Parenting Tips to “Fall” back on this Fall

How to Make Halloween candy less “spooky”

Set clear expectations for your kids, such as “you can have one piece of candy each day”. You may need to repeat this expectation many times, and potentially add limits, for example: “I know you are really excited you got so much candy, but our rule is one piece of candy a day, you can choose which piece you want after dinner”.

Create time for the family

Whether it be a pumpkin patch, picking out Halloween costumes, carving pumpkins, fall fests, or trick or treating- carve out some time to spend with your kids this fall. Kids are craving quality time with their families, and this season is full of memory-making activities to help kids gain the time that they are craving with their parents.

Engage Cooperation

By this time, your kids have made it through the first 9 weeks of school, and you may be getting tired of reminding them every day after school to put their backpacks on the hook, pick up their dirty clothes, tv is for after homework... the list goes on. One way to engage cooperation for kids of all ages is to post a visual calendar for what to do before school and after school. For example: before school may have a picture of a toothbrush, breakfast cereal, clothes, backpack. And instead of reminding your child every thirty seconds of the next item that needs to get done, you can simply redirect them to the visual calendar. This encourages autonomy and gives tired moms a break from nagging this spooky season. For older children, you may include times next to the image: 4:00-4:05 Backpack, 4:05-4:20 Snack picture, 4:20-4:45 Homework picture, 4:45-6 Play picture, 6 pm dinner picture, 7 pm bath picture, 8:30 pm bed picture. The consistency and visual reminders will help kids learn their routine, gain a sense of organization, and know where to go if they can’t remember what they should be doing (for our more forgetful friends).