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Original poster

Trick or Treat...do you let your kids go??

55 replies

ludaloo · 29/10/2006 07:02

I was speaking to a mum the other day who said she would not be letting her ds go this halloween as she thought it was not giving out a very good message to children..ie give us some sweets or we will play a trick on you...
My mum never let me do it either..she said it was begging
I will let mine go..of course I will be going with them...
Any opinions?

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foxtrot · 29/10/2006 07:09

i'm sitting on the fence on this one. Last year we knocked at MILs and SIL by prior arrangement. Personally i wouldn't knock on a complete strangers door. This year we will be going to SIL and the DCs will be opening the door and giving out the treats. SIL is on a route arranged by a local shop, they give out posters to those who want to open their doors, and maps to the "trick or treaters (but strictly no tricks)", and also patrol the area.

Original poster

ludaloo · 29/10/2006 07:14

hmm...thats sensible foxtrot...we used to just stay in and hand out treats but dd1 is now 5 and really wants to go...we are very lucky as we live in a very small and friendly village...where everyone knows everyone...we know all the doors not to knock i.e the elderly, and I usually stick to the other people with kids houses. We have two pubs in the village and one of the pubs opens the back room for all the kids and provides soup and treats....so we are very lucky...morally I don't see the problem (maybe that is because I resent my mothers choice of keeping me in!!!!....awful as a kid not going out with the others!)

OP posts:

FrannyandZooey · 29/10/2006 07:19

I have an arrangement with some local friends that we will call on them and vice versa. I wouldn't personally call on strangers as I know it scares some people, and of course we don't play tricks, we just say "we have come to show you our costumes."

I am happy to receive trick or treaters who are polite and who actually have a costume on, as opposed to black clothes and a horrible mask from the pound shop. I like it, I enjoy seeing the neighbourhood children and it gives me a chance to meet some local people that I hadn't spoken to before.

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sugarfree · 29/10/2006 07:19

We go out for about an hour but we only knock on doors of decorated houses.(and we don't do tricks)

foxtrot · 29/10/2006 07:19

Halloween wasn't a big deal when i was small, LOL, it was always bonfire night that was celebrated, so i find trick or treat is not important to me. We did have parties tho', with apple bobbing and scarey games (Nelsons Eye anyone?).

foxtrot · 29/10/2006 07:21

i think it is the fear of teenagers demanding money that gives it a bad name.

McDreamy · 29/10/2006 07:21

We have an organised treat or treat round for the little ones early in the evening. We put notes rounds before hand asking people to put their outside lights on if they don't mind the children knocking. If the light is off we don't bother them. It seems to work.

mumandlovingit · 29/10/2006 07:36

im taking the kids to family and close friends to show the kids n their costumes.they dont say trick or trast as they dont understand that part of it and i wouldnt let the trick anyone.

i dont agree with childe going to strangers houses trick or treating.

i think it scares alot of children and elderly people, especially when the people doing it are adults themselves!

Furball · 29/10/2006 07:52

We don't do halloween. Ds has a heart attack everytime someone with a scary mask appears when we open the door and the kids seem really ungrateful to get a handful of sweets. Dh also says they are beggars.

We have since moved to a village where if you want trick or treaters you put a lantern in your window, we'll see what happens.

Schokofruhstucksflockenhasseri · 29/10/2006 08:02

I might if we lived in Scotland. When I was in Edinburgh one year, we had lots of groups of very cute children, really small, coming round, and singing songs, or reciting peoms that they had written themselves.

In other places though, it is just threats and begging by older children, ime.

agalch · 29/10/2006 08:47

I am in Scotland and we call it "guising" here.The kids come round dressed up and they have to do a turn eg a joke,poem ,song etc and they are given a treat.

Don't have a problem with it.If teens came to the door they would be told to naff off,Halloween's for kids.

gscrym · 29/10/2006 08:49

I was only allowed to go guising to our next door neighbours. I was quite surprised at the gangs of kids wandering round at all hours without any adult supervision.

all4ghoulz · 29/10/2006 10:23

we do the same -take them in costume to friends and family and a couple of neighbrs but do not knock on strangers doors at all -agree about teenagers -a lad knocked on ourdoor yesterday in a hoodie with his face covered at 4.30 and said trick or treat
I just said sorryit is not halloween yet but the cheek of it !!

jac34 · 29/10/2006 10:50

We used to do an organised one in our street,just between the Mums,and we would just call at our own groups houses(IYSWIM).I never really liked it much,just sort of went along with it for the kids,because I do think of it as begging!
A lot of the children are too old now and it's not being done this year,so I told my sons that they will not be going trick or treating,but that I would find a party for them to go to,so that they can dress up.
I have found a organised party locally,but I promised that if I had not found one I would have one for some of their friends in our house.

