Some parents love the Halloween experience, others find it difficult or quite infuriating. One reason we hear British parents complaining about trick or treat is the belief that it originated in America. In fact the original form took place as far back as the Middle Ages in Ireland and England. While the modern form (known as guising) is recorded in 1895 in Scotland but not until 1911 in the USA!
Problems include the endless answering of the door. Often to quite big teenagers in hoodies with pound shop masks and pretty poor attitudes. Equally endless heaps of cheap trick or treat sweeties that cause sugar rushes and (probably) dental decay.
Trick or treat – yes or no?
The convention is that houses with carved pumpkins outside are ‘open’ for trick or treating. Many local police forces also offer signs that can be printed and put up on the door. Or gate if you have one. Saying ‘No Trick or Treat’ with a nice big police service logo to back up the request. It can seem annoying to have to opt out of having Halloween visitors. But if you really don’t want your little ones disturbed by endless doorbell ringing, it’s the best option.
Some streets also have street parties and this is becoming an increasingly common option. Which can be a good way to get to know neighbours and also allows you to limit the trick or treat area you travel through. Nanny can help create a list of houses of friends to visit.
The sweet results of trick or treating
Children often love dressing up and going out after dark can be the most incredible fun for them. Getting to meet neighbours you’ve never spoken to is also rewarding and teaches children a sense of community. It’s a good corrective to the ‘never take sweets from strangers’ approach. This can make children overcautious and scared to engage with anybody new. Making it clear this is a supervised once a year experience is easy too.
The less sweet results of Halloween goody bags
The sad truth is that people generally buy the cheapest possible sweets for Halloween. These can expose your children to unfamiliar and unwelcome amounts of sugar, e-numbers and other nasties.
There are other sad truths. Giving fruit for Halloween often gets a negative response in the UK and making Halloween treats is frowned on too. There have been too many scare stories of people hiding razor blades in apples and baking cakes full of drugs. They are usually urban myths but nobody wants to be brave around their own children and unfamiliar treats. Many nannies from other cultures find this astonishing and so it can be helpful to talk about agreed routes, things you will or won’t accept (parents or nanny can quietly take possession of anything that breaks the agreed guidelines) and how to decide which houses to visit.
Ways to limit the sweetie mountain
- Some families write a list of the top half-dozen sweet treats for each child. Then when they get home they get to keep everything on their list. The rest of their haul gets taken away and handed out in a more restrained fashion.
- Eating sweets every day is much worse than having one big blow-out on a single night. So make sure your children eat lots of protein on Halloween and then – if you feel you can – let them rip with the sugar.
- Don’t build a sweet mountain – the temptation to pop leftover sweeties into the fruit bowl just lets everybody graze on harmful sugar for days or weeks. Instead put the remaining sweets out of sight or even agree to throw away anything that remains after, say, 2 November.
- You can consider using leftover sweets to good effect by building them into a Christmas gingerbread house – although that might just be a way of delaying the sugar load.
- A great trick is to offer your children a little something special to finish the night on Halloween. A carefully decorated new toothbrush to encourage them to clean their teeth thoroughly after all that sugar.