The following post was originally featured on Real Mom Nutrition and written by Sally Kuzemchak, who is part of POPSUGAR Select Fitness.
My name is Sally. I'm a dietitian. And I hand out candy to trick-or-treaters.
In the past, I've doled out bags of pretzels, small tubs of Play-Doh, and sheets of stickers too (and see nothing wrong with going that route). But mostly, we hand out candy. Usually chocolate.
If you're a regular on this blog, you know I can get riled up about junk food. Especially when it's on the sidelines of kids' sports every weekend (read: Soccer Mom Soapbox). I'm that mom calling the summer camp director to ask about switching from Powerade to water. I'm the lady stopping at the front desk of the rec center to chat about the junk in the vending machine. I even advocate for healthier school Halloween parties.
Yet when it comes to trick-or-treating, I'm cool with candy. Why? Because I think it's okay to celebrate some occasions with food. (If goodies aren't handed out every day for made-up special occasions like t-ball practice, it's easier to do this.)
But I also know that trick-or-treating can spiral into candy craziness, so here's how I make it work in our house:
1. I wait until the very last minute to buy candy. Ideally, I'm at the store at 3pm on the day of trick-or-treating. Once upon a time, I made the tragic error of buying Halloween candy in advance, which of course meant we ate it, bought more, ate that, and bought more.
2. I give my kids free reign. We eat dinner before trick-or-treating, then all bets are off. They can eat as much as they want, which often comes with its own handy life lesson: If you eat too many sweets, sometimes your belly hurts and you feel gross.
3. I play the Switch Witch. After my kids return home to dump and sort their stash, they reserve a pile of their favorites. The rest (the stuff they don't like or don't like very much) goes into a bowl on the dining room table. While they're sleeping, the Switch Witch arrives to take the candy and replace it with a toy or game. This is optional at my house. My kids aren't forced to turn over their candy, and last year they kept a pretty sizeable amount. I know not everyone is a fan of the Switch Witch (read Red, Round or Green's take in this post, "Switching Off"). But I like that this fun tradition teaches them to value what they like best - but not waste time on the stuff they don't, simply because it's there. In our culture of omni-present junk, that's a useful skill.
4. I put them in charge of their stash. In our house, we have a one-treat-a-day policy which works most of the time. You can have your treat whenever you want: in your lunchbox, after school, after dinner, even WITH dinner. My two boys' Halloween candy is kept in separate bags in a cupboard they can access. We decide together what a reasonable portion is (usually a fun-size bar or two small pieces of candy) and they serve themselves. They don't obsess. There's no sneaking of candy. (Well, sometimes I sneak a piece and get caught when one of them finds the wrapper in my office garbage can.)
So that's how it's done in our house because this seems to work well (for now at least!). You may do things differently, and that's okay. You may toss out everything with artificial colors, only buy GMO-free goodies, or hand out temporary tattoos. Or maybe you're that fabled house with the full size candy bars. By all means, do your own thing.
But if you sneak your kids' candy, do a better job than me of hiding the evidence.
from POPSUGAR Fitness http://ift.tt/1VsULrU
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