Halloween was a thrilling time for a megalomaniac only child like me. After a night of running around in costumes that were inevitably ill-suited to the weather, my girl posse and I would go back to my house where we'd count, sort, and trade our candy haul. There were strict rules and rankings, all of which I’ve forgotten except that Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups were worth five of anything else. Then we’d turn on Pop Up Video and feast on bite-sized sugar bombs until we were comatose in our sleeping bags. Ah, youth.

My mom’s strategy was to allow this hedonism for one night and then ration me to one piece a day until Thanksgiving, when whatever was left would get “thrown away.” Sure, Mom.

A lot has changed since then (R.I.P. Pop Up Video ). As someone who’s been out of the trick-or-treating game for a few hot seconds, I was curious to know how parents are handling Halloween candy in 2016. A quick survey of the BA office showed that the rationing policy is still a popular technique. A few people said their kids actually forget about their candy after a couple weeks, which I find completely baffling. "I dole it out while they're trick-or-treating to keep their energy up, then I make up some completely arbitrary amount that they're allowed to eat that night," said food director Carla Lalli Music. Editor in chief Adam Rapoport feeds his kid dinner after trick-or-treating, an ingenious way to distract him with healthy food (okay, with pizza).

These strategies seemed a little...unscientific, so I went to the experts. First I asked Emily Fonnesbeck, a registered dietitian and mom who writes often about kids’ nutrition on her blog . Shockingly, Fonnesbeck told me she lets her kids eat as much candy as they want, sort of. “It’s tempting for a parent to believe that if they tell their kids what to do with their candy, their kids will do it and be healthier,” she says. But apparently that doesn't work. Kids won't learn to listen to their own hunger cues if you're constantly telling them what and when to eat , she explained. "They either restrict or they have all of it.”

So Fonnesbeck uses a system called the Division of Responsibility in Feeding created by Ellyn Satter , a renowned nutritionist and family therapist. “It’s a system that teaches kids how to trust themselves instead of micromanaging them,” Fonnesbeck said. Parents are in charge of meal times and what the food options are, and kids decide what and how much they eat. If kids want candy, she says, that should be one of their options for a snack, no matter what time of year.

But what if they want ALL the candy ALL the time? Maybe some science will put you at ease. “We know from food habituation studies that the more often someone actually eats a food, if they’re allowed to eat it every day, overall calorie consumption from that food decreases , as opposed to if they eat it once a week as a ‘cheat meal,’” Fonnesbeck said. And despite about 5,000 years of anecdotal evidence, no studies have proven a link between sugar and hyperactivity in kids . Sugar is linked to obesity and metabolic diseases like diabetes, but micromanaging your kids’ candy consumption may actually make them crave it more.

But that doesn’t mean you should stand by silently while your daughter crams a dozen Kit Kats in her mouth. Fonnesbeck encourages parents to be “supporters,” helping kids check in with their own instincts by asking questions like, “How did all that candy make you feel? What would you do differently next time?" "Make the conversation about the process, not the outcome,” she said.

And if you do plan to ration your kids’ candy, letting them choose their favorites will make them happier overall (and less likely to wage war for more candy). Dr. George Wolford, Professor Emeritus at Dartmouth College's Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences found that when kids ate awesome candy followed by less-awesome candy, they enjoyed the candy less than if they’d had the awesome candy alone. “If a child was given a few of her favorite candies, making sure to end the period with their most favorite, they would look back at the experience more positively than if they were given lots of lesser candies in addition to those favorites,” said Wolford, who admitted he avoided the problem entirely by raising his kids in the middle of the New Hampshire woods.

However you choose to handle Halloween, talk to your kids about it well in advance so you’re not stuck with whining, fighting, and bargaining the night of. And talk to them about stuff other than candy too. “Try to convey that it’s not just an eating holiday, that there are many other traditions,” said Alan Kazdin , Professor of Psychology and Child Psychiatry at Yale University and Director of the Yale Parenting Center. “Go to Wikipedia and read the story of Halloween together,” he suggested. “It’s a wonderful bonding opportunity.”

I can't really imagine a history lesson distracting any kid from a pillowcase full of treats. Maybe that’s because I was brainwashed by all the Reese’s Peanut Butter cups I ate as a child, or maybe sugar is just the best thing that ever happened to this world. It’s hard to say.