Halloween: In a Class by Itself
As the sole holiday devoted to amassing large quantities of sugar-stuffed sweets, Halloween leads the pack of difficult holidays to help your overweight child through. Don't ban trick-or-treating or confiscate the loot bags. Do set up some guidelines for the holiday and its spoils, and give your child other outlets for enjoying the night.
Make the candy just one small component of the Halloween fun. If your community or local YMCA offers a Halloween party for children on the big night, spend a half-hour going door to door, and then pack the kids in the car and go enjoy the planned activities. Can't find any extra-spooky fun in your area? Set up your own haunted basement, or invite your child's friends over for a costume contest and bobbing for apples.
Setting Up Guidelines
Stem the tidal wave of incoming candy by limiting your child's trick-or-treating to only a few select neighbors or friends. It may be harder to keep tabs on older children who trick-or-treat without their parents. In this case, you can set a deadline for door-to-door knocking and then invite your child's friends back to your house after the curfew to continue the fun.
Most children gather far more than they can (or should) possibly eat on Halloween. It's a reinforcement of the attitude that more is better, probably not the healthiest mindset for an overweight child. Limit trick-or-treating time, and if she's never tried it before, see if your child is interested in being the official door-answerer. She may enjoy passing out the candy more than gathering it since she'll be able to see all the costumes, make suitably spooky noises, and enjoy the feeling of giving rather than getting.
Of course, you should always examine your child's candy haul for any open wrappers or nonpackaged foods to ensure their safety. After you do that, it's a good time to go through and take out those treats that your child doesn't like or is indifferent towards to slim down their stash. Keep candy in the kitchen, not in the bedroom, to minimize temptation. Store it in a high cabinet or shelf where it is out of sight and mind, and where you can be the sole gatekeeper for doling out the treats.
Make this your standard operating procedure for all your children, not just those with weight issues. It's also a good idea to take this approach for other candy-intensive holidays, such as Valentine's Day and Easter.
Want to get the bulk of the candy out of sight and out of mind for your child? Hold a Halloween Handoff, in which your child trades in treats for small toys, stickers, books, or other nonedible items. Take the Halloween candy out of the house to avoid further temptation. If you don't have any chocoholic coworkers to pass it off to, then throwing it away is your best course of action.
Offering Alternatives
Don't forget that Halloween is also about scary fun and great costumes. To limit trick-or-treating and candy overindulgence, host a Halloween party for your child. Top off a short trick-or-treating jaunt with pumpkin carving, ghost stories, costume contests, apple bobbing, and other spooky stuff. Let the kids and their friends build their own haunted house in the basement or garage. Or if you're really brave of heart, let your child and their friends stay up past the witching hour with a Halloween slumber party.
Smaller children may get overwhelmed by the scarier aspects of the holiday once the sun goes down, and they may be completely satisfied just visiting the next-door neighbors and calling it a night. Let them wear their costumes all day (and to school if it's allowed), and enjoy some at-home Halloween face-painting, crafts, and pumpkin-painting or carving. If they do enjoy trick-or-treating and still end up with more than they can or should handle, one way to make good use of the haul is to save a sizable portion for decorating your Christmas gingerbread houses a few months away. Since they're for show, not eating, freshness won't matter.
