Strategy: Halloween Candy

There are two basic approaches for dealing with the piles of Halloween candy that trick-or-treaters collect: disciplined and undisciplined.

"Disciplined" folks believe that setting limits is the best way to ensure kids don't go overboard. These parents may set a daily limit of two or three pieces, may surreptitiously make much of the candy disappear, or might say flat-out: " "x" number of pieces is enough. The rest goes in the garbage." The benefit to this approach is that kids don't eat too much; the danger is that by imposing external limits, parents may make the forbidden candy seem more enticing and may not help kids learn to set reasonable limits for themselves.

"Undisciplined" folks take the opposite approach and impose no limits. They let kids eat what they will and experience the consequences. The children might eat ten or twelve pieces before they hit their limit, but once they do, biology kicks in and they'll almost always be sickened (hopefully just to the point of mild stomach upset). Subsequent snacks, if any, will be increasingly smaller. Of course, some kids will eat a horrifying amount of candy before they get sick of it. It's not the end of the world. At the same time, for kids who are already struggling with food issues, it doesn't make sense to give them a pile of it and say, Dig in.

And then there are people who find a happy medium between the two extremes. Reduce the pile of available candy so that potential binges are smaller, for example. Or give kids an allowance for the week and let them decide how many pieces they'll eat at once. (Sidebar: did you know that the ability to delay gratification is often an important factor when measuring success in endeavors from schoolwork to budgeting to sports?!) Whenever you're adding calories to your daily intake, it's always a good idea to increase activity. Take a walk. Play tag. Dance. Just get up and move. Try pairing healthy foods with treats: an apple and a bite-sized candy bar is a perfectly reasonable snack, and more satisfying than several pieces of candy. Always remember that out-of-sight is out-of-mind for kids and adult, so storing the candy somewhere that you're not likely to lay eyes on it frequently will help limit overindulgences, too.

And now there's this tip from dentists: eating several pieces at once is better for your teeth than doling it out several times during the day. In fact, candy may not be any worse for a child's teeth than potato chips, for example. What matters is what dentists describe as the stickiness of food -- how long the food particles maintain contact with the tooth's enamel. The longer it sticks, the more time the accompanying acid will work on the enamel. So a chocolate bar that melts off teeth is better for them than a starburst or potato chip which may stick around for a long while.

Happy haunting!

--Admin

A Bumper (Sticker) Crop

With the election drawing near, your kids are bound to be aware that something big is going on. Maybe you have a candidate or proposition sign on your lawn. Maybe you're having earnest conversations around the dinner table. And maybe you have the TV or radio turned on more than usual, tuned to election coverage. There's a bumper crop of presidential picture books that will help kids of all ages start making sense of all the election buzz.



Grace For President, by Kelly DiPucchio and LeYuen Pham, tells the story of a young girl who notices there are no women on the poster of presidents hanging at her school, which inspires her to run for class president. This book has a great explanation of the Electoral College built right into the text, plus an author's note to clarify. Suitable for kids 5 years old and up.

My Teacher for President, by Kay Winters and Denise Brunkus, heralds a different candidate. Second grader Oliver is inspired by all the campaign ads he sees to nominate his teacher as a candidate, and lays out all the reasons he thinks she'd be a good one. (This book will have parents wishing a teacher really would run for president!) Suitable for kids 5 and up.

So You Want To Be President? is by Judith St. George and David Small. Maybe your child (or your spouse!) finds all the campaigning so inspiring, he or she wants to be president. The job is not as easy as it looks, and presidents through the ages have coped with the challenges in all kinds of interesting ways. This Caldecott winning classic is a must-read for school-age kids.

Lives of the Presidents (Fame, Shame, and What the Neighbors Thought) by Kathleen Krull and Kathryn Hewitt is a collection of brief biographies of all the presidents. Pithy, interesting, and packed with lesser-known facts, this book is a great way to put presidents in perspective with their historical eras. Suitable for kids in grades 3 and up.



Kenneth C. Davis' Don't Know Much books are a staple for history buffs of all ages. His Don't Know Much About the Presidents is another fantastic installment in this classic series. Suitable for kids in 3rd grade and up.

Happy reading! And don't forget to vote!

--H.V.

PS: For adult reading recommendations, local bookseller Nicola's Books has started a blog.