Halloween Safety 101

With Halloween in a mere two weeks, it's a good decision to start having some safety talks with the little gremlins in your life to prepare for All Hallow's Eve. There’s always the chance some twisted soul tampered with candy that your loved ones could eat, parents aren't focusing solely on the road when driving around the neighborhood because they are trying to tame their own little monsters and sometimes costumes aren't as light reflective as they should be. When you are giving your little ones the talk, don't scare them, but do focus on staying safe and having a blast, some things you should be going over are:

• Trick-or-treating in well-known areas, make sure they know who they are seeing and ideally have met them before.
• Avoiding stray animals, even though it can be hard to avoid that super friendly adorable neighborhood cat.
• Don't wear masks that can tamper with their vision, or avoid wearing masks at all and get creative with makeup instead.
• Wearing light-reflective clothing and costumes that can be seen easily at night or carrying glow sticks or some sort of flashlight.
• Go over street safety, making sure to look both ways and always being aware of where cars are when you are walking.
• Double checking the fit of the costume, make sure the costume is short enough that they don't trip over it.
• Make sure you go over what adult is going trick-or-treating with them and reiterating that they need to stay with that adult.
• Make sure you go over that you need to inspect all candy before they start eating it just to make sure it is safe - do not go into full details about why though just because they could end up focusing on the scary parts of Halloween and now the fun parts.
• On the night of, make sure you dress them for the weather.

Halloween shouldn't be looked at in a scary light because it can still be enjoyed, but just be aware of what could possibly go wrong, and go over the precautionary measures to make sure it will be remembered as a fun memory. The key to having successful and effective safety talks with kids is to make it still about the fun you are going to have but doing it in a safe matter.