The ‘Switch Witch’ Must Die

Modern parenting is rife with once-established norms that are now cause for handwringing: best friends, sleepovers, sharing. The newest debate? Halloween candy, and if you should actually allow your children to keep and eat it.

This is certainly not news, according to my kids’ dentist, who has long terrified my children with the stance that they should only get the number of pieces that correspond to their age. (“We’re not doing that,” I always whisper as we head back to the car.) But it does seem to have hit a tipping point in recent years with the concept of the “Switch Witch,” a Halloween hack whereby parents let their kids eat some candy on October 31^st, then switch out the bucket the next day in exchange for a non-consumable gift.

Certainly, there’s reason to limit kids’ (and adults’) sugar intake—even the seemingly couple-pieces-a-day habit. In fact, dietician and metabolic health researcher Nicola Guess told the The New York Times this week that, “the main risk of having small, daily doses of candy is that it could turn into a habit that rachets up your added sugar and calorie consumption,” which anyone who has slid from two to seven to 15 nightly jellybeans can confirm.

It can also be a reasonable tool for kids who welcome the idea of a toy (or gadget) more than a pile of gummy bears.

Anne, a Manhattan mom of twins has long employed the Switch Witch as a way to curb her girls’ candy obsession and get them excited for something they can keep and use. “My kids have no shortage of sugar in their life and have absolutely zero self-control, so we started doing the Switch Witch in late preschool, maybe around age four,” she says. “Back then, they would trade it for something like a Doc McStuffins doll, some small thing under $20.” But now that they’re 12, they get excited for bigger items. “This year, it’s Apple pencils.”

Keeping and eating your candy does not mean you are now a candy fiend subsisting only on Sour Patch dust. It just means you’re human.

But what about the kids who truly and unabashedly live for candy? Should they be forced to take off their Paw Patrol suits and Hermoine capes and hand over the bucket? I’m no dietician. Or dentist. Or investor in Doc McStuffins dolls. But I wholeheartedly think NO!

After all, Halloween is a holiday about being somebody you’re not, throwing the caution to the wind and trying something audacious—a new hair color, an inflatable chicken costume, a new kind of Skittle. Keeping and eating your candy does not mean you are now a candy fiend subsisting only on Sour Patch dust. It just means you’re human. A human looking for a few nights of wild abandon and dizzying glucose spikes.

But more to the point, trading in their stash would simply be a deep bummer for most red-blooded children, who look forward to Halloween candy all year-long, with the negotiating and trading almost as fun as the consuming itself. (My son goes out of his way to secure his sister’s favorites, not out of love, but for greater leverage during the living-room-floor-barter portion of their evening.)

And plenty of actual experts (not employed by Mars, Inc.) agree that forcing kids to relinquish candy may do more harm than good. Dr. Tracy Tyson, a physician at Monarch Maples Pediatrics and President of the Vermont Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, worries that, “if the candy is simply removed and blamed on a witch, it isn’t teaching any lesson other than: simply eat as much as you can the one night you can.”

Plus, learning to keep and portion out candy responsibly is a lesson in and of itself. “I think teaching moderation with sweets is important,” Dr. Tyson says. “One night of candy with great habits all year is better than making the child feel the candy will be gone and never come back.”

In other words, let the kids have their Fun-size Snickers. Let them hoard them their Pull N’ Peel Twizzlers. (But for the love of God, throw away the Now and Laters.) And no judgement if you end up skimming some off the top.