Helping your kids navigate their Halloween candy can be hard. They come home with a sack (or two) full of every different type of candy you can imagine. You’re inundated with heaping mounds of sugar you would rather not have around the house. Your inner food police is screaming to throw it all out.
But they are excited. You are dreading it. You know you can’t avoid it, but you know it is coming.
The fights, the battles and the never-ending bag of candy.
You’re dreading it because this one-day event turns into a 2-3 week long battle (or longer) between you and how much sugar you are going to allow your kids to have.
This article is not going to be about handing out non-candy items like “play-doh” or implementing a “candy buyback program.” I understand that this parenting struggle is real, and I’m not going to say that I have all the answers, but I do have some tips that might be a bit different from what you are used to hearing!
Tips on managing your inner food police with your kids
- Prepare yourself mentally! There is going to be more sugar around you than you are normally used to during the days leading up to Halloween. Recognize that this is part of our culture and the society we live in. If you have your kids in extracurricular activities, they will likely have Halloween parties, and they will be coming home with a bag of goodies. Let your kids enjoy what they come home with, and know that this isn’t an everyday activity.
- Try to limit how much candy comes back home on Halloween night. The more time your kids are outside going door-to-door, the more candy they will bring home. Discuss a time frame or the number of houses they are going to go out to that night. You also might find it useful to set a specific time they should come home.
- Organize, categorize, and enjoy. When your kids come home with their bag of treats, you can help them categorize their goodies into: love, never tried before, and don’t really like. This tip helps your kids become more aware about which treats they actually enjoy vs. the treats they may eat “just cause.” Let them start with what they want to try. Spend time with them talking about the taste and texture of the treats. What flavours do they love? What flavours do they not care for? Help them develop their inner body awareness by getting them to pay attention to how they are feeling after consuming their treats.
A child who is an intuitive eater will eat the candy he/she likes and stop when they have had enough. A child who is an intuitive eater recognizes their hunger and fullness cues, identifies how different foods make them feel, and lets their body guide their eating choices.
These kids usually have candy left in their candy bags in March because they do not stress about whether or not they “should” have any. The excitement of the candy wears off when they have permission to eat the food and truly enjoy it.
Here’s what some of our Winnipeg registered dietitian moms have to say about encouraging intuitive eating behaviour with their kids and their inner food police this Halloween:
“I let the kids eat a fair amount of candy on Halloween night, but remind them they can have more candy tomorrow with lunch/dinner (& occasionally even breakfast) …yes I did just say that 🙂 lol. I really think it is important to check in with my kids to see how they’re feeling. Get them to recognize how their tummies are feeling. This helps bring awareness to what is going on inside their bodies!”
Joan Marks, RD:
“My kids get to choose a couple of treats to put in their lunch kit each day for school. I find that the novelty wears off about two weeks after Halloween”.
Nita Sharda, RD
“This year will be different for us as our little guy is so much more present and aware. Not to mention, his memory skills are amazing. Here is how I plan to let things unfold:
1. I will independently sort through his candy and remove anything I feel would present as a choking risk. This includes bars with nuts, hard toffee, gum, and hard candy. Safety first.
2. Next, the first few days, I’ll likely allow him to eat as much or as little of his candy. Since I find my child responds to sugar, it will be best if we avoid it close to bedtime. I don’t plan to ration his candy but rather offer him the autonomy to have what he would like.
3. I will also cue him to think about how he feels and how his tummy feels. He doesn’t quite understand literal concepts of intuitive eating, but I firmly believe he’ll be able to manage on his own. Words we use are “ouchie hungry” and “ouchie full.”
4. Lastly, I will need to remind him to take things slow and to chew chew chew! This will help him connect better to his body signals but also helps in terms of the safety angle!”
Need some help encouraging your children to be intuitive eaters?
Kids’ eating habits can be frustrating, but our dietitian team can help! Learn how to encourage your little ones to reconnect with the intuitive approach to eating they practiced as an infant [eat when hungry/ stop when full].
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What about all the leftover candy purchased?
- Don’t over-purchase in the first place. It is O.K. to run out of candy and close the door. There is this one closed-loop street in the town that I live in. There are about 50 houses, but because there isn’t a lot of car traffic, parents take their kids to this one area of town. I see on Facebook that homeowners end up having to purchase $100-$200 worth of candy because the street is so popular. I personally think this is crazy and wouldn’t be purchasing $200 worth of candy.
- Look at how much you are handing out. You don’t need to be handing out huge handfuls either. One candy bar per kid is what I remember getting when I was a kid. Nowadays, I see parents handing out 2-3 handfuls to each kid that comes to the door. Purchase what you think you need to hand out (roughly how many kids you think will come by), and then maybe a little bit extra for yourself. When you run out, close the door.
- Purchase mostly candy you and your family don’t like. If you are really concerned about eating the leftover candy, purchasing candy you and your family could care less about will make the treats less exciting.
Let’s look at why Halloween candy makes us feel uncomfortable.
The more we try not to eat something, in other words, restrict, the more we are likely to overeat it. This is the basics of the science of eating behaviour.
As much as I have given you some tips above to help manage your inner food police. It is also important to consider what is going on under the surface of your uncomfortable feelings around Halloween candy.
Before you decide to cancel Halloween or vow to keep all the candy out of your house, let’s take a moment to consider a few things.
- Forbidding or restricting specific foods like candy only creates a sense of deprivation. Thoughts of “I shouldn’t or can’t have …” Lead to “what the hell effect.”
This then leads to a period of overeating, which then cycles back to deprivation.
The reason that you may feel that these foods have control over you is because you may be demonizing them or viewing them as good or bad. Essentially making them forbidden or restricted. You have an inner food police.
Naturally, people don’t like to be denied the pleasure of life, nor do we like to be told what to do or not do. Our reaction to restriction is simply rebellion. Sound familiar? If so. Let’s talk.
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- Satisfaction also really plays a really big role in what and how you eat.
When you become an intuitive eater and discover the satisfaction factor, you will find freedom in being around treats, and food won’t have control over you. If you are craving chocolate but deny yourself the pleasure of this food or substitute it with something less satisfying, you will likely want to binge eat chocolate when the opportunity arises.
One of the areas I work on with clients is helping them make peace with food (which is often one of the hardest principles of intuitive eating). I use the process called habituation, which works by exposing yourself to the so-called danger food on a regular basis. The more you are exposed to a food, the less your brain and body will care about it. Over time, the result is that your intense desire for the food item diminishes.
If it feels like you have foods that are “off limits” because you can’t control yourself around them, then working with a Certified Intuitive Eating counsellor like myself (Susan Watson, RD) or one in your area would be beneficial.
HOW DO I BOOK AN APPOINTMENT WITH A REGISTERED DIETITIAN?
- To book an appointment with one of our Registered Dietitians or therapists, you can:
- Phone: 204-515-7466
- Email: admin@alittlenutrition.com
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