How To Create A Dental-Friendly Halloween For Your Child

Halloween is a fun time for children, but it can also be a destructive time for their teeth. While you may not want to prevent your child from enjoying in the festivities, you should do what you can to prevent them from eating all the sugary candy they will more than likely be exposed to. The tips in this article will help you to give your child a great Halloween while avoiding all those sugary candies that can lead to cavities and tooth decay.

Throw your own party

The best way for you to control the amount of sugar your child eats is to throw your own Halloween party. This way, you can replace candy with grab bags filled with toys and have the kids more focused on games, rather than focusing on trick-or-treating.

Make decorations out of the candy

If you do decide to take your child trick-or-treating, you can help them make holiday decorations with the candy. This way, they will have a fun time putting the candy to good use without eating it. You can use a needle and thread to string the candy wrappers for a colorful decoration for your Christmas tree. You can also put candies in clear vases to make Thanksgiving Day centerpieces.

Redistribute the candy

You can take your child out trick or treating very early and get back in time to pass out candy to the children in the neighborhood. Let your child pick out some of their favorite candies, and then they can give out the rest. They will get to eat some candy and enjoy seeing the great costumes and giving candy out to others.

Teach your child about healthy choices

You can use trick or treating as a way to teach your child about healthy choices. Go through the bag of treats with them and explain to them what it is that makes some of the treats better choices than other treats. An example would be to explain that a caramel and chocolate candy is worse than a chocolate candy because the caramel sticks to the teeth longer, causing more exposure to sugar.  

You want to do all you can to educate your child on smart dental choices so you can instill habits in them that will last a lifetime. Halloween provides you with a great time to educate your child and to show them first-hand how to make wise choices and use discipline. For more information, talk to a children's dentist.