Make Trick or Treating a Safe and Happy Experience In 2008

Halloween and trick or treating are fun and wonderful experiences for children and adults alike. The kids get to have more candy than they usually have the rest of the year. Parents and homeowners who decide to participate in handing out the treats get to see all of the smiling and happy trick or treaters in their costumes and get to hear the customary, "Trick or Treat!" that most of us enjoy so much.

Keeping our children safe while trick or treating can be done with a little bit of planning ahead. Always make sure children are well supervised by someone responsible. An Adult being with your children when trick or treating can eliminate some of the dangers even before they start. Always make sure that all of the children are wearing reflective strips or light colored costumes so that vehicles can see them. Another good idea is to get your children glow sticks, or flashlights or light up Halloween jewelry to carry or wear for their trick or treating excursion. This not only makes it so that drivers can see them, but the children can see where they are walking and not trip and injure themselves. In addition to this, a fall can really put a damper on a little one's experience with trick or treating. The adult should also carry a bright flashlight so that everyone can see where they are walking between houses and the adult can see if there is some other danger lurking in the dark. Another thing that you can also do, is to only trick or treat in areas that you are very familiar with, such as your neighborhood. If you are going to take children trick or treating in another neighborhood, it might be a good idea to have a friend or someone who lives in that neighborhood with you, so you will be able to navigate the area in safety. You may want to consider only taking your trick or treaters to homes where you know the homeowners, this takes the "stranger issue" out of the equation.

In addition to making sure that you can be seen and you can see others, you should try to keep your eyes and ears open. Stray dogs and cats or other issues can be avoided or minimized, if they are seen in advance. Another thing that you need to do is to keep everyone together, if you are dealing with little ones you might want to take a wagon or stroller to make the going easier for little legs. Little ones can make it hard for those a little older to do as much trick or treating as they and you might want to. In case their legs are likely to get tired, bring a wagon or a stroller which will keep everyone in a happy mood and moving at a nice, relaxed pace. Remind children that everyone must stay together. If need be, make everyone hold hands if that is an age appropriate option. Having a child get lost in the dark can be a scary situation and create panic that will surely ruin the evenings activities and frazzle your nerves for certain! Consider getting some "hand holder" restraints for younger children that can be attached to a belt loop or the wagon or stroller handle to help you to keep track of everyone. If you are taking a large number of children, take count often to make sure that everyone is present and accounted for. Doing this often could save a real crisis from occurring, since it is easier to find a child who has been "missing" a shorter period of time. Make sure that every child knows that if they loose track of the group, to stay where they are, in a lighted area, and assure them that you will come and find them as soon as possible! Make sure that all of the children in your group know how to deal with strangers. Even though it is Halloween, there are still strangers and not everyone is "nice". Make certain they know that if an adult tries to get them to go into a house without you or another adult in your group, they are to tell that person NO, and if the person persists make sure that you tell them to yell and scream. Yelling something such as "You are not my Mommy or Daddy, and I am not allowed to go with you!", would probably stop the person, and even if it doesn't, it would most likely get another adult's attention or your attention, so that the situation can be corrected immediately!

Halloween costumes should be a length that makes it easy for the child to walk in safely. If it is too long the child could trip on the costume and injure themselves. Many times this means that you may have to do some adjustments to the costume, such as hemming pants legs and sleeves, or using fusible webbing and an iron if you do not like sewing. Just be sure if you choose the webbing, that you do not try to "hem" too mush extra fabric up under the leg. If you need to, cut the pant legs or the length of the costume so that you only fold over one to two inches under the garment. If you try to "hem" too much under, the webbing will not hold and your child will have his costume coming un-hemmed while he is walking and could have a bad fall, by tripping over the excess coming out of the "hem". Shoes should be comfortable and sturdy. Tennis shoes are a great choice, even for a fairy!! The shoes may not match, but your child will thank you in the morning when his or her feet are not sore. Masks are usually not a good choice for children since they obscure the child's vision in most cases. It is much safer if your child's costume has a mask, to buy makeup any way and do your child's face to match the costume. In some cases, it may not be possible to make up your child's face so that the child's vision is not obscured. One thing that you can do is to check the eye openings and make sure they are large. If the openings are not large, you may want to cut the openings larger to accommodate your child's field of vision so that they can see better and thereby make your child safer. If the mask is of hard plastic rather than rubber, you may want to put some magic tape around the holes so that the eye openings are not rough on your child's face or near their eyes. Another thing you can do to remedy rough eye openings on your child's mask is to use some emery cloth to smooth the holes for your child's eyes.

