Sensitive issue re friends and snacking

LegacyUser

My son has recently become good friends with 3 brothers who live in the house behind ours. I'm so, so happy that this has happened as we just bought the house a couple of months ago and the one reservation I had was that it isn't on an estate so I wasn't sure if there would be any other children nearby. When we moved in and discovered that three little boys, 2 years older, the same age and a year younger, lived here I was delighted and seeing them become friends is fantastic.

They mainly play in the other boys' garden. They are absolutely welcome here whenever they want and they do play here sometimes as they hop over the wall but for the most part their base is in the other boys' home. The only drawback is that their parents are always giving them sugary snacks and I mean always. Every half hour or so, they come out with glasses of coke and a tray of sweets, chocolate and/or cake. I'm not totally against letting my son have junk food., my son snacks on fresh fruit and veg which he loves but he does get chocolate/biscuits/ice-cream from time to time. But I don't buy fizzy drinks so he's never really drank those.

I'm not sure how to deal with this. Their parents are lovely people and are just being kind and generous to my son but I really don't want him having this much sugar. I've tried asking them to only give my son small portions of treats but they don't really understand. Neither speaks very much English, so anything I say beyond the conversational basics has to be translated by the boys. I'm not sure how much of this is actually being translated as the boys don't understand why I wouldn't want my son to have as much treats as they have and I don't want to press the issue with them as all but the youngest boy are very overweight and I don't want to make children feel bad about something like that. I've tried saying things like I don't want him to have snacks as we'll be having dinner soon but it doesn't seem to be working.

It's getting to the point where a part of me wants to stop my son going over there sometimes. To be fair to my son, he doesn't eat everything he is given and often has a few spoons of cake and leaves the rest or he often comes home to me with sweets in his pocket as he was given them and didn't feel like eating them at the time. But he's only 4 and does still eat a lot more of what he's given than I'd like.

cbyrd

You're the parent, tell them they can play in your garden.
How long does he spend there?

LegacyUser

Send him over with a packed snack (carrot sticks, juice or water etc) so he can take that out when the others are eating the sugar stuff therefore not feeling left out and not eating loads of sugar laced food.

pwurple

If it's a communication issue, Translate what you are saying into their language and write it down. Maybe get a hand with it.