67 // How to get yourself mentally ready for Halloween with kids
Is Sugar Your Friend or Your Foe?
How to get yourself mentally ready for Halloween with kids
When we think back to Halloween as kids, hopefully each of us have some really fond memories and funny costumes that come to mind.
But for a lot of us, whether it started in childhood, came about in adolescence or early adulthood, or presented more once becoming a mom, we may have less-than-fond memories that are triggered this time of year by ghosts from our pasts.
Memories where we made ourselves sick on candy. Felt out of control around all the holiday treats. Experienced shame, guilt, or regret because of an unhealthy relationship with all the sweets and treats.
Or we grew up being so micromanaged around Halloween candy that we still don't feel the freedom to trust ourselves around it. And in that, we haven't learned how to trust our kids with it either.
Through these memories and the messages that have been engrained in us, we have learned that sugar is a less-than-friendly foe. It is the guest no one wants around and yet everyone invites, especially this time of year. It is the party crasher every parent resents and thus, often restricts. And it taunts us - especially at Halloween time.
But it is time to confront the very things we believe about sugar. Starting with,
Is sugar your friend or your foe?
No matter your past, present, or future relationship with food, I want you to walk away from this episode knowing that you hold the power; not candy. That you have the potential to rewrite the script around sugar in your family and for the next generation of trick or treaters. You have the ability to make impact - on healing old hurts and helping form healthy new habits.
And it starts now.
Listen to this episode of The Veggies & Virtue Podcast now!
Full Episode Transcription
Please note this a raw transcription. If something doesn’t read correctly, toggle to that timestamp in the show so that you can listen in on what was actually being said!
[00:00:00] For so many of us, when we think back to Halloween as a kid, hopefully we have some really fond memories and some funny costumes that we can remember. But for a lot of us, whether it started in childhood or came about in adolescence, or maybe it was something that presented more in early adulthood or as we became moms, a lot of us have also had experiences in and around Halloween and specifically with candy and sweets and treats where we feel like we just can't be trusted.
[00:00:27] We feel like it is. Just evil force to be reckoned with where we don't want candy to the house because we don't know if we can control ourself around it. Or maybe we grew up in a household where we were kind of micromanaged and we weren't allowed to eat, quote unquote junk food or candy, or we were fed messages that it was gonna make us skiing weight or unhealthy, or that it was bad or bad for so bad for our teeth.
[00:00:53] And there's just so many messages that are sent to us. Early on in life and carry with us throughout life, that can cause a dysfunctional relationship with particular foods like candy. And for better or worse, we're forced to confront a lot of these, especially in seasons like right now when there's so much candy around.
[00:01:18] But I believe that as a generation that is becoming more aware of some of the disordered. Habits and the diet culture that many of us were raised within, whether our family, ime, our immediate family, raised us with those messages around candy and sweet and treats or not. We were still raised in a culture and an overarching environment that promoted a lot of those messages, and a lot of those messages did get ingrained in us as now, But the opportunity we have with seasons like Halloween is to change that messaging and to change that rhetoric and to change the relationship that our kids have with such foods.
[00:01:55] But as I'm gonna get into it in today's episode, . We can't model that healthy relationship with food to our kids unless we can do it for ourselves. And I know that is not what some of you wanna hear because some of us know that we have done it wrong or that we've been raised in a way that we quote unquote, have been ruined in our own relationship with food.
[00:02:14] And whether I say it for a kid or I say it for adults, I'll say it a hundred times on. No one is ever too far gone to repair and restore and redeem their relationship with food, and I hope that you always know that when you are here and listening to this show, but especially in today's episode, I hope you hear the heart of this, that we really do need to get to the root of where some of our fears or in our insecurities and our struggles and our annoyances are with the sweetss and treats in our life so that we can take those thoughts captive.
[00:02:44] And ultimately translate them into some really productive behaviors, not just for ourselves and our own relationships with food, but also in the relationships with food that we foster for a whole family. So hopefully you have a cup of coffee. Don't know that you're gonna need a bi pen and paper, but I do hope that you'll have an open heart and an open mind to today's.
[00:04:34] So I want you to walk through this example with me and picture yourself in how this situation might have come about for you in your life in a variety of different situations, particularly those that are. Similar to some of those that we're having right now in this, you know, Halloween and upcoming holiday season and how you know you're at home and you're trying to pace your kids' day accordingly so that you can make it to this party on time and just to get the kids dressed and the diaper bag.
