Get more for your, um, children on Halloween

​Now that my daughters have their own children, they call me every day to ask me for advice on how they can be the bestest-ever parents like I was for them. Okay, they aren’t really calling about this, but I once had a dream where one of them said I wasn’t the worst father in the world, so it’s the same thing.
 
Anyway, if ever there was a time when my daughters should be calling for fatherly wisdom, this is it. Halloween is coming up in a few days and every good parent is looking for answers to the world’s most important question:

How do I make sure my kids bring home Hershey bars instead of candy corn?
 
Because, let’s be real about this whole Halloween thing. We say it’s fun for the kids and they love to dress up and get free candy, but we’re lying. No little kid has ever wished for the opportunity to put on a sweaty plastic costume and cover their faces with a cardboard mask so they could stand out in the cold and the rain while some stranger hands them a malted milk ball.
 
Yeah, they’ll say they like it after we coach them enough, and they’ll tell their parents they’re having fun, but that’s only to avoid being left out in the cold near the old house that everyone knows is haunted by a real ghost.
 
By the time they’re three, every kid knows there are much easier ways to get candy. Either whine non-stop until mom gives in or wait for gramps to show up and just ask him. Getting dressed up to beg for crap from strangers? That’s amateur stuff, and way too much work.
 
In truth, Halloween is a holiday for parents, and it’s all about the candy that the parents can score, even if it means pimping out their costumed progeny as “trick or treaters.” The whole thing is truly nuts, though. Mom loads up on Snickers and Milky Ways and all the other candy she likes, but then she ends up giving those treats to a bunch of snot-nosed tykes while hoping that her own snot-nosed tykes will bring home….Snickers and Milky Ways. If everyone eliminated the middlemen, or middlekids, this would all go so much better.
 
But we’re Americans and we love to complicate things, so we’ll all be dressing up the kids to go out and collect the candy and telling everyone how much fun it all is for the little ones. And we’ll all be regretting our choices when dad brings Junior and Little Missy home with a tub full of candy corn, popcorn balls, wax lips and Necco wafers. Meanwhile, back at home, mom has been reduced to tears as she gave away the last of the really good candy she was hoping to enjoy with dad after Missy and Junior went to sleep.
 
Happily, all this nonsense can be avoided if parents follow our simple Dadwrites Guide to Halloween Bliss. The seven-volume how-to manual won’t be out until next year, but here are a few of the highlights:

1. Spend $5, max, on the costume. Just buy a mask or a hat, and add a bit of glitter to their cheeks. It’s almost November and you’re going to be bundling them up in a coat, anyway, and there’s no extra candy for the kid who wins “best costume.” Halloween life hack: With the money saved on the costume, mom and dad could buy a “reserve supply” of Heath Bars.
2. Go where the fancy people live. If there’s a subdivision near you where everyone competes to mount the most lavish Christmas display, or they leave their Beemers in the driveway instead of parking them in the garage, that’s the spot to find the best candy.
3. Take notes. If they handed out Circus Peanuts and Smarties at the Olsons’ place last year, plan to skip that house this time. Maximizing your Halloween haul depends partly on how many doorbells you ring, but mostly it's a function of which doorbells truly matter.
4. Train your children to grab the good stuff. Most people will toss an assortment of candies into a plastic pumpkin and tell their little visitors to take the one they want. Make sure to teach your children which one “they” want by creating a deck of flash cards…and drill twice a day. If your pride and joy has a shot at a Butterfinger and she grabs a Mary Jane, that’s on you as a seriously bad parent.
5. Chat up your friends. Many parents take their darlings out at 3:30 or 4:00, but don’t join them. Instead, use your friends as scouts to find the best places to score when you set out at 5:00 or 6:00.  “Hi, Agnes. No, we haven’t started yet. What kind of candy are people handing out this year? Really, the full-size Snickers? What was that address again?”
6. Divide the spoils fairly. And isn’t it fair that mom and dad share in the festivities? Yes, it’s absolutely fair and well deserved. After the children are back at home and it’s time to enjoy the fruits (Someone actually gave them fruit???) of their labors, let them have a taste or two and then promise to protect their candy for the days ahead. Of course, they should understand there is a storage charge, plus reimbursement for the cost of the costume, plus other user fees and assessments.  If they don’t have enough cash to cover their debts, they can pay off their obligations in Hershey bars. As we said, it’s only fair.

 
 
Halloween is only one of the many tests that parents face as they strive to clear the path for their children’s success. Whether we’re fighting for admission to the preppy pre-school or the Ivy League college or the top summer camp for entrepreneurs, it’s our number one job to make our children winners, not whiners. Because, except for our “fair share” of the Snickers, we’re doing it all for them.
 
Your children will succeed at Halloween, along with everything else they do in life, but only if you read and follow all the incredible parenting insights that we offer here at Dadwrites. Make sure to subscribe by clicking here and save your children from the total failure experienced by losers who don’t sign up.
 

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