6 Strategies to Limit Sugar at Halloween

Halloween is becoming more of a world-wide phenomenon and it can be SO much fun for the kids to stay up a bit later at night, dress up and go trick or treating in the dark! 

Not to mention all those sweeties! 

If your kids have received more sweets at Halloween than they usually consume in a whole year, then, depending on your views about sugar and the age of your children, you might want to consider some ways of limiting their sugar intake. 

Here are 6 strategies for you to consider.  Pick one.

1. Pick a day (Halloween itself, the day after or the weekend after) and allow you kid to eat as many of their Halloween sweets as they want between lunchtime and dinnertime. 

Let them know that after that, the rest of the sweets will either be donated or binned.  Most kids will gorge and self-regulate - i.e., stop when they’ve had enough.  Even if your child doesn’t stop, their intense sugar intake will be limited to an afternoon.

2. Ration the number of sweets per day/week your child can have from their stash. 

Let them know what that ration is and be empathetic when they ask for more. This takes more self-discipline and policing.

3. Let your child bring their stash to school and hand it out to their friends.  They will feel very generous and popular for doing so even if the teachers will not be so thrilled.

4. If your child’s birthday is coming up soon, allow them to pick 5-10 sweets to eat now and agree with them to put the rest away and give them out in the birthday party bags.  Even if their birthday isn't soon, convince them it's much more fun to share, dish them out into little party bags for your child to give to others.

5. If you’ve got an older child who is interested in money, buy their sweetie stash off them.  Decide an appropriate sum to pay them in exchange for their sweets.

6. Get an appropriately sized jar or clear container and put all the sweets in there, counting each one.  Jot down how many are inside and seal the container.  The next time your child has a bunch of friends over or you have a party, ask everyone to guess how many sweets are in the jar.  The person with the closest guess wins the jar and takes it home with them.

Of course, whichever strategy you try, you’ll want to talk to your child about it and get their buy-in.  After all, if they went trick or treating, the sweets really belong to them.  Drum up some enthusiasm and make your proposal seem like a really good and fun idea so they feel excited to go along with it.

Happy Halloween!