What do you do with all that Halloween candy?
Halloween is basically centered around two things: costumes and candy.
If your kids have had parties at school, parties after school, or you’ll be handing out candy to trick-or-treaters at your house, the topic of candy has certainly come up…
And on Sunday, Nov. 1st, you’re going to be faced with piles of Halloween candy if you take your kids trick-or-treating on Saturday night.
But before you take your kids out for trick-or-treating, it can help to have a plan.
Don’t spring your ideas about throwing out half of the candy on them after they’ve already collected it all, spread it out all over the floor, and gotten attached to it.
Let them know ahead of time what will happen with the candy. And as much as possible, get them to agree to your rules ahead of time.
Here are some questions to ask yourself as you’re making your Halloween Candy plan:
- How many pieces can they keep?
- What size bag/bucket/basket can they take trick-or-treating?
(Note: Pillow cases are not recommended because they can hold so much candy and kids will not feel like they got lots even though they did.)
- What will happen with the rest of the candy?
- When are they allowed to eat it?
- When does it need to be finished?
Here are some examples for Halloween Candy plans:
Maybe you let them keep 20 of their favorite pieces and the rest goes in the garbage.
Maybe you let them keep 10 pieces and then you give them a nickel or dime for each of the other pieces you’re taking from them.
Maybe they get to trade their “extra” candy in for some cool pencils or some things you picked up at the dollar store that aren’t sweet.
Maybe you send the rest of the candy into work with your spouse.
There are other ideas here too.
The point is…
You (and your kids) need to know in advance what the plan is for the Halloween Candy.
This will make it easier on ALL of you.
And if you’re going to let them save some candy to eat a little bit each day…
Be careful.
It only takes 21 days to create a habit…
So if your kids are starting the habit of eating once piece of candy every day, and they wind up doing that for 21 days, that could be the start of a very bad lifelong habit.
Seriously consider having your kids be done with ALL of their Halloween candy within a week after Halloween, if not sooner.
Tell us your Halloween Candy plan…what works for your family?
Leftover Halloween Candy [About]
{ 1 trackback }
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
If you plan on throwing away your candy, consider donating it to a Junior High/High School teacher. We love to give candy as prizes or motivation for students to do tasks, like cleaning our classrooms.