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Handling Halloween with food allergies
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peanuts are a common allergen
Food is everywhere. Parents of kids with food allergies face school birthday parties, teachers who reward good behavior with treats, and movie-goers eating Goobers in the next seat. For allergic children, especially those allergic to nuts, milk or wheat, choosing safe candy is particularly difficult. Halloween is the ultimate challenge.
As soon as the child is old enough to know what he or she is missing, Halloween becomes an issue for food allergic families. The children are seduced by a day devoted to candy, but their parents imagine anaphylaxis and trips to the ER. Some families try to avoid the holiday altogether while others hand out trinkets instead of candy or substitute a home party for trick-or-treating. These efforts to avoid the anxiety-producing experience of a day devoted to unsafe candy are understandable but, in my opinion, misguided. The power of Halloween is simply too big to avoid. We must face the beast head on.
Children with food allergies are often forced to excuse themselves from pleasurable activities. Going out for Chinese food – no thanks. A classmate’s cupcakes? Not safe. They come to parties with their own birthday cake and bring their own food to holiday events. They get used to being different, but they never learn to like it.
On Halloween, the ultimate kid-centered day, food allergic children deserve to be like everybody else. They should dress up as ghouls, witches and princesses and go door-to-door begging for candy. They should experience the thrill of reaching into a heaping bowl of candy and choosing whatever they want – maybe even a candy that they know is unsafe. They deserve to fantasize that they really can have those Kit Kats or Reeses Peanut Butter Cups that fill up their bags, at least for an hour or so. It is their parents' job to give them this experience while still keeping them safe.
Here’s how it can work:
1. Make an unbendable rule: No Eating Any Candy Until You Get Back Home. If this rule is set up from the first Halloween outing it becomes normal and will hardly require any enforcement. If you believe that your child needs to snack during trick-or-treating you can bring safe treats from home.
2. Allow your child to take any candy that is offered unless the package appears to be opened. Don’t be upset if they choose a candy that they know they are allergic to. This may be a harmless way for them to rebel against their unwanted restrictions.
3. Create a candy trading ritual and invite your children’s friends to participate. After the children’s bags are full and their feet are tired, have them sit in a circle on your floor and dump their candy out in a pile. Suggest that they sort the candy into two piles: keep and trade. Once all the children have created a trading pile, the action begins. The children eye each other’s piles and begin to barter. Your children not only participate in the trading, they have an added advantage. In addition to trading with their peers, your allergic children are allowed to trade with you. You will sit in the trading circle with a large bowl of safe treats bought especially for this occasion. Ideally they would be special sweets that your child doesn’t get much of during the year.
There are many places to get safe treats. Two helpful sites are Vermont Nut Free Chocolate and Peanut Free Planet. Halloween is approaching but you still have time to get a stash of special stuff for Halloween trading!
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