Today, my heart goes out to you parents, who now have to deal with your sugar-shocked, candy-gorging children.
Here are some tips to help you get through the next few days.
Tips to Tackle Post-Halloween Sugar-Overloading
Watch out, parents, all that Halloween candy your children have been gorging on may send your young ones into sugar shock for the next few days, especially if they keep eating those leftover Halloween candies.
Get ready for some Jekyll-Hyde transformations. That’s right. Any parent will tell you that too much sugar wipes away their children’s smiles and transforms their normally mild-mannered youngsters into Little Monsters."
Right now, you need to muster up some patience. It’s important that you’re gentle, understanding and compassionate with them about their sugar overloading.
Here are some tips to turn Halloween havoc into fun sugar sleuthing and a way to begin to create new healthier habits.
1. Do NOT get angry at your kids for disobeying you and pigging out on candies. This kind of sugar overloading is to be expected.
2. Let your kids use their sugar binging to their advantage — pigging out on sweets is an ideal way to learn about sugar’s dangers firsthand. Invite your kids to become "Super Sugar Sleuths" and "Sugar Detectives" (kind of like Nancy Drew). Urge your youngsters to watch themselves like lab rats and find clues that show them what sugar can do to you (i.e., make you feel bad).
3. Begin to teach your children about sugar shock by going online and looking at the ingredients contained in the candies they indulged on Halloween night. (Lots and lots of sugar.) Explain the concept of empty calories.
4. Feed your kids meals containing ample protein, as well as quality carbs (such as vegetables, whole grains) and fats, especially for breakfast.
5. Hydrate your kids. Make sure they drink extra water to help flush out toxins.
6. Don’t expect your kids to be rational or amiable. Instead, welcome — yes, I said, welcome — your children’s unexpected cantankerous, quarrelsome, rowdy, raging, belligerent behavior with "Ahah-it-must-the-sugar" reactions.
7. Anticipate other sugar-hangover behavior such as fatigue, brain fog and irrationality.
8. Let your kids get more "zzs" more than usual. Don’t give them a hard time if all they want to do is sleep.
Hope these ideas help!