So it's four days after Halloween and some of us are wondering what we should do with the seemingly endless heap of candy in our midsts. We've heard all kinds of strategies -- giving leftover candy to charity, buying the candy from our children or trading it up for a toy. Some of us let the kids go hog wild until it's gone. Others carefully dole it out throughout the year. Sociologist, Dr. Dina Rose offers up a handful of strategies on how we can, over time, learn how to reduce our role in the candy-control struggle that presents itself each halloween, and throughout the year. She also breaks down the unintended messages we are giving our children when we play the role of Candy Controller.
Dr. Rose, of It's Not About Nutrition runs a blog on The Art & Science of Teaching Kids to Eat Right. She proposes that by giving halloween candy away, parents are missing some valuable teaching moments. By overly controlling our kids' consumption of sweets we are effectively robbing them of opportunities to learn self control.
She outlines 3 strategies for making good use of the halloween candy pile:
1. Think of Halloween as a Big Buffet where you teach your kids to be "browsers" not "loaders"
2. Encourage Your Kids to Taste Test so that the halloween bag becomes an avenue for risk taking and trying new things.
3. Teach Your Kids to Think BIG whereby they can start to practice and understand how to keep inferior foods in their proper proportion.
She also reminds us of 5 unintended messages we are giving our children when we try to restrict candy eating:
1. "I'm going to dump it so you better eat as much as you can now."
2. "Candy has power."
3. "Feel guilty when you eat candy."
4. "It's best to eat candy when you're full."
5. "You're not to be trusted around candy."
To read much more about her strategies for dealing with your kids candy haul check out her article, But What Are You Going to Do With All That Halloween Candy?. To hear more about why we should think twice before giving all that candy away check out her article The How-to Control-Your-Kids'-Candy-Consumption Con.
(Image: Jackie Boucher. Via Parent Hacks )
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My kids are 2,4 and we had a really nice experience this year. We went TOT on our street and one street over. Each kid got the number of candies for their age. They also had the opportunity to select from some better quality goodies I picked up. The rest of the candy was picked up by the Great Pumpkin to give to the kids who were sick on Halloween. And then each kid got a small new toy after they got their pajamas on.
No problems at all and I have witnessed some really terrible tantrums all week at various locations.
The intended consequences: we can enjoy sweets in moderation and help others.
Our girls sampled 5 pieces on Halloween night and then searched their bags for 10 favorite pieces to save for the next 10 days.
We took advantage of the trade in at EarthFare and got big reusable bags, flower seeds, coloring books, whole grain tortilla chips, an apple, and 6 real chocolate mated milk balls. The "candy fairy" also brought books and activity books.
My girls are really happy with this arrangement and it teaches that treats are fine in moderation.
Anna @ Lawrence Girls
I agree with many of these messages - kids should learn to make their own choices about food, and candy should not hold power.
We have always distinguished between "food" and "treats" and home, and our 4yo son understands that "treats" are eaten in moderation. We don't forbid treats, but enjoy them after a meal every once in a while. We also bake cookies and cupcakes from scratch to show him how much better homemade "treats" taste than candy. I think our son's personality also plays a part because he's not "treat" focused.
We have a great trick-or-treating neighborhood and this year he gathered 5lbs of candy after just a single pass up and down the block - he was truly proud of his haul. We put some of the candy in a small clear bin in the kitchen (we did this last year too). He is allowed to have 1-2 pieces a day if he has eaten a meal first and it's not too close to bedtime. Again, his personality comes into play, because he's only asked for candy once since Halloween. Last year, his treats lasted the whole year, and we anticipate this year will be the same. :)
Maybe its just me, but when our boy is old enough for ToTing and any other kids we may have, they can ToT til they say stop and after I dig through their bags for any shifty or opened candy, that is their stash to do with what they wish. Kids aren't the gluttonous, candy-crazed maddies people make them out to be. When I was a girl, I would fill an entire drawer with my ToT loot and made it last for months! A piece here and there, but no one was telling me how many pieces I was allotted or when I could have them and I would never do that to my kids either.
As a kid my hoarding instinct was as strong as my binging one so I had no problem making my Halloween candy last for months. My 3-year-old son collected more than I expected this year and he's been having 1 or 2 pieces a day as "a treat". He's been pretty low key about it, but I suspect this will be a trickier issue in the future. I think being the candy controller is appropriate at his age.
FABULOUS article! Totally agree. We have a teensy neighborhood and my daughter's pile is pretty small as it is. Every day she trots in from school and chooses a couple of pieces. I was never controlled in any way about my Halloween candy consumption; I don't think it even occurred to my parents. I was starting to worry about WHAT TO DO WITH THE CANDY and then I just was like, I'm going to CHILLAX now and not worry about controlling my kiddo's Halloween.
I disagree that "kids aren't gluttonous, candy-crazed maddies." Some kids are. I have six kids. They learn at different paces and in different contexts. There's a lag between "I, parent, have taught" and "I, child, have learned" and the length of that lag often has as much to do with personality as with age. And developmentally, no child can wrap their brain around the long-term consequences of frequent sugar binges.
