Do you let your kids chew gum?

i don't have a kid yet but i have a 4 year old niece which love candies, chocolates and almost anything sweet. she also chew gums once in a while. i indulge her since i know being a kid she wants to try those things, i just always remind her not to spit it anywhere but on the trash bin. she's an intelligent little kid so i have no hard time teaching her what to do on the gum she finish chewing. i also learned that chewing a gum helps us avoid cavities and therefore tartar so its not really bad for us. happy posting!

my grand baby chew gum he is 1 years old he chew it for about 1 hour in 30 mins then he get rid of it.he chews and chews he love it so when i come to visit he go in my pocket book to get gum i have to tell him to stop he wants it.

My 10 years old son love to chew gum no matter how i told him not to do it. but my 5 years old son, dont want it either.

LOL! Yes, yes I do. I sometimes won't let my daughter have it for awhile if she takes it out of her mouth and gets it stuck on her clothes or her hair or something but I never disallow it entirely. As far as my older kids, I'd rather they chew gum than eat a whole package of cookies lol. I don't think gum is a huge evil thing and I refuse to believe that it's a big deal. Obviously sugarfree gum is a better choice and again obviously you should have guidelines, including not chewing it in places that ask you not to chew gum...

Hi, humbug25 as you know I love gum in fact I'm kind of a gum fanatic but I try not to chew so loudly when I'm in public and I think its ok to give kid a pace of gum occasionally, as long as there old enough not to swallow it or get it in there hair, my mom gave me a pace of gum once and a while as a child, but she would always tell us not to swallow it and to throw it away before bad so we wouldn't get gum in our hair.

Still don't have any kid, but got a lot of nephew. Most of them likes to chew gum, which is very irritating as they like to throw away the gum as they like once they finished with it. Sometimes I will accidentally sat on these gum and you know how hard is it to remove it once it stained your clothes. I think I will make a new rules about this, maybe reward them with something if they stop chewing all these gum :)

Too much gum is not good, but once in a while is ok.

We used to use a lil gumball machine as a reward if they behaved. But that eventually wore off. So really we don't let them have nay too often as they..... Beg & Whine for it (same w/ candy or any other treat they think they need) and they won't get rewarded for that behavior. They don't dispose of it properly in a trash can, I find it pasted to my couch, the rug & in their hair.... = a not so happy mommy! And finally I just paid a fortune for my ODD's dental work!

Hi Humbug, I can't stand the stuff and my daughters when they were teenagers used to drive me mad with it, my son likes the screwball icecreams from the van but I will not allow him the bubble gum bal at the bottom so the icrecream man puts some sweets in instead. People talking with gum in their mouth makes me want to slap em and tell em to get some manners, grrr and the ones that don't dispose of it correctly I get even more angry at. I didn't allow my girls as such to have gum until they had their own money to buy it with but neither now really chews it, they tend to have soft mints instead but I think they were probably in teens before I allowed though they probably did have before that without me knowing. Right I am back off the soap box now, do I chew gum? NO. LOL. Huggles. Ellie :D

I let them, only sometimes its a kid thing

Gum is not allowed in our house, awful stuff. I have too many bad memories of it from school days. None of our children have actually asked for gum. My eldest will go to secondary school sept 09, so I suppose he will want to chew gum, I will let him but there will be rules attached to it! Cruel mother that I am!!LOL

I can't believe how much we agree sometimes, my friend. I have never been a fan of gum. When my kids were little, I never gave them gum. They never really asked about it. My MIL always snuck them a stick now and again but mostly when they were in her care. Therefore I didn't have to worry about where they were going to stick it when they were done. My mom didn't like gum. My cousins would come to our house and she would find the stuff stuck in various places around the house. She hated that! My kids are now 10 and 14 and get their own spending money (my son even has a paper route). It's difficult to keep them from purchasing it with their own money. When they DO chew it, the rule is: If I see it out of their mouth (bubbles, stretching it with their fingers etc.) it is GONE! And if I find it anywhere it shouldn't be in my house, the rest of the pack is gone.[em]shocked[/em If my breath needs freshening, I will occasionally bum a stick off a friend. But basically I rarely chew it myself. I wonder if teachers still ban it too.

my son is 2 so no i dont give him gum nor would i. He actually dont eat alot of sweets like most children do. He wont drink soda or eat candy a lot. He might get a sucked and lick it 3 times and then throw it away and thats it for the day so im not worried about it cause i dont think right now he'll be into sugars as much.

Yes...I will let my kids to chew gums since it helps them a lot in maintaining their hygience. In this intances like it will maintain their breath well good and it can helps also making their teeth stronger. So, I will let them it chewing gums.

I don't lke to let the little ones chew gum, because they get it everywhere, I was just telling my daughter not to give the small kids any gum. I know it is not good to swallow it.

No way when they were young. And now as grown ups they are not interested, just one in a blue moon. I was addicted once upon a time though.

Hi Humbug and other lotters. Rather my opinion differs from you all in few aspects I believe that chewing gums have advantages on one hand compared to the disadvantages on the other. I don't say that kids should be allowed to have chewing gum, but would say that chewing gum do not hamper others and not even the one who is having it. Dentists believe that chewing gum enhances the muscle power of the jaws as today the food habit has gone so deteriorated that especially the kids are allured to junk foods where they don't have to chew so the chewing gum aid as a sort of exercise to the jaws.Secondly the dentists opine that chewing gums reduces the risk of the dental decay due to accumulation of the food particles in between the teeth s causing to the dental plaque and dental decay.further more it prevents the fowl smell from of the mouth If these aspects are considered then chewing gum is quite helpful Letting someone not do something which causes inconvenience to oneself in my view is in human rather one could find ways of making the things simpler by advising the kids not to litter around with the stuff after chewing they should rather be taught of discipline regarding the spitting of the gum in some paper and into the dust bins. In my opinion some one who has crossed the age of 5 is no more an infant he can be trained and i think training the kids the mannerism is quite easier compared to when it is taught at the age of 18.Thanks alot

Yes and No. We don't allow our kids very much sugar based candy, gum or desserts for that matter. We instill into them that they need to stay away from sugar as it makes them hyper and changes their moods too often than not. Although we don't always do a good job of it, we try.

Hi Humbu25, i will allow my kid to chew gum once she knows how to chew gum (not till after 18 ). I feel that kind of fun and joy when chewing gum too, but just not always do that, may be because i didn't get into a good gum yet. You have favorite brand? FYI, i heard that some country don't allow people to chew gum and they didn't sell that too. Kind of weird but that true.

well, there isnt any restriction on chewing gum in my home, though i dont have kids, but my parents never scolded me for chewing a gum.. when i was child... then they asked me to stop, but after wards when i was in 5th standard, they never stopped me.