Managing Halloween Insanity
Halloween isn’t even here yet and already the candy craze has begun in our household. For us, it was the Homecoming parade that started the deluge. For others, it was the church trunk or treat or the school party. It seems that the onslaught of candy always begins prior to Halloween these days, and I KNOW we can’t be the only ones feeling the sugar rush…and not in a good way.
I think we all know that processed sugar is a bad thing. We see the behavioral results in our children after they consume too much sugar, and we know there are negative effects on their bodies. In our household, at least one of our children has an extreme sensitivity to artificial dye. It results in some pretty extreme behavior and loss of impulse control. There is a good bit of data suggesting that this is a pretty wide-spread issue in our children (not that the FDA will ever admit that! Did you know that many European countries require a warning label on foods or have outright banned foods with certain artificial dyes for this very reason?). So if your children also react poorly to dyes, Halloween candy delivers the double whammy of sugar and artificial dye, and it’s a recipe for disaster!
We have struggled over the years to find the balance between letting our kids be kids and have a blast with a carefree Halloween experience, and protecting their health and also our own sanity. Here are some of the ways in which we attempt to mitigate the insanity:
We *try* not to give in to the pressure of attending too many events leading up to Halloween…we don’t need to do the trunk or treat AND trick-or-treat! We are careful which fall festivals we attend and what the main attractions are. This year, we went to a “Punkin’ Chunkin’” festival at a local state park. We watched giant catapults launch pumpkins into a lake! There were craft vendors and a bounce house and hay wagon rides, and a giant lake beach on which to play. We did enjoy a funnel cake because we are not THAT averse to sugar…but this was not an event where we walked away with candy. This year, we are holding firm to one night of trick or treat and no other trunk or treats. We did attend the university Homecoming parade (we live near Penn State and it’s kind of a big deal)...and we did in fact come home with too much candy. You win some, you lose some…and it was worth it for a really cool experience.
Check out the punkin’ chunkin’!
We do some candy trading after parades and always after trick-or-treat. The artificial dye is a big issue in my house, so we stock up on naturally dyed candy. Then, after trick-or-treat, our kiddos can trade the “fake dye” candy for the “safe” candy we’ve bought. (Pro tip - Trader Joe’s is an entirely dye-safe store! You won’t find artificial dye anywhere in the whole store!) You could even stock up on some books/tiny toys/stickers/etc for your kids to trade for if reducing the amount of sugar is your goal. My kids actually love the Great Candy Trade! It gives them some control over which candy they get, it definitely makes them less sad about the candy they can’t eat, and they genuinely look forward to it! This is obviously also a great option if your child has allergies.
Another pro tip for avoiding artificial dye: absolutely every item and ingredient at Dunkin’ Donuts is naturally-dyed. We LOVE that for fun holiday-themed treats!
Speaking of allergies, you should be aware of The Teal Pumpkin Project. This is intended to make Halloween safe and more inclusive for those with food allergies by providing non-food options at houses marked with a Teal Pumpkin. Anyone can participate! Obviously this serves the dual purpose of making Halloween healthier and lower-sugar even if you don’t have food allergies. I highly recommend getting in on this and putting out your teal pumpkin with non-food options, even if you also hand out candy.
Before going trick or treating, we make sure to eat a solid dinner. We have some food traditions on Halloween that the kids look forward to. These help get them to eat well even with the excitement of trick-or-treating ahead. We make carrot soup because it’s the most brilliant orange (and also they prefer it to pumpkin soup), and we make hot dog mummies (except we don’t eat meat so we use fake hot dogs wrapped in crescent rolls). With nice, full bellies (full of “not-candy”), they are slightly less likely to completely gorge on candy immediately after bringing it home. Or I tell myself that anyway. Either way, we got some good nutrition into them before all the sugar.
After trick-or-treating, we have a tradition of The Great Pumpkin. When we started this tradition, I hadn’t heard of the Switch Witch…but it’s exactly the same. The kids pick out some of their candy (usually candy with artificial dye in our house, but it could be any candy) and leave it out for the Great Pumpkin (or the Switch Witch, if that’s how you play it). In the morning, the Great Pumpkin/Switch Witch has taken the candy offering and left a small gift in return. My kids usually get books, and one year they got new slippers and Thanksgiving stickers. Sometimes a coloring book. It’s important to note that never have I expected them to give up all of their candy, or even the majority. Just a little will do! It helps to reduce that sugar intake a bit.
The Great Pumpkin loot
Something that we find really helpful is to talk about all of this with our Big Girl, who’s almost 7, in advance, before the insanity is upon us. We discuss how all of the sugar and dye might be a problem, and we proactively collaborate with her to make a plan for how to stay sane and calm the week of Halloween and after. This approach is something we have worked hard on as a family, and we use it to solve a variety of problems we encounter. Choosing a calm moment to proactively problem solve together makes a world of difference. Be sure to create this plan WITH your child, not FOR your child. Give them a sense of control. You can certainly carefully guide the conversation where you want it to go, but be sure to listen to their ideas and input, as well. Often, our Big Girl has great ideas we would never have thought of! This can help reduce Halloween stress and overall be a very healthy family strategy for dealing with a variety of issues. It’s been modeled so many times that Mr. Middle, who is just 2-and-a-half, is starting to pick up on it and try to think of his own solutions for things and be a part of the conversation.
Try not to demonize candy. While our end goal (in our household, anyway) is to reduce sugar intake at least a little bit, and avoid artificial dye altogether, it’s important not to label candy in general as “bad”. There’s a good bit of research out there that has found that building lifelong healthy eaters involves giving them autonomy in making choices about what they eat. This includes allowing them to eat candy and not limiting it too harshly…that can backfire and create a very unhealthy relationship with food.
Another thing we do here the week of Halloween is something I talk about all the time - spending lots of time outside. Processed sugar causes inflammation and reduces immune function. There’s some oddly specific number of hours (I want to say 6-ish?) during which your immune system doesn’t function properly after consuming processed sugar. On the other hand, there are multiple studies that show that spending time in nature can reduce inflammation and boost your immune system! Spending time in nature can literally counteract the exact negative effects of processed sugar on the body! We try even harder than usual to spend every available hour outside the week of Halloween (and the week after when there’s a bunch of candy in the house).
In case you are thinking that I follow my own advice, you should know that nothing I just wrote stopped me from eating a big ol’ pile of pre-Halloween candy while I was writing this. Mom fail! Also my last tip is that over the weekend, I bribed the kids with one piece of candy for every pair of socks they could match up out of the laundry, which I’m guessing is definitely not on the list of ways to create healthy relationships with food. But I’m really bad at laundry and will take all the help I can get. I dumped the kids and the socks into an empty pack-n-play and they went to town. But we DID spend lots of time outside the day of the Great Sock Match-up Bribery, and I did make a decent dinner. I figure it balanced out…sort of?
The evidence
So we aren’t perfect around here…but we do try. How do you handle Halloween? Comment below and let us know what you do that lessens the insanity!