They watch international television, follow global trends, see Halloween crafts at school and live in neighbourhoods where trick-or-treating is becoming increasingly common. From Cape Town estates to Joburg suburbs, more families are joining in with costumes, pumpkins, parties and, inevitably, enormous amounts of sweets.

This is usually when parents start to panic.

How much sugar is too much? Should I hide the sweets? Do we ration them? Do I let them eat everything on one night and get it over with?

My advice is simple: don’t let Halloween become a battle about sugar. Let it become a lesson in balance.

We are not raising children in a sugar-free world

As parents, we often put enormous pressure on ourselves to make every bite our children eat perfectly nutritious.

Still, children are going to encounter sweets.

They will go to birthday parties. Their friends will bring cupcakes to school. There will be Easter eggs, tuck shops, grandparents, holidays, ice creams on the beach and the occasional packet of Astros in the car.

Our goal cannot be to remove every treat.

Our goal is to raise a child who can live comfortably around these foods.

I often tell parents that moderation isn’t something you suddenly understand when you become an adult. It is a skill that children practise while they are still eating under our guidance.

Halloween is actually a wonderful opportunity to teach it.

Welcome to the Treatbox

One of my favourite practical tools for families is something I call the Treatbox.

Instead of sweets being hidden away, constantly negotiated over or kept on top of the fridge like forbidden treasure, give them a home.

After Halloween, sit down with your child and look through their collection together.

Ask them: Which ones do you really love?

You may discover something quite funny. Children will sometimes protect a giant mountain of sweets with their lives, only to admit they don’t actually like half of them.

Let them choose their favourites for the Treatbox.

This tiny exercise teaches something incredibly valuable: you don’t have to eat something simply because it is available.

The Treatbox then becomes part of normal family life.

Perhaps your child chooses something after supper occasionally. Perhaps you take something out for movie night. Perhaps a small treat goes into a lunchbox.

What matters is that sweets lose their position as the mysterious, forbidden food that has to be eaten immediately before somebody takes it away.

Feed them before the sugar hits

One of the easiest ways to make Halloween more manageable is also one of the least glamorous:

Feed your child supper before trick-or-treating.

A hungry eight-year-old carrying two kilograms of sweets is not experiencing a character flaw. They are experiencing biology!

Children who have eaten a satisfying meal containing protein, carbohydrate, fibre and healthy fats are far better equipped to enjoy treats without feeling ravenous.

Keep it simple.

A chicken wrap with avocado. Homemade burgers. Spaghetti bolognese. Eggs and toast. A quick braai with chicken and mielies. Even a snacky supper of crackers, cheese, fruit, hummus and cold meat can work beautifully.

Halloween doesn’t need a Pinterest-worthy dinner.

It just needs a child who isn’t heading out hungry.

Make Halloween bigger than sweets

Another way to take the power away from sugar is to make the celebration itself exciting.

Dress up, decorate the house, go for a neighbourhood walk, carve pumpkins, tell silly spooky stories, have glow sticks, play games, let the children ring doorbells and giggle with their friends.

Food can also include more than sweets. Popcorn, biltong, pretzels, mini sandwiches, fruit skewers, savoury muffins, pancakes or homemade biscuits can all form part of the evening.

I am certainly not suggesting you become that host handing out cucumber sticks while everyone else is handing out chocolates!

Children are allowed to enjoy sweets.

The point is simply that fun does not always have to equal sugar.

ALSO READ: Cinnamon Sugar Pumpkin Bites: A Halloween Treat

Be careful with “good” and “bad”

Our language around food matters more than we sometimes realise.

Try to avoid saying: “You’ve been so good today, you can have chocolate.” Or: “You ate too much sugar yesterday, so no treats today.”

When food becomes linked with being good, bad, naughty or deserving, children can start attaching morality to eating.

Instead, talk about what food does.

“That was something sweet. Now let’s add something that will keep your tummy full.”

“We’ve had our treat. What does your body need next?”

“You’ve had a few. Do you still really want another one, or are you just eating because they’re there?”

This isn’t about making children hyper-aware of every mouthful. It is about gently teaching them to notice.

Sometimes the tummy teaches better than we do

Most parents know the moment.

Your child has been told several times that they’ve probably had enough sweets. They insist they’re absolutely fine.

Twenty minutes later: “Mum, my tummy hurts.”

As tempting as it is to say, “I told you so,” there is actually a lovely learning opportunity here.

Try: “I wonder if your tummy is telling you that it has had enough?”

That message is much more powerful than “sugar is bad”.

Children eventually need to develop their own internal brakes.

We don’t want Mum and Dad to be their appetite police forever.

We want children to become teenagers and adults who can eat something delicious, enjoy it fully and recognise when they’ve had enough.

And on 1 November?

We do absolutely nothing dramatic.

There is no detox.

Nobody needs to “burn off” Halloween.

Breakfast happens. School lunch happens. Fruit and vegetables come back onto the plate. Water is offered. Dinner is served.

And perhaps there is still a chocolate from the Treatbox somewhere in the day.

One evening of sweets does not determine a child’s health any more than one plate of broccoli does.

Nutrition is the pattern we create over weeks, months and years.

So when Halloween arrives and your child proudly tips an alarming quantity of sweets onto the lounge floor, resist the urge to see a nutrition disaster.

See a teaching moment.

Because eventually we are not going to be standing next to them deciding how many chocolates they may eat.

We are raising children who will have to make those decisions themselves.

If they can enjoy a sweet, know that another one will still be there tomorrow, put the rest back into the Treatbox and run off to play?

I would call that a pretty successful nutrition lesson.