As you prepare for Halloween with your kids, it's important to make safety a part of the planning process. While you're scouting out and deciding which neighborhoods will yield the greatest candy hordes for your children, also be thinking about some of the ways you can mitigate extra risks during the season. To get you thinking about safety, here are three tips we thought were important to share:
Decide On a Daily Limit When It Comes to Candy
If you do well trick or treating, your kids are going to have access to huge amounts of sugar. We all know what sugar does to kids' teeth. In order to reduce their risk of cavities as a result of excess sugar from sweets, come up with a plan for how much you'll let your kids consume. Some suggest doing it by calories and limiting rations to about 100 calories total for candy. Others suggest limiting it to a number of pieces. Figure out what's right for you, but don't let your kids' candy eating go unregulated. It's bad for their nutrition, and it's really bad for their teeth.
Encourage Your Kids to Chew Sugar-Free Gum
This tip is good advice year round, but chewing sugar-free gum is an especially good habit during this time of year. Chewing gum after eating candy will help neutralize acids produced from the extra sugar consumption. This can help reduce the chances of tooth decay. Chewing gum should never be thought of as something that rules out the need to brush and floss, however. In between chocolate and sugar binges, encourage your kids to chew a stick of gum.
Be Visible
This tip has nothing to do with oral health, but it's an important reminder to parents. According to research done by auto insurance companies, there is a huge spike in car-pedestrian accidents during Halloween. In fact, children are twice as likely to be hit by a car on the night your community trick or treats. To help safeguard against this risk, make sure your Halloween costumes are visible. Consider using reflective tape or some other method to make your family more visible in the dark.
Thanks for Reading!
We hope our Halloween health and safety tips find their way into your trick or treating season. Have fun, but be careful out there! If you enjoy our blog, please consider liking or sharing our Facebook page!