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With Halloween—and Halloween candy—coming towards most of us, I want to share three things that I wish I’d known about handling candy when I was new to motherhood.
These issues came up for me each year, but especially with my first toddler as I was trying to limit exposure to added sugars and didn’t know what to do about the mountain of candy we kept encountering…even though I wasn’t looking for it.
With the benefit of hindsight, I’m going to share the advice I wish I had on: How to decide when to allow candy, how much to let the kids have (and when), what to do with excess (do we need the Switch Witch?), how to reduce anxiety around food (and sugar) on this holiday, and more.
My goal, as always, is to help us find a little more ease in feeding our kids, so I hope this helps!
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I have neurodivergent kids, which makes them exceptions to a lot of feeding advice, I feel. They are very much affected by artificial dyes, so much so that we don’t have them in the house and don’t consume them except for Halloween candy and at birthday parties. The younger two are also extremely picky eaters. My oldest will eat anything, which I attribute to us having the time and resources to introduce him to a variety of foods. However, as life got more chaotic, the younger two started reducing the foods that they would eat, and will prefer sugar over anything else, every single time. It’s gotten so bad that they will say “ok I will eat a string cheese, THEN I get a piece of candy.” If I let them have access to an unlimited amount of sugar, they will choose it every time. This is also because their bodies don’t naturally produce dopamine so they chase it by doing dangerous things, watching addictive television/video games (which we severely limit), and, you guessed it, eating a ton of sugar.
How do I help my children with their eating habits when they have lower impulse control, higher dopamine seeking brains, and food rejection due to being on the AuDHD spectrum?
In this case, you would want to talk to someone with specific training in pediatric nutrition and neurodivergent kids so you are getting information that appropriately takes the context of your situation into account. I would ask your pediatrician or an OT if you have one if they know of someone local.
Don’t post my post. It did not come across in the voice I intended it to project. I appreciate your work.
I won’t and I understand. I hope it was clear that I was trying to share my personal experience, offer some context some parents may not have considered, and normalize some of the struggles around Halloween specifically.