There are some other safety issues to be addressed on Halloween. Candy and Treats need to be checked. Be sure that EVERY child in the group knows that they are NOT allowed to eat ANY candy until EVERYONE gets home, and you or their parents can go through their treats to be sure that everything is safe. Never allow children to eat treats that are unwrapped, or homemade (unless it is someone that you know, like Nana or an Auntie or close neighbor or friend of course) or treats that just plain looks suspicious in ANY way. There are many horror stories about children being given tainted or dangerous treats, but if you use some safety sense you and your children can have a wonderful time trick or treating. If you do come across something that you KNOW has been tainted, such as needles, pins, razors, glass or other harmful things in some of the candy, see if you or the children can remember where that treat came from. Many times, since the children are not allowed to eat any of the candy while they are out trick or treating they will remember exactly where each treat came from. Be sure if this happens to contact the police immediately! This is important because some children do not have parents who are a safety conscious as you are, and you wouldn't want any of them hurt! Some police and fire departments and hospital emergency rooms offer to x-ray the goodies your children have collected along with some other scans to help to protect your child from unforeseen dangers. You may want to make this precaution a part of your annual trick or treating ritual every year.

Some other options that parents can use for trick or treating with their children are to take them to the local mall, or some supermarkets offer trick or treating. Some churches have parties for the children or they do "trunk or treating" to keep children safe, but allow them to have the trick or treating experience without the unknown neighborhood issues. What this entails is that the church members who wish to participate, take their vehicles to the church parking lot and decorate their vehicles and give out treats there in the church parking lot to trunk or treaters. Some people choose to have Halloween parties of their own or some youth groups and recreations centers may also have parties for the children "instead" of trick or treating. I still believe that children can go trick or treating, and with some safety sense, can be safe, healthy, and happy and still get to experience Halloween like we did when we were children.

Homeowners can do their share to help to keep trick or treaters safe too. Even if you decide not to participate in handing out goodies to the trick or treaters, you can still help keep things safe for them as well. Walkways are a biggie! Keeping walkways free of debris and things that little ghouls and goblins can trip over is extremely important!! Children get hurt by tripping on Halloween more than any other way of getting injured. Make sure that your walkways and driveways are lit adequately so that little ones can see where they are walking. Part of the fun of of Halloween is the dark, but not at the expense of little ones and knees and elbows. One alternative that many homeowners use are luminaries, they can be made very easily by using paper lunch bags decorated by cutting out Halloween patterns out of one side of the lunch bags and then filling them with sand and then putting tea light candles inside of a small jar (like a baby food jar) or tea light holders made of glass. Then push the jar or holder down into the sand slightly so the jar is stable. The metal holder that many tea lights come in are not adequate for this project because the bags could catch on fire. And when you are done, you can either throw the bags away or recycle them or keep them folded up for next year. The sand can be kept in a pail or plastic bag for next year as well, or put into the kid's sand box or sand table. Many stores also sell Halloween luminaries. The kids can even help you to make the walkways in your yard safe by helping you to make the luminaries. Never leave luminaries lit when they are unsupervised. Another thing that you can do is to make sure that the children and adults know that you are giving out treats. Putting on the porch light or making sure that there are enough lit decorations and an open front door or you sitting out in front of your house giving out treats will accomplish this. If you decide to dress up, make sure that there is someone who is not dressed up "scary", so that little trick or treaters are not afraid of the person who is giving out the treats.

Homeowners can also do things like making sure that pets are inside or in back of the house. This helps to avoid problems for everyone. The pets aren't being mobbed by the children, and the children aren't going to be misunderstood, which could lead to an accidental bite from a nervous pet. It stands to reason that pets are not used to seeing children dressed up in scary costumes or something that is not scary to us, like Raggedy Ann or Andy, however, the red hair could cause a pet to react in a way you never expected it to.

Stick to the hours your community has set up for trick or treaters to come to your home. Keeping your home open past the hours could cause problems for you or the children. The reason that communities have set hours for this activity is partially because they have arranged for increased patrols by police and fire departments. In addition to this, it helps to keep track of approximately when a parent can expect their older children to be home and if the child doesn't show up by that approximate time, the parent knows the child is 'missing" and to start looking. This also keeps pranks that used to be quite prevalent on Halloween night to a minimum. It also curbs a problem with vandalism by teens and young adults, since the trick or treating is over at an earlier hour than it used to be, if the youths are out later than the trick or treating has been set up for and there is vandalism in question, the police know that they are "not out trick or treating", at that hour of the evening. Continuing to give out treats later than the time allotted could lead to a young person using that as an excuse to stay out when not everyone is as generous as you may be. Sticking to the rules and some safety sense will make Halloween 2008 a wonderful and fun experience for all.