For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for November 01, 2009

Spoken like a true older brother.

Plus, whats Elly’s problem. Its Halloween, your supposed to let the kids eat the candy. What they don’t finish, you use for next years trick or treating. DUH.

I used to spend hours out trick or treating and gathered at least 2 shopping bags full of candy. I never over indulged. I ate the stuff that interested me over a period of time, but the stuff that wasn’t my favorites I could care less about.

Most candy freezes well. Sort out that and freeze it, then dole it out a bit at a time as a treat or a reward for doing something well.

bleeep parents not letting us eat the candy we want, when we want, and how we want. HOW DARE THEY try to make kids healthy!!! LOL

What’s up with wasting perfectly good food? If you aren’t going to let your kid eat safe (I didn’t say healthy) candy, why do you let them go out at all? If she wants him to have less sugar, then portion it out over several days/weeks. And when she finds out that he had her toss his sisters candy, HIS candy had better become THEIR candy!

Elly is a control freak.

Getting sick on Halloween candy is an important rite of childhood passage.

It was on a weekend this year so they have Sunday to recuperate after eating too much candy on Saturday night. My mother did apportion it out over the following week and we never overate on it. But throwing it out is just plain stupid.

I take out the candy my kids won’t eat (or I don’t want them to eat) and I send it to work with my husband. The rest is put up in a cabinet and given out during snack/dessert times, if they want it.

Wow, what a horrible cartoon. What a horrible parenting idea. That’s like letting your kids open their presents on Christmas morning and then smashing them all with a hammer.

Jahosacat: candy is not “food”

There is nothing wrong with throwing away candy. It is disgusting, after all.

My kids get a week. After that, they know I will chuck whatever is left in the bags. There is no reason to have garbage like that hang around for months. I teach my kids moderation, but I also let them live a little by actually celebrating the holiday. These two things are not mutually exclusive.

I wouldn’t take their candy away next day, but in 3-5 days no foul.

Myhaircut: Christmas presents aren’t usually made of sugar. Bad analogy.

A local dentist here has a program where he pays kids $1/lb for Halloween candy, donates $1/lb to (forget the charity), and then pays to ship the candy to the troops. I don’t know how it works in practice, but it is a neat idea.

Looks like everyone has a sugar hangover today. For most kids, except for the greedy ones, the excitement is in getting the candy. They only want to eat it all because it’s sitting there in front of their face.

What’s Elly talking about. You NEVER throw Halloween candy away. You can put a piece in their lunch, it won’t kill them, they can have one piece after dinner. And besides, John will take it for his office. Speaking of which, has anybody else ever wondered why Dentists offer a lollypop for a reward? Oh yeah, JOB SECURITY!

When I was a kid, I would save all the good stuff - mini Hershey bars, etc - in an empty, half gallon peanut butter jar stowed in my room. Could make it last til Spring …

Found a large bowl of candy hidden in a cabinet from last Halloween….not eatable

I hand out the candy a few at a time MAYBE once a week. Lasts long. I keep it in the fridge too. SO the kids get candy when deserving and I’m not wasting food, even if it is bad for you food, still food.

Well Elly is just acting like a beyotch in this strip!

If you have a job, do what myself and co-workers do, bring the leftover candy to work. Trust me, it gets eaten!

Just what my youngest son would do to his older brother. Also worked for trading toys with friends. Never his own! When discovered he had to go trade what he wanted back for what wasn’t his. Kids! They are so predictable.

I’m transitioning from Ann Arbor to Columbus, OH. I had no kids come around in Columbus (trick-or-treat in my city was done on Oct. 29 for some insane reason) yet we had the usual 100+ up in Michigan where we were for the weekend and the beggars got to come around on Halloween. I remember the first year my daughter went trick-or-treating. She wasn’t sure going out in the dark was such a great idea even though her dad and I were with her. However, after the first house and the drop of candy in her plastic pumpkin she became a very enthusiastic participant! It also converted her to a lover of the night, and she likes nothing better than to go out and smell the night air while on a walk or car ride.

fbjsr.

My kids have nothing to hide. They were raised without candy in the house and they mostly live without it except for on holidays. They don’t feel deprived or resentful and they don’t cry when I chuck their candy. These are not kids that beg for Hershey bars every time we go to the store. Truth told, half the Halloween candy they get they chuck ON THEIR OWN because they find candy gross for the most part. (One taste of something excessively sweet and then they are off to spit it in the garbage.) My kids when given the choice between fruit and candy will choose the fruit about 7 times out of 10 because they haven’t fried their tastebuds like so many of their sodapop-guzzling attention deficit classmates. Last night I was watching my daughter sort her loot (the most fun part for her, even over eating it) and every time she found a piece of gum she was shouting “ew!” and throwing it into a garbage bag without a second of remorse.

The number of houses they go to is already limited and we even attend Halloween events that have nothing to do with candy. This doesn’t mean I don’t let them participate in trick or treating, it just means that Halloween is over and candy must go within a week. This doesn’t mean they binge, it means they prioritize. This is just the reality they live.

Believe it or not, it isn’t child abuse.

I am amazed at how many people are harshing on poor Elly for doing the right thing here–granted, she could wait for more than a day, but there is no good reason not to chuck candy.

Then again, I have also never met an addict who wouldn’t defend his addiction.

I had 8 kids at my door last night, up from 4 the year before and 0 the first year in this house. I gave out small bags of pretzels so I wouldn’t have leftover candy in the house. Of course, it helps that my husband hates pretzels, so they’re MINE, BwaaaHaaaHaaaHaaa!

I don’t give out candy to trick or treaters. I give out little non-edible things. This year, I found some stickers and fake tattoos to hand out. It’s better for the kids and I don’t have a bunch of left over candy that I would end up eating myself.

wolfdreamer and fsbjr: it’s a cartoon! Seems to me you would be better off using your free time to study your grammar and spelling, rather than reading and criticizing comic strips.

Smart kid….until his sister finds out.

Michael, you should not lie to your own mother about your own bag of candies. Thou shall not lie Tsk! Tsk!

By the way, I hate eating those candies because of sugars too much. bleech!

but does elly actually throw it all out ?

My kids and now grand kids trick or treat. They get to eat some in the evening. (took about 2 hours to get the 3 year old to fall asleep last night.) The rest is put up and they will be able to earn it with good reports, well done school work and extra chores. They love this. They do not feel deprived. My son had diet restrictions and when he was little friends would give him special dried fruit instead of candy.

It is actually healthier for them to let them indulge over the next couple of days and then get rid of it instead of dolling it out over the next couple of months.

We go through it, and sort what they are allowed to eat vs what is just too scary looking and then depending on what is left let them have it the next few days…then it is gone.

Mine are still little and all the houses give them extra for being so cute. Nice in sentiment, irritating in results so we thank them graciously and move on. Got to say, my kids are some of the few who actually said happy halloween and thank you, most are so involved in the candy they just rush away. Maybe 2 families who stoped at our house said thank you and we had good stuff. We let them trick or treat because it is the fun of trick or treating not eating the candy that is best, candy is just a fun extra but doesn’t give the lasting memories of the event.

i agree with jahosacat

This always leads to a life of crime.

that’s pretty smart…i’d probably have pulled something like that on my brother.

Only two kids this year. Maybe my shotgun by the door scared them off, I’m just waiting for those Javelinas……

You don’t take away the kids candy.THATS MEAN

Why the hell would you do that? If the kid is eating too much candy then you keep it up high and give a few pieces away per day. That is not hers, she has no right to it. No parent should get to do that, this is a terrible thing to do to a kid. That’s his, what grounds does she have to it? And then has the nerve to call it the right thing to do.