Tips and Tactics for Halloween

Halloween is a holiday parents enjoy or dread. It can be fun and entertaining or chaotic and scary. Making a few decisions as a parenting team and then with the family as a whole will help to get everyone on the same page regarding considerations and expectations. Then everyone in the family can enjoy the festivities!

Safety Considerations for Halloween
• Choose funny instead of scary costumes. Consider visibility with masks. Check the length of the costume to avoid tripping.
• Trick-or-treat in your neighborhood where you and your children know the residents.
• Don’t allow children to eat anything while out and about. You don’t know exactly what they’re consuming and the choking hazard is high if they eat while walking.
• Trick-or-treat with your children early in the evening. Take a flashlight along. Watch for traffic on busy streets.
• Check through treats prior to the children diving in. Toss all candy with open wrappers.

Whether you attend a harvest party or spend the evening trick-or-treating, the sweets will more than likely be plentiful. When you arrive home, decide how many treats your children can eat. Encourage your kids to choose their favorites and donate the rest to a local food shelf. If you want to incorporate math into the evening, have your kids sort their loot by color or type of candy and make a graph. Add the varieties together to get a grand total. Even Halloween can be an opportunity to put math skills to work!

Just for Mom and Dad
Make a few executive decisions together to get on the same page before meeting with the kiddos. Here are a questions to get the conversation started.

• Is your family going to participate in Halloween festivities?
• If your family is attending a harvest party, how long will you stay?
• Are the kids going trick-or-treating? If so, who will take them? Who will stay behind to answer the door?
• Depending on the ages of your children, how many homes will they visit?
• What will be done with the candy when you arrive home?
• How many treats can each one eat before bedtime or in the days following Halloween?
• At what age will do kids need to choose alternative activities for the evening?
• If your kids are tweens or teens, where will they be and with whom for the evening?

Have a safe Halloween!

© 2017 Becky Danielson. All rights reserved.

Photo by Julia Raasch on Unsplash