[00:05:01] Packed and the water bottles ready and the shoes on, and the kid in the car and the seat belt strapped all the dynamics just to get to this party. Felt like it just required another cup of coffee on the way there. And so you're already rolling into this party hot, you're already feeling a little feisty just from the dynamics of mom life that can sometimes as sweet as they can be, and as special as you know, these memories you're about to make with your child at a party are going to be, It can still be really exhausting and it can feel really over.
[00:05:28] And so you walk into this party and you see the host and you give 'em a hug and your kids run off and start playing and you call 'em back to remember, remind them of the rules or you know, whether or not they have to take off their shoes or you know, whatever you might need to tell 'em. And then off your kid goes, and the next thing you know is you're walking into their front door.
[00:05:44] To the left, you see the party guest that you were really hoping was not gonna be there. This is the party guest that is just loud and obnoxious, and sometimes on top of your overwhelmed. They just feel that much more irritating and your buttons just get pushed and you feel so triggered by this guest.
[00:06:05] And honestly, just looking at them sometimes makes you think of things in your past that you just wish you could forget. And so sometimes if you just didn't even have to talk to this guest or look at him, Think about 'em or know that they were there. You could just focus on the present and the sweet things in front of you, but instead, This guest is just one that you hate and now you're stuck at a party with them the whole time.
[00:06:25] You know that while your child might have run off, they're probably gonna run up to you and annoy you to no end asking you to talk to this guest, to engage with this guest. If they can have a future play date with this guest and how much time they're going to have with this guest, they may forget their manners because of this guest and the way that our child interacts with this guest ultimately may embarrass us.
[00:06:49] It may be. The demise that we feel like is the demise of our reputation. It might be that we feel like when our child and this guest go together at the party or at trigger treating or at whatever the event may be, it just triggers us. And so coming into this party hot already, feeling maybe just a little flustered or frustrated from the events of the day or the events of getting to this event.
[00:07:13] Now, being in this place, in this space where we know we're just likely to be annoyed, if not, if not specifically, because of this guest. It may be C be because of all the dynamics that just play out around this guest. And so this guest becomes one that we just really hate and we make this guest the problem because so often, especially in social settings where there's just so much going on in a ton of stimulation, it feels easier.
[00:07:41] It feels easier to externalize our issues and to project them on this other guest than it does to. The internal wrestling we feel around them, or the insecurity we actually have with them. So why are we so triggered by this party guest? Why does the mere presence of this guest at said Halloween party or at an upcoming Christmas party or whatever it may be, become so unsettling to us that we can't even really enjoy the party because we just know this guest is gonna ruin it for us?
[00:08:13] So I wanna tell you an example that happened to me at a neighborhood Christmas party. Several years ago, just like I was talking about a few minutes ago, I walked into their front door and this neighbor always, I mean, her house is on like the Christmas circuit for the home show in our neighborhood.
[00:08:29] It's beautiful. She always does the most darling decorations. She always is so hospitable and is just welcoming to all the neighbors. And every year they do this amazing polar express party and it's one of our most favorite. And it's just this sweet, sweet time. It's the same Santa that my kids have gotten their picture with every year since my oldest was just over one and we moved to the neighborhood and it's just the best time with all the people that we do life with.
[00:08:56] And so it's such a fun time. But this particular party, I walked in her beautifully decorated foyer, and instantly to my left, I see this. And I'm just like, Here we go again. I just know what's to be expected. And it wasn't too far into the party. The neighbors started commenting about this guest and commenting how my child was acting around this guest and all the questions that my child had about this guest, and I was just annoyed.
[00:09:24] I was so annoyed. I was irritated by everyone else's response about it. It wasn't even that my child was directly annoying me, but the way others perceived my child in the presence of this guest. It honestly just pissed me off. It made me really upset, and even though I was in this sweet. Holiday season with all these people that I love and our family adores doing life with.
[00:09:47] I just couldn't get this guest out of my mind because I felt like it just kept being the Achilles heel to the party. And while I did talk about, you know, how some of their comments bothered me with a really close. Neighbor friend. In my more usual conflict of diverse nature, I just kind of held on to the remarks that people made, the whole party, and it really angered me until after the party when I went home and I really just took a minute to sit with myself and to reflect on internally why I was just so annoyed by the interactions with that guest at that party.
