October 12th, 2011

It’s that time of the year again! Kids will soon be dressing up as their favorite superhero, princess, ghost, or goblin to go trick-or-treating for Halloween. Their eyes will light up in excitement with each handful of candy dropped into their pumpkin basket. And parents know that the Candy Battle will soon begin.

What is the Candy Battle, you ask? It is simply the ensuing argument you may have with your children over how much and what kinds of candy they are allowed to eat. They, of course, want to eat everything in their basket that night. You, on the only hand, want to allow only a couple pieces and then throw the rest of it away. So how about a compromise?

A lot of parents ask Dr. Mary for advice on candy at Halloween. There are essentially two schools of thought–let them eat as much candy as they want over a short period of time (2 – 3 days) or allow your child to pick 1 or 2 pieces a day for a longer period of time (couple weeks).

The pros to the first strategy is that any remaining candy will be thrown away after just a couple days. Your kids get to enjoy Halloween without getting into a regular candy habit. The downside is that most kids will eat candy until they make themselves sick.

The latter strategy allows you to control your child’s candy intake on a daily basis and still let’s them enjoy their treats. The downside is that your child is having extra sugar and candy over a prolonged period of time.

So what is better? Actually either strategy is just fine. We just suggest that you first go through your child’s candy and throw away the candy that is particularly hard on their teeth. This would include hard candy that your child will want to bite into (jaw breakers) or hard chewy candy (taffy) that will stick to their teeth. No matter what candy you choose to keep or throw away, make sure that your child drinks a glass of water and brushes their teeth after eating it. If you keep that healthy habit, Halloween can be a fun event for you and your child and not require a future dental visit!