Here Is The Definitive Way You Can Deal With Your Kid Eating 'Too Much' Halloween Candy

I have a feeling a lot of nutritionists start getting really excited about October 31 around August because Halloween is their time to shiiiiiiiiine when they get to be quoted about ideas for parents to help their kids consume less Halloween candy. Unless there is some super scary salmonella outbreak, nutritionists don’t get a lot of attention in the press unless it is Halloween. I’m aware that obesity in children is a big issue in this country. I agree that no child should live off candy and never try broccoli. I agree that if you let your kid eat their entire bag of loot after they return home from Trick Or Treating that they will probably end up with a tummy ache. But what I don’t believe is there are thousands of worried parents wringing their hands over how they can make their kids consume less candy on Halloween.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again, parents are pretty smart people.

And if you want to know the ultimate answer for how you can make your kids eat less candy on Halloween? Well, here it is.

You take the candy away from them.

Tah-dah!

You can get all fancy with this extreme parenting tactic and couple the candy-taking away with saying something like:

You can have more candy tomorrow.

You can pick one more piece, but that is enough for now.

If you eat more candy, you will get a stomach ache.

That’s enough.

Some of the suggestions I read for how to DEAL WITH HALLOWEEN CANDY involve parents going into length explanations about WHY a kid shouldn’t eat an entire bag of candy or even tricky ways they can GET their kids to be uninterested in their Halloween candy. From The Huffington Post, nutrition blogger Dina Rose suggests things like:

Consider conducting some science experiments with your children. Which floats better: M&Ms or Skittles?

I’m not a nutritionist, but I’d rather parents let their kids pick half of their candy and donate the rest of it to a food bank or nursing home or something, instead of putting delicious, delicious candy into water to see what floats better, but that’s just me.

I don’t think parents who read news articles about kids consuming too much Halloween candy are the types of parents who give their kids a can of Mountain Dew and a bag of Cheetos for dinner. I’m not even sure those types of parents really exist. I think that most parents discuss nutrition with their kids, and tell them to try new vegetables and fruit, and encourage them not to eat all their Halloween candy at once, and suggest they run around outside on occasion. I don’t think parents are so dumb where they just have NO IDEA about how to handle how much Halloween candy their kids eat. And I also think most kids eat some on Halloween night, a little less the next day, and even less the day after until us parents are left with a mostly full bag of things no one likes, stray Tootsie Rolls, bags of candy corn, and broken vampire teeth.

I think parents handle Halloween candy pretty much the same way. We sit with our kids, go through it all to make sure there are no stray razor blades, steal a few pieces of the good stuff for ourselves and let our kids pick out a few pieces for themselves. Then we put the candy away and get our kids ready for bed after they brush their teeth.

And when they are in bed, we maybe go steal another piece or two for ourselves because those mini-candy bars are so small!

(Photo: Dan Kosmayer/shutterstock)