[00:10:21] And it made me realize that the party guest really wasn't the rape problem. It made me realize that the problem was, I had spent my whole life having an unhealthy relationship with sweets, and after years of not being able to trust myself around them or fear that I was gonna binge on them, or I feel the need to hoard them or feel like that I needed to hide them, or that I had to exercise more to burn 'em off afterwards.
[00:10:47] My whole relationship, you know, for my late adolescents early twenties had just been so un. And despite almost two decades of healing that relationship and feeling like I was in a good place with this guest, I was triggered. I was triggered by this party guest and their mere presence at the party because in wanting to guard my child from so much of what I had gone through, I blamed this guest instead of focusing my.
[00:11:14] And my attention on equipping my child to know how to stand up to them, to know how to interact with them, to know how to play nice, but to hold their ground. And so, so much of my entry into motherhood was thinking that avoiding this party guest and avoiding this external problem would heal one that I had held internally for so long.
[00:11:36] But as moms, we know that kids have a way of doing that to us. Don't. So often the things that we have wrestled with as moms have to come to the surface once we have kids, because if it's something that we haven't fully addressed or faced head on, we carry that into motherhood and so often we pass it on to our kids.
[00:11:55] And so realizing that I had to introduce myself to my own villain, head on and in complete confidence so that I wasn't so scared for my child to meet them transformed everyth. And I have a feeling for many of you and the events that you're going to go to, you are going to run into the same party. and this party guest is sugar.
[00:12:17] It's candy and sweets and treats and all the things that surround us this time of year that often annoy the heck out of us. We see the candy and the cupcakes and the endless sweets and treats as the problem. And we focus on that party guest. We focus on the way our kid interacts with the party guest.
[00:12:34] We are just pierced by the comments people make about how interested in this party guest our, our kids may be. Or we blame this party guest for our child's behavior afterwards and we are vilifying something because of the ghosts of our past. And I want you to hear this episode today, and I am hoping and praying that for those who do hear this episode today, that they just feel that little nudge, that God is saying, This is not the way I have for you, and this is not what I want for your child.
[00:13:03] Because if we don't address our relationship with this party guest, How are we ever to equip and empower our kids to, in all the social opportunities that they're going to have to come? Because whether or not you ever invite this party guest into your house, which now as a mom of three, I can tell you it's very hard to avoid it, and it's honestly not recommended to completely avoid having sugar in your house because it can just make it that much scarier when you face it on the.
[00:13:28] But we have to face the reality that this is a part of our life, and no matter what part of your life it has been, I encourage you to come to a. With sugar and with sweets and with treats and with these seemingly forbidden foods where you can find such freedom that it's a welcome party guest, that it's just another thing at the party that adds to the memories, that adds to the enjoyment, that adds to the celebration.
[00:13:54] But that we do have to introduce ourselves and our kids to ride up front. Don't dodge it. Don't dodge this guest at the party. Don't try and hide around so you don't have to confront it or delay doing so, so that it just tauts you and haunts you the whole party. That is not what God has for you. That is not what I believe sugar is.
[00:14:13] And I think this time of year and especially in the months following, and it absolutely as we get into the new year, all these problems are gonna be projected and personified on sugar. That sugar is the problem. And while sugar can sometimes, In a select population caused problems more often than not, the problem is that we're projecting all this internal unhealthy relationship with food on a one given item or nutrient in sugar.
[00:14:45] And so I want you to walk away from today's episode thinking how do you address this? Previous villain in your life, or how do you productively reflect on this ghost from your past so that as you go into October, you are ready to see this guest? You do not approach these parties and these events feeling insecure.
[00:15:05] You walk into them feeling equipped. So how do we begin to break years and years and decades and decades and generation and generations of. Messaging within our own family, within the marketing, the food market industries within diet culture, and these belief systems that we've created. Well, for one, I want you to listen to each and every episode in October that you can, but particularly the one coming up where I'm gonna be sharing with you, what is the evidence, What is the factor fallacy surrounding, Does sugar make our kids crazy?
[00:15:40] And kind of this foundational belief that as moms, we definitely. , at least feel is more than evident at any given child's birthday party or definitely Halloween party. So I wanna dive into that, but I also want to dive into a lot of the things that feed into our belief system that are, as I heard Trish Blackwell won't say on her podcast, she has a great podcast on confidence coaching, and she said belief system as.
