Holiday Driving Tips - Trick-or-Treat Transporting

Tips on Transporting Your Kids to Trick-or-Treat This Halloween

Advice Seeker: Dear April,

Halloween is approaching and my kids are super excited about trick-or-treating, but am nervous about letting them go. We don't know any of the neighbors, there are no sidewalks, and it's starting to get dark earlier. Is it politically incorrect to drive to a different neighborhood to trick-or-treat?

Sincerely,

Treats Without the Tricks

April Masini's advice:

Dear Treats Without the Tricks,

It's definitely not politically incorrect to make sure your chidren are safe! People are transporting their children to neighborhoods to do their trick-or-treating where there are sidewalks and safe homes more and more these days.

The reasons for this change are as follows:

* Neighborhoods are more cyber-based than physically based. This is a change. People tend to know others who live in different cities, states, and countries more than they know their next door neighbors. When a holiday like Halloween comes around, which is traditionally a neighborhood holiday, trick-or-treating often means knocking on strangers doors. Parents feel safer knowing their children are in neighborhoods that they deem "safe" and familiar. These neighborhoods may not be their own!

* Friends are not next door neighbors any more. This is also a result of cyber-neighbors who live cities, states, and countries away. Children IM their friends the way kids in the "olden days" used to stretch two dixie cups, connect with string, from one house to the house next door, to make sort of telephone device. When it comes to Halloween, kids want to trick-or-treat with their friends -- not necessarily their neighbors, so they tend to go to different neighborhoods where their friends live, where one of their group of friends live, or where parents designate they can all trick-or-treat together.

* Halloween has become more of an adult event. Many parents with children take advantage of the holiday to have multi-generational parties and events. If parents are invited to Halloween parties at other parents' homes, they will take their minor children with them to those neighborhoods so the families can be together for Halloween. This means, transporting from one neighborhood, to another, in many cases.