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Take the focus off candy and put it on Halloween activities to help your child with diabetes safely enjoy Halloween. Photo: Rachel Henninger

Parents who have children newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes may find Halloween terrifying.  Not because of scary spooks and ghosts, but imagining the insulin needed to cover candy and what sweets do to blood glucose levels.

But there is no reason your child with diabetes cannot have fun this Halloween trick-or-treating or attending Halloween parties.  The key to happy haunting is to let your child know what the Halloween candy boundaries are in advance.

Here are some tips to help make Halloween more diabetes-friendly, while keeping things fun:

• It is important that you do not distinguish a child with diabetes from their non-diabetic siblings by making rules that are unfair.  When a child has diabetes, the whole family has diabetes. Whatever rules apply to one child should apply to all.
• Set candy limits before you go out trick-or-treating to avoid confrontation.  Assure your child candy rules have nothing to do with diabetes, but that all children need to eat candy in moderation.
• Sort through all the candy your child gets.  Set aside any candy that can be used as fast sugars.  These are candies your child can keep to treat lows.
• Candies, like chocolate, nuts, and caramels that contain fat and would not work well as fast sugars can be traded in for toys, special time out with a parent, or some other treat.   If you have more than one child, and they do not object, you can even have diabetic kids trade their high-fat candy for siblings fast-sugar candy.
• If your child is allowed to have special treats from time to time, let them pick 5-10 pieces of candy to keep and enjoy over time.   Freeze what you keep (candy can last a year in the freezer) and chances are good that your child will forget about the frozen candy after Halloween has passed.
• Many parents, even of non-diabetic children, take their kids out for the trick-or-treat fun and then have their kids turn in the entire bag to donate to their church or a homeless shelter.  Tell your child ahead of time they will be trick-or-treating for other, less fortunate children.  For their “community service” your child should be given a present, or some sort of reward for gathering candy for other children.

The key to dealing with diabetes and Halloween is to make rules and set goals before you go out trick-or-treating.  For most children, it is the holiday fun – carving pumpkins, going to parties, making holiday crafts, and wearing costumes that gives them the most pleasure.  You can help them feel more normal by finding creating ways to take the focus of candy, and put the focus on fun!

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