Tips for Safe Trick or Treat Trails

Halloween is a fun and exciting day for many kids. The dressing up in costumes, trick or treating, and bags filled with candy has to be the highlight of their Octobers! As children get ready for Halloween night, you as parents and adults can start planning a safe trick or treating route. Here are some tips as you start preparing.

Set a specific route that your children must follow. That way if they are late or you need to get them, you'll know the route to track them down. A safe trick or treat route should be within a familiar area to your smaller children, like around your own subdivision for instance.There's nothing wrong with going to another safe neighborhood in town though I would only recommend this travel trick or treat to older children or with an adult guardian. Unfamiliar neighborhoods can be easier to get lost in.

Make rules. Sit down with them before trick or treating or the days before and map it out on paper, or walk with them around the route. Point out where they can and can't go on that route. Do you want them going to the house with a ferocious dog in the front yard? Are they allowed to take a shortcut through the park to get home? Do you mind if they go into a themed-haunted house on that route? Also, set a specific time your children must be home. Let them know there are no exceptions to those rules. Have consequences and discuss them together.

Scope out the neighborhoods beforehand. Drive the route, or better yet, walk the route yourself to make sure the neighborhood and streets are safe. Look for important factors such as street lighting, alleys, signs of gangs hanging around, availability of sidewalks, street intersections, and location. Talk to other parents for advice on safe or unsafe neighborhoods they may have visited for trick or treat in years past.

Younger children should not walk around by themselves. Have an older child or adult walking with them. Smaller children may need guidance crossing intersections or staying safe from strangers. Suggest a group trick or treat with older children. It can be more fun trick or treating with their friends and it's safer with several together.

If your children are a little older and have cell phones, make sure they take their cell phones with them. That way both of you can stay in contact. If your children need you, whether its an emergency or to get a ride home, they can call. Likewise, if you are worried or need your children, you can call them.

If the trick or treat route you choose is poorly lit, I suggest adding your own light to it. Your children's costumes should have some sort of reflective tape that is visible through the night when any kind of light, especially car headlights, hits it. You can put a stripe on their backs, on their shoes, or on costume hats, for example. It doesn't have to be so much tape that it "takes away" from their costume look, just a strip or two will do. Stores also sell reflective belts they can wear around their waist or slung over their shoulders. If reflective tape is out of the question or you rather they have more light, consider LED head lamps. They are a small but very bright LED-lamp attached to a headband which your children could wear on their heads. This will not only help other people and drivers see them, but they themselves will be able to see where they're going in the dark.