Halloween is almost here, and we all know what that means: spooky costumes, carved pumpkins, and candy as far as the eye can see.
It can be tough to get your kids to make healthy decisions this time of year. You want to encourage positive habits, but you don’t want to be a total Debby Downer — so what’s a parent to do?
Here are some tips to make having a healthy Halloween a little easier for your family.
Hand out candy alternatives:
If you want to be a little more health-conscious this Halloween, consider handing out things other than candy to your trick-or-treaters.
Small toys and trinkets like glow sticks and bouncy balls are a hit with kids — plus they’re cheap and easy to find. You can also substitute healthier snacks like juice boxes or organic crackers in place of sugary candy. Even if your kids get sweets from other houses on Halloween, they’ll take notice of what you’re handing out and the example it sets.
An added bonus of passing out alternatives like toys? You’ll be supporting kids who have food allergies. The Teal Pumpkin Project is an initiative to promote inclusion of all trick-or-treaters during the Halloween season. If you’re offering options other than traditional candy to your guests, paint a pumpkin teal or print a sign to advertise your participation.
Trade trick-or-treating for a different activity:
If you don’t want your kids to go trick-or-treating and return with mountains of sugar, that’s okay — there are plenty of other ways to make sure they have a Halloween to remember!
Instead of taking your family trick-or-treating, consider going to the movies together or attending a community Halloween party. You can even host a get-together yourself for your children and their friends, which is a win-win because you not only get to limit their sugar consumption firsthand but also be in the middle of all the fun.
Trick-or-treating is a popular tradition, but it’s definitely not the only way to have fun this spooky season.
Sort and limit candy:
If your kids do go out trick-or-treating and come back with a concerning amount of candy, you can still keep them from eating it all at once. Get them to slow down for a minute by categorizing all the goodies they received. 
It can be fun for kids to sort candy into groups, and you can even bring a little math in by having them figure out things like what percent of their haul is chocolate versus fruity and so on.
Once the candy is sorted, you have a few options — let your kids have more on the night of and then limit it after, or only allow them to pick a few pieces from each category to have over the next few days.
You can help protect your kids’ health by only allowing them to eat their pieces of candy after a meal. This strategy is twofold. First, eating a full meal produces saliva that helps rinse food particles away and mitigate harmful bacteria. Second, it teaches your kids that candy isn’t a good form of sustenance and should only come after a balanced meal has already been eaten to meet nutritional goals.
One of the good things about Halloween candy? The novelty usually wears off pretty quickly. While your children might be all over it right after trick-or-treating, chances are that in a few days the sugar rush will lose its allure.
Model positive habits:
Your kids watch and learn from you all the time. What you do consistently, day in and day out, is more important than what happens on a single holiday.
Letting your children have some candy on Halloween won’t ruin their healthy lifestyle if you’re consistently modeling positive behaviors the rest of the time, so don’t worry if you let them binge a little — just be sure to remind them it’s a special occasion and not an everyday activity.
When all is said and done, have fun! There are plenty of ways to make this sugar-filled holiday a little easier to digest, but the most important thing is to enjoy the Halloween memories with your family.
Madison Family Dental wishes you a spooky holiday! For more information about Madison Family Dental, visit https://madisonfamilydental.com/ or call 608-274-5970.
