T.T.: Halloween Compensation

This week, as I'm sure you all know, is the week leading up to Halloween on Sunday. And I'm also sure all my fellow parents know that this means a veritable tidal wave of sugar will wash over your children.

It's inevitable. In addition to the actual day of Halloween, there are class parties and community parties and random adults who happen to have a stash of candy on hand that they will pass out with abandon to any children they come across.

I accept this, but I do my best to mitigate the sugar intake in my own home. Because that's the only place I can control it.

That means that for the week leading up to and at least part of the week after Halloween, there is as little additional sugar in my children's food as I can reasonably manage. They don't regularly eat a lot of sweet things, but I avoid even things like oatmeal for breakfast (maple syrup) or yogurt (also maple syrup) or Ovaltine in their hot milk or cornbread with dinner (they eat it with honey). 

Cinnamon toast will also have to wait.

I do this around every holiday that results in an avalanche of sweet treats at school. So Christmas, Valentine's Day, Easter . . . It's kind of like a mini Lenten sugar fast every time in our house. I announce it to the children so they know why I'm saying no to graham crackers with peanut butter, and they actually accept the logic of this.

All I'm really trying to do is average out the amount of sweet stuff they get in that short period of time so that it stays within a relatively reasonable range. I do this by limiting them at home, so when they're somewhere I can't limit them at all, the average is still okay.

So! If you also have children who are being inundated with sugar at school or elsewhere*, try to mitigate the sugar damage at home, so they can enjoy themselves elsewhere.

* This is also applicable, of course, to adults who have periods of time at work or parties or whatever when unhealthy foods abound. I'm thinking here of my sister, who is a veterinarian and told me she is absolutely buried under sweets and treats during the holidays, when every client expresses their appreciation for the vet clinic with something containing sugar.