Let's Discuss: I Do Not Limit Candy on Holidays!
What's your candy strategy for kids?
There are a few holidays that are designated candy holidays: Halloween for sure, and also Easter, to a lesser extent Valentine’s Day.
To combat the swelling heap of landfill-bound plastic toys that arrives in my house via an act of war called a “Goody Bag,” I generally stick to mostly consumables for these events— and the main consumable is candy.
Here’s a secret that isn’t a secret because I am telling you all right now: I don’t limit candy on these days. For 24 hours, my kids can have as much of their candy as they care to eat. I do this for a few reasons:
I don’t think there’s a lot of harm in having some extra treats 2-3 times a year (kid-dependent), and it’s fun.
I don’t feel like setting a bunch of arbitrary limits and boundaries on candy that I just made up (you may have 4 jelly beans but not 5!) really teaches anything, plus then we talk about candy all day, and most importantly…
I have found that my kids actually eat less overall candy when they don’t get to argue with me about how much is too much. There is something about the added thrill of debating the candy rules and limits that brings out an insatiable sugar monster. When I just give them a reasonable amount, then leave it out for the day, I find they drift to other activities once it’s clear that there is no mischievous fun to be had in debating a grown up about Laffy Taffy. As a side benefit, if they ever do overdo it, there is the added element of FAFO that comes with realizing there is in fact a point where candy stops being fun.
So, what do my fellow parents do? It turns out, the answer may be that, as in literally all things parenting, it really depends on your kids.
For some, like me, the prospect of making rules is exhausting enough that truly they’d rather rip through it—
Others, however, have seen this end in disaster and reasonably steer clear:
As Shannon points out, protecting your peace from candy-related drama can also mean avoiding the candy-overload entirely!
In some houses, it’s a 24-hour, use-it-or-lose it:
In others, it’s a gradual descent from less-limits to more-limits (I must confess this is also me, however I have never figured out when to simply throw it away—so if you received a Valentine from us at school my confession is it was definitely the last of our Halloween candy):
Some folks simply remove the candy and dole it out on request with impressive results. I am taking notes here!
Although the genie may be out of the bottle at our place, my kids know where every treat and toy is at all times and are relentless in the amount of requests.
Finally, some of us are candy enjoyers ourselves and want to share in the tradition (bars tbh):
What do you do about holiday treats? Meet me in the comments, let’s discuss.
I do limit candy, but I have a kind of arbitrary limit I guess? It depends on how wild my kids are, how much other dessert they've had that day, how late it is (no chocolate right before bed!) and whether they're whining and screaming about it vs. asking nicely. Lol. In other words I guess it varies! I do allow quite a bit *more* on a holiday than I would on an ordinary day though.
I'm totally with you on this, but when I attempt it in real life, your third point doesn't apply to my kids. They will eat candy forever, and I don't blame them because I was the same way when I was a kid. But I always think of how insane I thought my parents were when they were like "if you eat too much candy you'll get sick!" because that was not true to me when I was a kid. Like yes now that I'm an adult if I eat too much candy I'll feel disgusting, but kids are bottomless sugar pits (disclaimer: my kids are not really pukers in the first place). So I don't know! I'm still torn on this, and every holiday I decide to just give them their freedom with it, and then at a random point in the day I'm like ok wait this is too much.