Halloween is right around the corner. While it’s a time of great excitement and anticipation for children, Halloween brings many stresses and anxieties for parents. But it is possible to let your children enjoy the holiday and still keep them safe – and maybe even have some fun yourself, in the process.
For children, Halloween is the one day of the year that they are allowed to be someone they are not, someone they have always dreamt of being. For little boys, it might be a superhero like Spiderman or Batman. Maybe it’s their chance to be a cowboy or mob man whose costume even comes with a gun! For little girls, it’s a chance to actually be a fairy, a Disney princess or even one of those cute little bugs that so many families pick. Maybe your child wants to be a doctor, nurse or some other professional career.
As children age, so does their choice of costume. Whether it’s High School Musical or Lady Gaga, children have an opportunity to engage in a fantasy life – one that may or may not be very different from their own. Oh, and we can’t forget to mention all that candy!
While kids are over the moon for the parties, trick or treating, and complete sugar overload, Halloween can be a time of stress and even anxiety for parents. Common questions I hear parents talking about include:
Where will my child go trick or treating? Who will my child be with? How will we pay for another costume? How can I know my child is safe?
Just like everything else in life, if we allow our anxieties to overshadow the excitement and magic that is Halloween for our children, it will. This month we said goodbye to one of the greatest geniuses of our time, Steve Jobs. I encourage you to hold onto his advice for Stanford University’s graduating class of 2005: “Stay hungry, stay foolish.”
Let Halloween be a time to return to your youth and experience that magic that I know I remember so vividly. Use Halloween as a time to reconnect with your children. Create traditions over how and when you pick out this year’s costume, whether it’s going to the store, digging through your costume trunk or even letting your child borrow an old uniform. Build rituals into how you celebrate the night. Establish activities that your children know they can expect and for which they are excited. Get dressed up yourself. Let yourself be foolish in the moment and have fun.
