How I Handle Halloween Candy With My Kids
This time of year can be hard on parents. There is so much candy around and a lot of messages about limiting kids sugar intake and some SUPER creative ways parents are encouraged to negotiate the candy away from their kids.
But the problem with negotiating Halloween candy away from our kids now is that it doesn’t give them the opportunity to learn how to be around a lot of candy (or other fun holiday treats)… which they eventually will be one day.
Instead of thinking of Halloween as a time to stress about sugar intake, I think of it as an awesome opportunity to support my kids in a healthy relationship with food.
So here is how I handle Halloween candy.
When my kids come home from trick or treating, I take a look at the candy because we are supposed to for safety reasons and look for razor blades and such…(we know the people we trick or treat from but I still feel compelled, a child of the 80s and all).
Then I let my kids eat as much as they want to eat WITHOUT any commentary on the quantity.
All the candy is theirs and this is fun for them and I let them fully experience that fun in the way that they want to.
Have they ever eaten candy (or any other food) in a way that makes their tummy hurt? Sure! So have I. And I let them know, sometimes that happens when we eat something that tastes so good and we don’t listen to our tummy when it says it is time to stop. It happens to me sometimes too and it will be ok, your tummy will feel better soon.
And you know what they do now that they have experienced that? I hear on the regular, I’m going to pause for a minute and try to listen to my tummy. Or It tastes really good but I’m going to stop because my tummy says it’s done.
Because I have let them practice and experience, they connect to it without shame or fear.
Ok, back to the Halloween candy process…
Then the next morning at breakfast they are allowed to pick out some pieces of candy to eat with breakfast - they think this is a hoot. It has created great memories, it laughs in the face of food rules, and it seriously is not harming anything.
Then when they come home from school, we have candy as an afternoon snack if they want it. When we have something fun for snack, I don’t limit it. I will offer other foods or milk alongside it, but they decide how much they want.
And later, they are welcome to pick some small pieces out to have WITH or after dinner, their choice.
The next day I do mostly the same minus candy at breakfast.
After that, we sometimes have it as a snack with endless quantities available. And at meals, Halloween candy becomes just among the dessert choices as in “you can have 2 cookies or a few pieces of Halloween candy with dinner.”
This gives my kids multiple opportunities to self regulate with candy.
See, if I always control their intake and decide for them when they have had enough, they don’t get the practice of deciding for themselves if they have had enough. If I cut them short, they are left wanting more and candy becomes this leveled up special food that is in limited supply. If I put a limit that is more than they need, they may eat it all knowing that the next time I may cut them short so, eat while you have it and all.
It starts to cause kids to rely completely on the limits we set and takes what their body is telling them out of the equation.
The message we can inadvertently send is “don’t trust your body, don’t trust yourself.” This disrupts their natural bent to rely on their intuition when it comes to eating.
Now, often when people hear me say this, what they leave hearing is that you should let your kids eat as much candy as they want all the time.
That is not what I am saying.
I would not suggest that your kids dictate all aspects of food and their nutritional health, ever. Nor more than I would tell you to let your 3 year old make the grocery list for your family.
They still need your guidance, not just with Halloween candy but all meals and snacks and that guidance gets gentler as they get older.
AND they also need opportunity within the structure you give them to self regulate. And Halloween can be a great time to do that with candy!
So stress less this Halloween, eat some of those fun size candy bars yourself, and enjoy the fun of it with your kids!
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