Tips for Safe Trick-or-Treating
What are your plans to ensure a safe trick-or-treating experience?
Each year most parents provide ground rules for their children, especially younger ones prior to the annual Halloween tradition of trick-or-treating.
Standard safety tips
- Stay together in a group
- Never eat opened candy
- Stay on the sidewalk and be careful of cars
- Have a light
This year is no exception but has additional layers of potential for those focused on safe trick-or-treating.
How to encourage safe trick-or-treating
Many people still want to provide their kids a night of Halloween fun and give kids a sense of normalcy in a very abnormal world. You can still do this, with a handful of precautions and pre-planning.
Technology for safe trick-or-treating
An app called Nextdoor allows homes to mark themselves as a decorated home or a trick-or-treating home. Many of the neighborhoods known for Halloween have implemented this in Clark County; Lincoln and Franklin especially. These homes are setting up physically distant opportunities for kids to still come and collect candy. Some are using six foot PVC pipes to pass candy and others have containers of candy for children to come and take at the end of the walkway.
Other precautions you can take
- Make your cloth mask part of your costume
- Don’t wear a costume mask over a cloth one (breathing is too difficult)
- Stay six feet from others who do not live with you
- Wash your hands
Even in an uncertain world we can still carry on traditions with loved ones. Although they may look and feel different it’s important to find ways to celebrate. If you still aren’t comfortable taking the kids out, you can plan a trick-or-treat station at home or outside with decorations or a small Halloween party with fun activities and music, including costumes.
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