My 4 year old son has been really trying to listen recently. He has stayed in bed until the rainbow light turns on and has also been a good listener when it comes to biking rules. I have also tried to remind him of the rules and things he needs to keep in mind so that there isn’t miscommunication.

Before we went out for Halloween trick or treating, the plan was to come home from daycare and eat a super early dinner. It needed to be a substantial dinner, so there wasn’t going to be any snacks right after daycare so he would actually be hungry for dinner. When I picked him up, I saw that he already had a bunch of different treats with him from his friends at daycare and his teacher.

He was particularly interested in a bag of candy corn his teacher gave him. He wanted to hold the candy corn in the car and I just reminded him that we needed to eat an early dinner, so there wasn’t going to be snacks or treats right now. We needed to go home and eat dinner first. My son said ok and then off we went to go home. He then started to say that his teacher said it was ok to eat the candy corn outside of class. That’s fine to eat it outside of class, but I said we needed to do it after we ate dinner. My son said ok and off we went to keep driving home.

After a few more minutes, I heard silence and what sounded like quiet chewing in the backseat. Sure enough, my son was sneaking candy corn in the car. I lost it on him because he had broken my trust. He knew what he needed to do and still snuck the candy corn into his mouth. It’s also a chocking hazard and it’s a terrible idea to eat that when we are all strapped into the car driving.

I ended up taking his candy corn away from him so he could eat his dinner. I wanted them to have a good time on Halloween and that meant eating dinner so their bellies had real food in them before eating at the candy buffet later. He ended up eating dinner and we all went to trick or treat without any more incidents. The rest of the night went as planned and we met up with their cousins to get a bunch of candy and eat some ice cream. They all had fun and we came home so that my wife and I could eat our dinner while the kids ate more candy. Safe to say they had a blast.

I hope that having these periods of unrestricted access to candy reinforces that candy shouldn’t be in a pedestal and that there are the right teams to have a bit. There are also times to celebrate and Halloween is one of those times where a candy buffet is appropriate. I had those same types of periods where I got to eat as much candy as I wanted - seemed like I grew up ok. Fingers crossed that they do the same and end up not craving candy…except on Halloween!