[00:16:08] And I think of that so often, like what in my belief system is just bs? Because sometimes there isn't, and sometimes we have to confront it and sometimes we have to own that. That's a. And we have to decide where is the fact and where is the fallacy and where is the truth and where is the trash, and where is the light and the love and the freedom that we get to live in?
[00:16:29] And where is the lie that we are being shackled to? And I see that again and again, particularly with moms at Halloween. And so why, I know this is not the most lighthearted episode ever. I wanna give you some steps of how you can walk into this and how you can begin considering where your own relationship.
[00:16:45] Food is rooted and some of the things that you can do so that moving forward in the month ahead, you're feeling ready to address the different aspects of Halloween that you might be confronted with or just have to address in your family. So first and foremost, one of the phases that I have within the meal times made easy method is addressing your relationship with food.
[00:17:07] This is for you, for your significant other or your spouse, for your child, and then for your family as a whole. And when it comes to dessert, sweets, treats, and how we approach those, particularly with our feeding behaviors and with our child's eating habits, we definitely see this relationship with. Being a very, very common one that needs to be addressed.
[00:17:27] But one of the things that I think that you can glean from this approach that I share you know, different reflection prompts and journal pages and sample prayers for within mealtime's made easy method is evaluating your past, your present, and your future. So the first thing I want you to do is to begin journaling some of these things and writing down different aspects of your.
[00:17:51] Or existing in your present or what you hope for or maybe project with your future or maybe your future family or for your future child, and this could be hopes and dreams. This also could be fears and worries because what I want you to recognize is that not all of these things that we need to address in our own relationship with sweets and treats are gonna be fixed by Halloween this year, even if you're starting the first week of October.
[00:18:15] As I mentioned in the story I shared from before, sometimes these. You know, lasting scars from decades ago of disorder to unhealthy eating. And while I never had an eating disorder, I can say, and something I do recognize is that sugar was something I struggled with for a season of my life, and it's not something I want my children to struggle with.
[00:18:36] But I recognize that for me, particularly as a dietician mom, it was really triggering when people would project their belief. On my kids after I had spent so long trying to combat it in my own life. And so I had to reflect on, and I saw the power of working through my past into my present and looking onto my future of not only what I had been through, but also what I wanted my child to go through and what I didn't want them to go through as it related to candy, sweets, and treats.
[00:19:09] The second thing I want you to do is I want you to bring, The lies that you believe about sugar into the light, the ones that you believe about sugar with yourself, the lies that you believe about sugar with your child, and I want you to just bring them out there. It may be that you journal them. . It may be that you bring 'em out in a quiet time and pray over them.
[00:19:29] It might be that you share them with a trusted friend. It might be that you book an unstuck session with me and you just say, I really want to harness this and own this and move forward in freedom from this. But I encourage you to bring those lies into light because I think the more that we hide these things or the more that we feel shame around these things, the greater struggles like you know, if and how much and in what manner we consume sweets and.
[00:19:53] Does impact the way that we shape our children's relationship with such. And like I said, in Milton's made easy method, I give you the reflection prompts to kind of provoke some of this processing and the journal pages or out whatever comes to mind, and the timeline templates to help you create your own list of events that may or may not have positively or negatively impacted your own relationship with food.
[00:20:16] And so the third thing I just wanna encourage you to do is if you feel like this is something you want to do more work on and you need that next level of support and coaching and evidence based information, that's not only going to help transform your relationship with food, but also spare you from the years spent in the Halloween's Mist having an unhealthy relationship with food.
[00:20:36] And I encourage you, go to meal times made easy.com to make a really intentional step, an investment in your. Feeding future. Starting, like I said, in this phase two of the program, dealing with your relationship with food. I think October is a time that it becomes very front and center in our life and in the months to follow.
[00:20:55] The marketing world is going to make you very well aware of all the changes you need to make. But as your family's dietician, I want to come alongside you. I want to support you, and I want to show you that path. So as I mentioned in the episode from. You're not doing a funny dance through the yard trying to avoid stepping in a pile of dog poop, and your belief system is not full of bs.
[00:21:16] But instead you have a plan, you know the blueprint and you know the best practices, but even more so, you feel equipped and empowered as a parent to know what to do so that you can equip and empower your child and knowing what they should do in each and every of the Halloween events that happen and the 364 days that follow there.