Some people just offer the bucket for the kid to grab from. I think it’s about 50/50 in our neighborhood.

But aside from that, people have a REALLY difficult time understanding the kind of precautions needed when navigating a food allergy. It’s the kind of thing you don’t really understand until you, or in my case my baby, will live or could die based on how well that you understand what needs done. (An aside here, that parents know how sensitive their child is and how severe the allergy is, so no shaming here for parents who tolerate more exposure than I do!)

So pretend for a second that it isn’t candy, but instead is something else a child can’t have like loose adult Tylenol! You probably wouldn’t want your two year old or three year old walking around with a bag of loose Tylenol. Because god forbid they put one in their mouth! And that panic you would feel if you saw your baby holding an open container of adult Tylenol is how I would feel finding my son with his hand in a bag full of tootsie rolls!

Now you might really trust that you’ve taught your child not to put a pill in their mouth, and someday it’s going to be up to them to act in a safe way without you there. But three is not the age you would trust them to carry some pills around the neighborhood in the dark when it’s busy and it only takes one to cause a big big problem.