The Right Way to Trick-or-Treat: Halloween Safety Tips

Halloween is a time of light-hearted fun, creative disguise, and, yeah, maybe a few shenanigans. But for anxious parents, entertaining an evening outing with several costumed kids – or letting older children navigate Halloween on their own – raises a few questions.

Luckily, the Santa Rosa Police Department has released a comprehensive list of ways to keep your family safe during Halloween. (Well, safe from all but the inevitable sugar-rush.)

Here's their advice:

Make Sure Your Kids Dress Safely

• Purchase costumes made of flame retardant material (Check the label).

• Keep costumes short to prevent trips, falls and other bumps in the night.
• Try make-up instead of a mask. Masks can be hot and uncomfortable and, more importantly, they can obstruct a child's vision - a dangerous thing when kids are crossing streets and going up and down streets.
• Make sure kids wear light colors or put reflective tape on their costumes.
• Trick-or-treaters always should be in groups so they aren't a tempting target for real-life goblins. Parents should accompany small children.

Make Trick-or-Treat Trouble Free

• Make sure older kids trick-or-treat with friends. Together, map out a safe route so parents know where they'll be. Tell them to stop only at familiar homes where the outside lights are on.
• Try to get your kids to trick-or-treat while it's still light out. If it's dark, make sure someone has a flashlight and pick well-lit streets.
• Make sure kids know not to enter strange houses or stranger's cars.

Treats

• Kids need to know not to eat their treats until they get home. One way to keep trick-or-treaters from digging in while they're still out is to feed them a meal or snack beforehand.
• Check out all treats at home in a well-lit place.
• What to eat? Only unopened candies and other treats that are in original wrappers. Don't forget to inspect fruit and homemade goodies for anything suspicious. By all means, remind kids not to eat everything at once, or they'll be feeling pretty ghoulish for awhile!

In addition, CalFire advises the following, for a hazard free Halloween night:

• Use battery powered lights - never use candles to light jack-o’-lanterns
• Instruct children to stay away from open flames.
• Remove objects from the yard that present a hazard to children (garden tools, hoses, etc.).
• Be extremely careful with cornstalks and other harvest season items. Keep them away from sources of heat. Don’t let them block doorways or stairs.
• Do not allow children to carry sharp sticks or other objects that could cause injury to others.
• If you are driving on Halloween, take care…watch out for trick-or-treaters who will be too busy to watch out for you.