Halloween- do I hand out candy or let kids take from the bowl when they come to do the door?

[Anonymous]

Have I been doing it wrong all these years? My SIL and I are having a friendly disagreement. I always give the kids 2 pieces of candy from my bowl when they come to my door. She holds the bowl and lets them take a piece. Am I too controlling? It just seems like it would take way too long. We are in a busy townhouse community.

[Anonymous]

I let the kids choose from the bowl

[Anonymous]

You should let them choose unless all the candy is exactly the same

[Anonymous]

I hold out the bowl to older kids and say "You may have TWO" because other times they take huge handfuls. For much younger kids I have a separate bowl of lollipops and tell them they can pick one.

[Anonymous]

I live in a very densely built neighborhood so I give ONE candy to each trickortreater.

[Anonymous]

If you hand out the candy it limits the spread of germs.

[Anonymous]

Depends on how many kids you get. We get 300+. I give out the candy to make the line to faster.

[Anonymous]

When I hold out the bowl, some kids grab big handfuls even if I say "take a couple."

[Anonymous]

I've found some of the younger ones will take forever to decide if you let them choose.

[Anonymous]

Do whatever you want! There's no rule

[Anonymous]

The first year, we naively let kids pick from the bowl. We ran out of candy within an hour and had to run to CVS for more. Now we hand it out or, later in the night, might offer the bowl and say "pick one" or "pick two."

[Anonymous]

It's customary to let the kids grab as much as they can with one hand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's customary to let the kids grab as much as they can with one hand.

Not I the world I was raised or the one with manners in which we are raising our child.

We let the young ones choose and hand out 2 to the older ones.

[Anonymous]

We always have a variety of candy so I hold out the bowl so they can choose. if one grabs a handful, I remind them "just one or two please"; however, kids usually only take one and I find myself encouraging them to take two if I have plenty left over. And we are in a neighborhood where kids are dropped off at the end of the block by parents who do not live here Because of that I buy tons of candy so I don't run out. I love Halloween!

[Anonymous]

No issues with limiting the take to one or two pieces, but as a parent of a kid with food allergies, I'm always appreciative of the houses where the kids are invited to select their own candy.