Negotiating Candy. (Oh, and Happy Halloween)
We’re quite a funny bunch, no? It was about a 15 minute photo session and this is the best we got. That baby was either trying to crawl over the pumpkins, or velcro herself to me.
Halloween came and went really fast! Sariah was a witch-sheep-cat-blackbird–I’m not sure what all else. We didn’t get very many pictures (Welcome, parenting awards!) but you can kind of get the idea if you click through to Flickr.
Let me tell you a hilarious little story about that cute girl dressed as a puppy dog.
We’re driving home from a halloween party and it’s kind of late and I’m talking about what we’re going to do when we get home to get ready for bed.
This little three-year-old intuits that I’m not going to want her devouring that fistful of candy she collected from the party and suddenly announces the following:
Mom, when we get home, don’t come in my room because I’m going to be doing my special things in there and I need privacy.
Uh huh.
So I smile and say okay, but of course I sneak a peak because, how cute is that? And, yes, there she was, all holed up with her face in a corner, shoveling candy in just as fast as she could manage.
I didn’t say anything and just quietly slipped back out, not wanting her to feel intruded upon, and there really wasn’t very much candy so I felt okay letting it go. We got ready for bed and that was that.
However, a few days later I am putting the finishing touches on dinner when she comes to me with a piece of candy, asking for help unwrapping it. I say, “Actually, we’re not having candy right now because we’ve already had our limit today, but I’m making dinn . . . ”
It doesn’t matter what I say because as soon as she perceives the message she is off in a flash, holding up that little index finger she uses lately to make sure we all know she means business (I try to show her I take her seriously when she does this), and pronouncing, “I’m going to be doing my private things!!” as she is running into her room.
Hilarious, it is, but it also needed to be addressed. As my husband explains, we don’t want her feeling like she has to sneak, and we don’t want to make her feel bad about her strong desire for candy. We also don’t want to make candy into this really attractive forbidden fruit.
But I also don’t feel comfortable with my kids ingesting so much sugar. I’ve tried the whole “let them self-regulate” thing and I, personally, just can’t do it. (Whether my kids would eventually regulate or not, I’ll never know, because my own fear breaks in and stops them before they go overboard. I’m okay with not knowing.)
So I knock on the door and go in, even though she’s protesting a little bit. I know she’s afraid I’m going to keep her from getting her candy, so in order to calm the rapidly escalating hysterics, I pile all her candy on her bed and act very excited, asking her to show me all her candy.
It works–she no longer feels threatened–and she comes right over and starts telling me about it. I talk a bit about how yummy it is and how I bet she really likes to eat it and then mention how I only worry about how all that sugar might weaken her immune system and let her body get sick. (She’s used to this language, whether she really understands the details or not.)
Then quickly I ask, “What was our limit that we set so we don’t eat too much candy each day?” (We all set it together a week or so before, and it was she who suggested two or three.) (Luckily she’s still at the stage where “five” is about the biggest number there is.)
When she answers “three,” I say, all enthusiastic like, “Hey, okay, I wonder which three you’re going to have tomorrow? Here, let’s make a pile!”
She, of course, had no trouble with that and from there she divvied out all her candy into little 3-piece piles, placing each one on her windowsill.
By the time she was done, she was so excited about these piles and everything else, she had forgotten all about her need to have a piece Right. This. Minute. and happily trotted off with me to the dinner table.
It has worked great. Sariah even decided to do the same thing with her candy.
And they really don’t eat any more than their limit. Of course, they do eat all three pieces first thing in the morning.
But even if somebody gives them candy during the day, they’ll say, “Oh, I have to put this in a new pile, because I’ve already had my three for today.”
Now, if only I could attain that kind of self-discipline. Does anybody have any chocolate?
Trina
Sounds like you had a great Halloween. Candy consumption is such a complex thing. Growing up my parents essentially let us do as we like, sometimes I think that was good and bad. I did however feel bad for my cousins who’s mom kept their candy and regulated it. Such a conundrum. Currently my kids are too little to self regulate, we’ll see what the future brings (then there was Corey who self regulated and had candy the next Halloween, how he did that I’ll never know)
Nat2
How did you DO that? Did you go into her room knowing you were going to pile the candy on the bed and be excited? Or did you not? I’m dying to know. You are quite the artiste.
Simply Mother
I didn’t have any idea what I was going to do. I just went in inspired by Matt’s parting words of wisdom to me, mentioned in the post. The rest just kind of came. It always does when I have the right mindset. (“Working with” as opposed to Control)
Aunt Suzy
I was allowed to “self-regulate” my Halloween candy consumption. I think my daily candy intake for the days following Halloween was around 30, not 3.
I don’t eat much candy these days, though…
Natalie
The last couple Halloween nights (or Trunk or Treat nights) we let them eat as much as they want, which always results in talks about how eating too much junk makes our bellies hurt and is horrible for our bodies (during the consumption and after). Then we dump it all out in a huge pile and the kids each get to pick 10 candies they do not want somebody else to eat. Those are theirs to eat during our family desert time. The rest goes into the family pot. I planned on letting them eat themselves sick again this year, but they didn’t. They each took 3 to 5 pieces, mentioned they were already full from dinner and then choose a piece of gum and were done for the night. (Eli, not so much, but he hasn’t had enough belly aches yet;). They still picked their favorite pieces, but that was it. I took the rest with us to a 8 family get together the next night and most of it was gone and neither of the oldest 2 complained at all. The whole bowl was gone (to mom and dad and to the trash can) with in a couple days and forgotten about. I’m sure many more candy conundrums will arise, but so far, so good.
stephanie
I’m so inspired by your interaction with Jane here. Thanks for posting about it.
We let our kids eat their fill on Halloween night, and then offered to buy the rest of their candy from them the next day. They’ve both been saving money for a toy airplane and jumped at the chance to get a little more cash. Lincoln negotiated a per piece price and kept some candy, and Daniel took a lump sum for all of his candy.
We probably didn’t teach them much here about self control around candy, but they were happy with how things worked out.
Manda
Thank you for sharing this! And if it were me, I would have taken a photo of the candy piles on the windowsill, too.
Simply Mother
:) I appreciate all your input!
Suz, I seem to remember you were the one who still had her Halloween candy by the time Easter rolled around. How’d you manage that at a 30 piece/day rationing?