Safety Tips for Halloween

The Comprehensive Children’s Injury Center (CCIC) provides the following Halloween safety tips to help parents become better informed on injury prevention tips.

Pedestrian Safety

• Never let your young children go trick-or-treating alone. Make sure an adult is always with them.
• If your older children are going alone, plan and review a route that is acceptable to you. Agree on a specific time when they should return home.
• Encourage your children to walk from house to house. Don't let them run.
• Allow your children to only visit homes with a porch light on - remind them to never enter a home or car for a treat.
• Remain on well-lit streets and always use the sidewalk. Look left, right and then left again before crossing the street in the crosswalk.
  • If no sidewalk is available, have your children walk at the far edge of the roadway facing traffic.
  • Instruct your children to never cut across yards or use alleys.
• Walk with a flashlight and put reflective tape on your child's costume and/or bag so drivers easily see them.
  
  

Costume Safety

• Plan costumes that are bright and reflective.
• Make sure that shoes fit well and that costumes are short enough to prevent tripping, entanglement, or contact with flame.
• Use nontoxic face paint instead of masks. Masks can limit the child's ability to see.
• Test the face paint or makeup on a small part of the child's skin to check for allergic reaction.
• Toy swords, knives, and other toy weapons should be short, soft, and flexible.
• Wear flame-resistant costumes. Look for a tag or sticker saying the customer is flame-resistant before purchasing.

Nutrition and Treat Safety

• Don't allow your child to eat any candy that looks like it has been tampered with.
• Check candy for choking hazards (hard or chewy candy) for younger children.
• Limit the amount of candy eaten each day.
• Avoid eating homemade treats made by strangers.
• Brush teeth well after eating candy, especially sticky candy.

Other Halloween Options:

• Try decorating pumpkins with markers and stickers instead of carving.

• Invite children over to have a costume party with games. This will limit the dangers of walking from house-to-house in the dark.
• Many recreation centers, schools, churches, and community centers host a Halloween party, harvest festival, or fall party.