Three of my kids have learned self control (ages 14, 7, and 5) and could make their candy stash last for a year. The other three (ages 10, 5, and 3) have no self control, and if given unlimited access to their candy, would binge until they threw up. "Live and learn" doesn't always work for them (and I'm not terribly interested in cleaning up puddles of regurgitated candy). One of my kids came to me via foster care, and she has dangerous insulin levels, i.e., she's pre-diabetic because she's been allowed to eat whatever she wants for the past ten years. Some of those "negative" messages are messages she actually needs not only to hear, but to internalize because her life has been endangered by her diet. She SHOULD feel guilty for binging on candy because it could kill her, and it IS best for her to eat candy when she's full so she doesn't binge on it.
Until self control is clearly exhibited by kids, I get to maintain ultimate control over when and how much candy the kids get. E.g., the two kids I found in their closet at 5:30am with their Halloween pillowcases and a giant pile of wrappers have lost the rest of their stash because they were unable to demonstrate self control. We don't forbid treats, but they are restricted and we are very open about why.
innej54- do you have a blog? I would love to follow along on your journey, from one foster parent to the next.
'There's a lag between "I, parent, have taught" and "I, child, have learned" and the length of that lag often has as much to do with personality as with age.'
Great quote!
I have my kids put one candy in a jar for 'the poor kids' for every piece they eat. This helps them learn charity and it cuts their stash in half!
Thanks doll,
The Glamorous Housewife
After TOT, I seperate the candy we'd rather our 4-year old not have (full size chocolate bars, gum, etc.) and leave the rest in her pumpkin bucket. Every morning, she chooses two pieces of candy: one goes in her lunch box and the other is for after school. On the weekends we leave it up to her when she has her two pieces, but not before breakfast and not after 7:00 when we get ready for bed. No arguments and no worries.
Sorry, what is "TOT"?
@LadyNocturne - Trick or Treating/Trick or Treat.
Oh for goodness sake, buying candy from your kids? A big candy splurge once a year is NOT going to kill them, yeesh.
Unless there's some strong medical reason (diabetes, celiacs, etc) let the kid have some fun.
I let my kids eat all they wanted. My only rule was that if I found ANY trash on the ground, every bit of the candy was going in the trash. (I haaaate finding lolly sticks and gum wrappers all over the place.)
My kids have already eaten all their candy. I am okay with that. They were also extremely generous in sharing even the really good stuff with me and their dad.
My kids do not go crazy on sugar anyway. I also don't like the idea of them eating a bit of candy every day for weeks, as I feel that would be worse on their teeth.
When I was a kid my Halloween candy would last until Easter. Now that I am an adult it would barely last til the next day.
I totally agree with previous posters. We allow our children to hold onto their "stash," and use Halloween as a lesson in moderation. However, I FIRST go through their bags and set aside any wrapped candy that might work well for the gingerbread houses we will make before Christmas. (Dots, Nerds, Twizzlers, Whoppers, Skittles, M&Ms....) Saves $ in December, and cuts down on the amount of candy they may indulge in after TOT.
Our son didn't ToT this year (he's 2) but we had lots of leftover candy to pass out. He never eats candy but I let him have a piece. Every so often he comes over with a piece he grabbed from the bowl and a sly grin because he can't open a Starburst wrapper and sometimes I let him have one, sometimes I don't. Sometimes he cares that I say no, others he doesn't. Candy just isn't a big deal for him. get that boy around CAKE, though, and it's a different story. Whatever the situation, there's no whining for treats allowed.
Growing up, we'd come home with LOADS of candy because we lived in a compact and generous neighborhood. Seriously, we got pounds of candy. My parents would inspect everything before we were allowed to eat a single piece, but gave us full control over what we did with it. What happened - every single year - is that we'd do some swapping back and forth, eat our favorite stuff that first week, and promptly lose interest. The candy would sit in the pumpkin on the shelf and we'd occasionally think to get another piece, but we typically had to throw out the previous year's candy so we'd have a clean bucket for the next year's TOT! Same with Easter - we'd get a ton of candy and most would end up in the trash.
We were never restricted on candy or treats on a daily basis, so Halloween candy wasn't some "forbidden treasure" or anything all that exciting to us. Although we liked it, we simply weren't motivated by or focused on sugar. My cousins, by contrast, were very restricted in how much sugar they could consume - the result being that they binged when allowed to have it, bounced off the walls, and generally freaked out at the very thought of sugar or candy. Which reinforced the cycle.
Every kid will be different, but I'm definitely of the mindset that all things in moderation is a reasonable approach. When kids can't moderate for themselves, that's when parents need to step in and help them learn.
@annieglan: A whole year later! Clearly I lost the thread shortly after posting. I do have a blog, but its focus is me-the-writer more than me-the-parent. You're welcome to visit it , though! It's jennieaton.com. I'd love to talk foster parent shop!