What have your kids done with their Halloween haul?

Some strategies I’ve used in the past when my lot have come home with pillow cases (yes, pillow cases!) stuffed full of candy were ;

  • confiscate half of them

  • sort them out and only give them the ‘better’ sweets like the chocolate bars (ie. not the moams or other chewies)

  • hidden them after doling out a few

  • bought them back off them

I don’t do any of this anymore. Following a lot of reading and research, I now allow my kids to manage their own stash.

Are you horrified 😱? I was at first! But here’s why ..

🍭 restricting their intake of sweets in this way puts sweets on a pedestal and ultimately makes them more desirable. We don’t do this with fruits and veggies do we?

🍭 when we manage our kids haul, we’re saying that we don’t trust them to do it themselves. I know this now 🙈. We need to trust them to self regulate themselves

🍭 if you’re worried they’ll eat too much - well don’t! If they do, they will most likely suffer the consequences - by feeling 💩 or even 🤮. A great lesson for them to learn!

🍭 if we’re allowing our kids out to trick or treat, then we are essentially providing them with those treats. They decide if and how much they’ll eat - as per the division of responsibility in feeding.

Like everything in parenting - I’m constantly second guessing myself about this issue. Maybe, in years to come, there will be new research and I’ll be raging … 🤯. But for now - this is what I’m doing.

Follow and share with your mates who might be interested !

BTW - mine are all teens now so taking sweets off them would not be pretty/possible and they’re pretty over it anyway!

Deirdre Doyle