The 7 Deadly Sins of Taking Your Kid Trick-or-Treating

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For previous generations, Halloween was generally a pretty low stakes holiday. Parents pretty much just put sheets over kids’ heads and pushed them out the door with the expectation they would return laden with candy at some point. But previous generation parents were kind of psychotic.

Now we know better, and are more involved in our kids’ lives, even on the spookiest night of the year. Too involved? Avoiding the seven deadly sins below is start toward providing your little boils and ghouls with a safe, but also sane and satisfying, Halloween experience.

Scaring your kid

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Halloween is supposed to be scary in a fun way for kids, but some parents missed the memo, and take their little scaredy-cats to adult horror movies, too-intense haunted houses, and for late-evening trick-or-treating. Kids are scared on a spectrum. Some little kids totally love the grotesque, frightening monsters that come with Halloween. Some older kids (and adults) are terrified of the teeniest scare. Don’t shame your child if they’re on the frightened side—if they don’t want to go out trick-or-treating, don’t take ‘em. If they get freaked out at the first house, turn around and go home. You can’t argue kids out of being scared, trying will only make it worse, and you don’t want to deal with a week of nightmares. Remember: There’s always next year.

Not taking safety seriously

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The real terrors of halloween night aren’t wolfmans (wolfmen?), draculas, or even frankensteins’ monsters; they’re cars. When you combine sugar-amped kids running around in ill-fitting costumes and masks with grownups driving home drunk from Halloween parties, the combination is potentially lethal—so make safety your priority. Here’s a safer kid costume checklist:

The most important rule is to keep you mom/dad radar at peak performance. That means not packing a flask or smoking a joint before you take them out candy-begging, unless other adults are on sober guard duty.

Freaking out about people slipping drugs in the candy

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We’ve all heard countless warnings about criminals slipping drugs, needles, razors, and other nastiness into Halloween candy, but it’s not really a thing. So don’t feel the need to x-ray your kid’s candy or break out the magnifying glass. Sometimes well-meaning weirdos do give out unwrapped or homemade treats, so give the candy a quick once-over and throw that out. This also gives you a chance to steal all the Peppermint Patties.

Letting your kids be rude

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Halloween is a great time to teach your child manners in a real-life situation. Make sure they say “trick-or-treat” when someone opens the door*, and give a hearty “thank you” when someone drops candy into their sack. After all, we live in a society.

*insert the usual caveat that yes, some neuroatypical kids may be unable to do this, which is fine. They can still enjoy Halloween. 

Giving out candy with nuts

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This is a tip for giving candy, not getting it, but it’s so important I’m including it anyway. Nuts are a real, potentially deadly poison to kids with allergies, so when you’re choosing what kind of treat to give out on the big night, just skip anything with nuts of any kid. Parents of kids with allergies have to be vigilante, but there’s a lot going on on Halloween, so make their lives easier by not giving out anything containing tree nuts or peanuts. Plus, some parents don’t know their kid has a nut allergy, and finding out because you nearly killed them is not good.

Poor planning

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For little ones, hitting up a couple neighbors houses may be as much Halloween excitement as they can handle, but older kids might want to stay out longer and go further. Plan your trick-or-treating so you don’t end up hauling the dead-weight of a sleeping three-year-old in a bumblebee costume up a huge hill to get home.

A lot can goes into route planning for Halloween, so check out Lifehacker’s guide to optimizing Halloween candy acquisition and maximizing holiday-magic potential.

Skipping trick-or-treating altogether

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More and more people are skipping trick-or-treating for various reasons—safety concerns, philosophical differences with the idea of begging strangers for free treats, a global pandemic, it’s a pain-in-the-ass—but we can’t let this happen. Trick-or-treating is a great American tradition and one of the few rites-of-passage children have that aren’t entirely controlled by their parents. It’s a lesson in community-building too. We trust neighbors to “play along” for our kids, and it’s one of the few “official” reasons we have to visit them left. Plus, it gives parents a chance to look inside their neighbor’s homes and judge the decor. So bring your kid out on Halloween every year. Like everything with child-raising: You don’t have many years when they’ll care, and you’ll miss it when it too late.

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