Everyone all sugared up? I remember the annual scene of Halloween night as my sister and I shed our costumes, poured our loot onto the living room floor and began the negotiations. Fortunately, I was partial to the chewy fruity candies and and she was partial to chocolate. The only chocolate bar I was even vaguely interested in was Baby Ruth, but I didn't let on so that I could drive a harder bargain.

Is there a way to redeem this holiday...from a parenting point of view? I have a few suggestions:

• Use it as an opportunity to help your children develop their skill of persuasion. Incentivize it. At dinner tonight, have each child make a case for their favorite candy. The one who does the best job gets to pick the restaurant the next time you go out for a meal.
• Promote the concept of service to others. Propose the following scenario: Imagine you and your friends pool all your candy together.  If your goal was to do something good for someone else, what ideas would you come up with? If your children come up with a good idea, be willing to help them make it a reality.
• Use this opportunity to explore how your kids are wired. Talk about all the jobs that go into making Halloween candy--someone has to create the recipe for a new candy, someone has to market test it, someone has to go out and get venture capital to fund the operation, someone has to procure the supplies, someone has to actually manufacture the candy, someone has to design the wrapper and the advertising collateral, someone has to sell the product to distributors. Each family member then selects a job they would most like to do and tells why they picked it.
• Looking ahead, have you heard of Christmas in July?...how about Halloween in August? I think we all know that August is a hard month because many of the camps are over and the last few weeks before school starts drag on. Boring! Why not suggest a family project where the challenge is to create either a fabulous family costume or a trunk-n-treat concept? 🙂

• Well, those are just a few of my ideas. What can you add to the mix?