Thread: "Today's Parent" article: How to manage your child's candy consumption on Halloween

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http://www.todaysparent.com/craftsac...4_10740&page=1

Hmmm, you mean letting them eat as much as they want and everybody trading candy for hours after TOTing ISN'T how it's done?

Just joking, I know some parents are healthy, etc...

From the article-"It’s the scariest time of the year. All those ghosts and goblins and cobwebs ... and sugar. Yikes.
The amount of junk food that shows up on Halloween night can make a parent shiver; there are about 80 calories in a trick-or-treat sized chocolate bar and 60 in a lollipop.
These holiday snacks don’t just contain calories, but sugar, salt and fat."

http://www.myfoxal.com/story/1559327...thma-allergies NEW article on Halloween causing asthma and allergies! WOW! Pumpkin allergy? Dust mites in costumes! GASP!

Keep your giveaway stash well hidden until October 31 and put it in a bowl by the front door when the sun goes down. If kids don’t see the treats ahead of time, that’s less time they’re asking for a sample.

Personally, never had a problem with "no, that's not for us to eat", but I guess some people have a hard time with the word 'No'?

I understand that a lot of kids are obese and large but if their parents simply feed them right and make sure they go outside and run around instead of playing video games all day then the candy wont even really matter.

One of the points was that if you get them full before they go out trick or treating then they wont want their candy when they get back. That is a straight up lie. It might be fine for adults but if you give kids the option they will eat candy until they are sick. I've done it, you've done it, we've all done it.

Also, if your child can only have 1 or 2 candies a day until it's all gone, then you basically did not take them trick or treating. You generally get around 3 pieces or more depending on if they are picking out the ones they give to kids or they just give handfuls. So basically the author's child went down to around 4-5 houses and came back. That's just boring.

To sum it all up, Let kids live a little!
I wonder what these parents do with Christmas, Valentines, and Easter candy!

Originally Posted by UnOrthodOx

Personally, never had a problem with "no, that's not for us to eat", but I guess some people have a hard time with the word 'No'?

I have to hide it from myself! Not to mention the roommates. I'm pretty good about out of site out of mind, but if I leave it in the pantry and see it every day it'd be gone. What can I say, I'm still a kid at heart (not so much body when it comes to eating a ton of candy ).

Er, it's not the once-a-year treats parents need to worry about. It's the everyday junk food, sodas, and lack of exercise that make our kids fat.

It's almost enough to make me miss the yearly scare tactics over poisoned candy and razor blades in apples. These days it's the Calorie Police doing their best to poop the Halloween party. Forget Jack Chick tracts, now health conscious parents can hand out packets of oatmeal (great for lowering cholesterol!) and snack-sized packages of baby carrots!

Now THAT'S scary!

I agree, one night of sugar over-load a year isn't going to hurt anybody. I never worried about "managing" my kid's Halloween candy consumption. They hit it hard the first night and were sick of it in a couple of days. They both grew up to be healthy adults of normal weight.

Originally Posted by Bella LaGhostly

Er, it's not the once-a-year treats parents need to worry about. It's the everyday junk food, sodas, and lack of exercise that make our kids fat.

I couldn't agree more. No harm in a little indulgence done very sparingly. My brother, sister and I would T-O-T for hours, get tons of candy and spend all night sorting, trading and eating a few pieces of the best stuff. The hysterical thing was, two days later it would all go into one huge communal bag and 99% of it didn't get eaten. My mom would put pieces in our lunch and we'd give them away to friends. You could tell the kids in college who were never allowed to eat junk food - they were the ones eating Frosted Flakes for dinner, instead of the baked chicken.

To quote an episode of Roseanne:
"So, Fred and I were talking and we've decided this year for Halloween instead of candy, we're gonna give out carrot sticks." -Jackie
"Yeah, we're going healthy too. We're giving out filtered cigarettes." -Roseanne

I'm not going to waste my time reading the article, but seriously? Unless they actually have some health problem where eating a ton of junk food one night a year is an issue, making it the 'forbidden fruit' can only make things worse for them in the near term, and likely for the rest of their lives.

Let kids be kids!

Or do what everyone here at my work does, keep some of it for the kids & bring the rest in for co-workers!! I had so much candy at the front desk last year it looked like a candy closeout aisle at Walmart!!