Do you let your kids have all their Halloween Candy at once?

I don’t have kids, but any left over candy is Mine, Mine, Mine, all Mine!!!

all at once!! that’s the happy of it!

As long as they brush their teeth, who cares?

It’s just a couple days out of the year. I always got home from trick-or-treating as a kid and dumped out my pumpkin (or cat-head) that I carried the candy in in the center of the family room (as did my siblings) and we would all start eating it right away. My parents always took stuff we didn’t like and I would trade with my siblings. It was a lot of fun.

I don’t know why my sister does this to her kids. We never got our candy taken away, other than the Snickers dad would dig out of our pails before we caught him and yanked it away from him!

@DominicX thanks for reminding me of one of the joys of my childhood. GA to you, good sir!

I would run away from home if my daughter ate all of her candy at once.

I suppose we dole it out, but she doesn’t really beg or whine for it. I’m pretty lenient about letting her have some if she does ask for something, though. After a week or two we toss whatever is left.

I think your sister’s a control freak.

I can understand not wanting it to be all at the same night. That’s a surefire way to get a stomach ache. But anything over a weak is just cruel.

@knitfroggy how do you handle the sugar highs and belly aches of going wild with it. I let her have a couple of pieces then but it away. She’s only four but I found out of sight out of mind works for a while.

Let em have the candy. It’s Halloween!
Just be sure to brush after. teeth are very important

@mponochie They’ll crash eventually… Maybe even learn a lesson on gluttony.

@mponochie I don’t believe in sugar highs. Kinda like I don’t believe chocolate causes pimples. My kids don’t act any different after eating a bunch of Halloween candy than they did before.

sugar highs are a myth, caffeine highs, however, are real. Chocolate has quite a bit of caffeine.

i’d like to have a sugar high. my kids never got sick. they were already tired and cold so slept pretty easily. they had fun taking candy for lunches [and real food!]

I always saved the two or so cardboard grocery bags full of candy I earned to deal with as I felt appropriate. Parents shouldn’t dispense their children’s candy, its like taking their hard earned paycheck then returning a dollar a day.

I always had the kids spread everything out on the table, and first remove the candy they don’t like – that goes directly into the trash. Then separate the favorite candy, which is eaten right away. The rest is separated into piles of about 5 or 6, which represents the daily allotment, placed in napkins with rubber bands.

It’s only Halloween once a year. In a way, bit by bit, would be like letting them open one Christmas present a day after that holiday.

As long as they brush their teeth and still eat dinner, it doesn’t matter. After about a week they have eaten out the stuff they really like and I can dispose of the rest before the ants, mice and dogs find it.

I don’t have kids but I got all of mine at once. I’m a huge Lego nerd and would build a castle out of my loot. Starburst towers and tootsie roll moats. A am also really cheap and would only eat a few things per day. I could make it about six months on what I got for Halloween.

I am still cheap.

Once we go through the contents and toss any odd looking or unwrapped candy, my daughter can have what she wants.

We’re lucky in that after about six pieces she’s done. She may have a few more over the next couple days, but by day-three she couldn’t care less.

My wife will then freeze the good stuff to bake with later and the rest goes in the trash.

I would like to be the kind of parent that can just let go and give the kids free rein with the candy. :( Something in me just can’t do it. I guess that puts me into the mean and cruel camp.

We let the kids eat a few pieces of candy once they’re done trick-or-treating, and then I put the candy away. After that, we treat it like dessert. A bit after lunch or dinner (a bit for us when the kids are in bed). We’ve always done it that way, so they don’t whine or complain. I’ve seen my daughter throw up after too many sweets, and seen both my boys get tummy aches (my mom and my in-laws will give the kids as much of anything as they want). Since cleaning up puke is my job, I get to put my foot down and limit the Halloween candy. When the kids are old enough to clean up their own puke, they can go crazy.

This year when we were getting ready to go trick-or-treating, I couldn’t find the kids’ candy buckets. They weren’t with the other holiday things, and it took me a while to remember where I’d put them. They were still tucked away, each with a good amount of candy in them from last year. I think once Christmas rolls around, the Halloween candy gets forgotten.

@MissAusten May humanity forgive your sins

I don’t see a problem with letting them go wild for one night, I mean they worked their butts off collecting that candy from all your neighbors! Let them enjoy all their hard work. :P

@jsammons my main incentive to limiting is that I don’t like cleaning up all the vomit

@YARNLADY yeah, but I wouldn’t mind cleaning up my child’s vomit one night. They might learn a good lesson by throwing it all up :P

@jsammons To me it is not a sign of good parenting to allow your child to indulge to point of making themself sick. Parents are supposed to show children the correct behavior. It sounds like “throw them in the pool and see if they drown” method of teaching.

@YARNLADY

I never got sick when I ate my Halloween candy, neither did any of my siblings. This particular question and the OP don’t say anything about letting them get sick. Personally, I would not let them get sick. You can eat plenty of candy without getting sick.

@DominicX some people can, and some can’t. All my kids and grandkids throw up way too easily for my preference.

@YARNLADY My kids are pukers too, especially my daughter. I think if we only had one kid, it would be easier to deal with upset tummies. Three at once is a bit much. My boys especially are a bit young to regulate themselves and stop when they’ve had enough. Maybe when they’re older we’ll relax the candy rules!

@YARNLADY: “throw them in the pool and see if they drown”

That’s actually how I learned to swim. Just saying.