest of the passengers were thinking. I wanted to turn round and tell them: sugar rush! But it made me ponder how many of the badly behaved fractious children I see every day are suffering from sugar overload.

Maybe a low sugar diet might be better than a dose of Ritalin and a diagnosis of some behavioural problem that will follow them round for the rest of their life? Just a thought.