Trick-or Treating Safety Tips

August 27, 2018

Are your kids excitedly preparing for Halloween in your new neighborhood? McKendree Moving & Storage offers trick-or-treating safety tips.

Halloween is a favorite time of the year for kids – crazy costumes, spooky fun parties and all that candy! If trick-or-treating is on your kids’ celebratory agenda, it’s important that you keep a few safety tips in mind, especially if you’ve recently moved to a new neighborhood.

McKendree Moving & Storage recommends these trick-or-treating safety tips:

• Plan our route: This is particularly important if you’re new to the neighborhood. Before heading out on Halloween night with your kids, take a walk around the neighborhood yourself and plan a route that has adequate, working street lights and allows for a quick walk back home, should your little trick-or-treaters get tired. Also, look for signs that residents of the streets you’re eyeing have children themselves – bicycles and toys in the yard, etc. These are the neighbors most likely to be prepared for trick-or-treating children. Skip homes with darkened entryways and never allow your child to enter the home of a person you don’t know and trust.

• Plan safe costumes: Encourage your child to choose costumes that are close fitting without long, flowing pieces that can cause them to trip. Skip masks that can limit your child’s vision and instead let them get creative with makeup. Opt for brightly colored costumes, or place pieces of reflective tape on parts of the costumes, props and candy bags so that oncoming drivers can easily see your children. Make sure shoes fit well and are doubled tied to further avoid tripping.

• Use flexible props: Visits to emergency rooms and urgent care centers for eye injuries tend to spike on Halloween night. Make sure swords, wands and other props carried by your little swashbuckling pirate or wish-granting fairy princess are made of soft, flexible materials that won’t break or shatter.

• Check before the chow-down: Insist that your children not eat a single piece of Halloween candy until you’ve had a chance to thoroughly inspect it. Toss any candies that aren’t factory-wrapped or that appear to have been open or tampered with. Also, skip any homemade treats unless you personally know and trust whoever prepared them.

From all of us here at McKendree Moving & Storage, have a safe and happy Halloween.