Gobbledispook · 29/10/2006 11:04

Mine don't go but then we live on a main-ish road and the houses are all spaced apart quite a bit so it's just not the sort of area you'd do it.

I think I might do it if I lived in a more residential street iyswim - but even then, I'd only agree with other people I knew that the kids could come and I'd probably give them the sweets to give out as well.

I wouldn't make it a 'give us sweets or we play a trick' thing either - more a 'oooh don't we look scary and didn't we do well dressing up' thing.

ScareyCaligulaCorday · 29/10/2006 11:06

I've just told mine they can't as a punishment for having vandalised a footstool of mine.

Good excuse not to go.

Gobbledispook · 29/10/2006 11:07

My kids are also frightened by people in scary costumes so I'm a bit unsure about whether I'll open the door or not. Dh wants to buy sweets to give out...we'll see.

pointyfangedWeredog · 29/10/2006 11:16

Don't get the great horror and disgust about begging tbh. They're children. Hallowe'en is once a year. Is it not also a more educated form of begging to write lists of what you want from Santa?

I've accompanied the kids out guising for the last few years. The first year (living in a new place) I took them to the houses of people they knew. Much later on I heard a couple of these people express views about how they hated hallowe'en and hated children calling round, especially if they didn't know them. Had never heard this point of view before.

So now I take them to the houses of people who I know don't mind hallowe'en. I love kids coming to our house.
So now

foulmoonfiend · 29/10/2006 11:22

we also go (as the boys got taken a couple of years ago as partof a halloween party and it is very hard to 'stop' it now)
But we only go to local houses where it is very obvious that we are welcome (ie pumpkins lit, or decorated house) The kids help make their costumes and we have a couple of friends over after for apple bobbing and some food. I love opening the door to kids (dressed up, natch) and touch wood, we have never been 'tricked' (or vandalised) by teenage horrors. I also put a sign up saying 'no trick or treaters after 7pm' which also seems to work for us.

rosie79 · 29/10/2006 11:25

My DS is only 3.5 so no, he won't be going trick or treating. Anyhow, I would not want him being given loads of sweets that he would then gorge himself on or that would become an issue if I tried to limit his consumption of them. He hardly ever eats sweets now and I don't see any need to change that!

LittleScarer · 29/10/2006 11:35

Well we went guising, as mentioned earlier in the thread, I don't like the idea of trick or treating tbh but I think guising, especially if you are going to friends/friendly neighbours houses is fine.

We loved it as kids.

tallulah · 29/10/2006 12:02

I hate halloween (bah humbug). It may be a Northern or Scottish custom but down South it just seems to have been imported from the States in recent years. I don't want my whole evening spent with people I don't know banging on my door demanding money with menaces. We aren't a "community" here in any sense of the word and these kids are total strangers. They also come after dark and I don't open the door after dark. One year we did buy sweets but they just looked at them like WTF? They want money and I don't give my hard earned money to people on my doorstep. My kids know my feelings on the matter and have never asked to go.

If you knock on strangers doors (not that the previous posters seem to), how do you know they are safe strangers? Seems a daft custom to promote in the current climate.

Snowstorm · 29/10/2006 12:15

Can't bear it, find some of the older children quite threatening, particularly when they sound like they are kicking the door in as opposed to knocking politely. It's also really tricky if it corresponds with LO's bath time as I'm not going to leave them to answer the door and yet some of the little b*ggers don't give up easily! Don't mind the smaller children who are dressed up and supervised by adults so much but would rather not have any at all - bah humbug heh.

Last year I bought chocolate buttons (yum!) for our neighbours' children and the nice trick-or-treaters and marshmallows (repellent!) for the others ... sort of hoped they'd tell other people that our house wasn't worth bothering with .

FairyMum · 29/10/2006 12:17

I think Halloween is fun when the children who knock are small and have made an effort to dress up. I really don't like it when the children and older, they haven't made an effort to dress up and they clearly want money and not sweets. I don't let mine go because I know how many people dislike children knocking, but tbh I think it'sd a bit grumpy to look at it like begging. I think the small children are motivated by the fun as much as the sweets.

Chandra · 29/10/2006 12:27

I hate it TBH, it scares me having people banging the door as if the house was in fire, and I also find demanding old children off. The few times I have given some (normally chocolates) they seem disapointed by what they get or the amount they get so in top of the expense most of the children seem ungrateful. Besides, DS can't have sweets due to multiple alergies and I find it off to have DS distribuitun sweets to children we don't even know knowing that he can not even have one.

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