Candy Parenting: What's Your Strategy?

Halloween was last week. Hopefully, you were able to moderate and avoid a sugar coma. Halloween is a great holiday for kids and adults alike. However, for parents, it comes with a unique challenge. What’s the best way to manage Halloween candy with my child’s trove of candy treasure? As a parent to be, I’m starting to anticipate these challenges and seek the wisdom of successful parents. I’ve learned that when it comes to what you do with your kids Halloween candy there is very little consensus. All parents seem to agree that there needs to be some sort of a strategy. But that’s where the agreement ends. Although there doesn’t seem to be a clear right and wrong answer most seem to fall into 1 of 5 strategies. Here are the 5 main strategies after interviewing over a dozen parents.

1. The Free-For-All Strategy – “Kids should be allowed to make their own decisions. After all, they went and got the candy themselves.” The logic: Parents who use this strategy believe that children need to make their own decisions to learn how to best moderate their own behavior. If they eat too much and get sick then they’ll learn from their behavior.

2. The Tyrant Strategy – “I let my kid pick 3-5 pieces of candy. Then I keep the rest in my closet and eat it myself.” The Logic: This candy parent doesn’t want their kids running around the house on a sugar high going crazy. They believe their kids will do better to have a small amount and be in bed on time.

3. The Tooth Fairy Strategy – “I tell my kid they can keep all the candy OR they can give the candy to the ‘switch witch’ and while their sleeping a toy will appear where the candy was.” The Logic: Kids still get to have a little candy, but then instead of going on a candy bender for a week they get a cool toy. This way the child still enjoys the fruits of their labor and gets something of more lasting value.

4. The Moderation Strategy – “They a good amount of candy on Halloween day, nothing crazy, but a good amount. After Halloween, they get 1 or 2 pieces a day until they run out.” The Logic: This strategy is designed to provide guidance and teach kids how to moderate over a longer period of time in the hopes that those skills will translate into later life.

5. The Get-It-Out-Of-Your-System Strategy – “On Halloween, they get to go crazy. They can eat as much as they want but once Halloween is over the Candy gets thrown out.” The Logic: Let the kids have fun and go crazy for a day. The idea is they get it out of their system and then get to go back to life as usual. Those the basic strategies I’ve come across. What about you? Does your style fall into one of those strategies? Or is yours different? Do you follow the same plan for yourself?

As always, thanks for reading. Let me know your thoughts and strategy in the comments below.

Until next week. Stay focused on your fitness and have fun!