Keep your kids safe with these trick-or-treat safety tips! Halloween is a famously loved holiday by kids everywhere. It’s a fun time to dress up like silly or scary characters and go trick-or-treating in the neighborhood. Enjoy the holiday and stay safe!

Wear bright colors

Both parents and kids should wear brightly colored clothing. If you are wearing a costume that is dark in color, apply reflective tape to parts of your clothes or shoes. (Many communities now enforce a trick-or-treating curfew to prevent children from roaming after dark. Be sure to check for any curfew rules that may apply to your community.)

Be sure your child can see

Smaller children love store-bought costumes that come complete with a facemask. Before you leave the house, double-check to make sure your child can see through the eyeholes of the mask. This will help to prevent them from tripping, falling, or running into something while they trick-or-treat.

Use flame-resistant costumes

Add reflective tape to costumes and trick-or-treat bags

A few reflectors go a long way to helping your child be visible.

Give kids flashlights and glow stick

This will help them be seen as well as helping them see where to go.

Obey the rules

If you are trick-or-treating in a city, remember to follow traffic safety rules. Always look both ways before crossing the street. Stay on the sidewalks and walk at a normal pace.

Walk, don’t run

Stick to the sidewalks, don’t walk between parked cars, and take your time. It’s much easier to trip in a costume and there usually many people out and about.

Visit familiar places only

Take your children to trick-or-treat at places where you know people. Try not to take them to strange houses or places that look unsafe. Remember the never talk to strangers, rule!

Stay on the porch

Don’t go inside homes, invited or not, unless it’s a planned stop.

Know where your kids are going

If your kids are older and you’re comfortable with them going out on their own, be sure you know where the route they’re taking and plan a time they should be home by.

Inspect all candy

This is a commonly known rule of trick-or-treating, and yet so many parents don’t follow it. Parents should remove all unwrapped candy from buckets (cupcakes, homemade candy, etc.). There are just too many dangers to eating unwrapped candy or treats to take a chance with your child. Look for holes in plastic wrappers as well.

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