Hello , dear listener , thanks for joining on the podcast today . This is Kids these Days and I'm your host , dr Beth Trammell , and I'm a licensed psychologist and an associate professor of psychology at Indiana University East , where I'm also the director of the Masters in Mental Health Counseling program . And it's's Halloween , y'all . You know it's funny .
Halloween is not necessarily my favorite . It's not necessarily my favorite holiday because I just don't feel like I'm creative enough to have great costumes . But I know our kids love this holiday , and I think some of it's , because it kind of leads into the other holidays that are to come , and so this episode is just a brief couple of reminders around Halloween .
So I had a news outlet reach out to me and ask for my thoughts on how do we make Halloween safe for our kiddos , and so I shared a few ideas . First , around creating clear expectations around things that you think are probably going to come up . For example , how much candy can they actually eat ?
You know , I'm reminded of how , you know , when I was growing up , we used to have to come home from trick-or-treating and dump all of our candy on the floor so that our parents could check the candy you know it was .
I always found it strange because I was like what are they going to be able to see where someone injected this candy with some sort of drug through a needle prick in this candy package ? I don't know , I always just found it so strange and obviously as a child I probably just found it annoying that I couldn't just eat the candy right away .
Anyway , I digress , so here's the first thing to think about . You know what are your kind of rules for tonight in eating candy , right ? So maybe you'll say , hey , you can have two or three pieces throughout the night . Maybe you say we don't eat any of it until we get home and check it for drugs .
Whatever your rule is , talk to your kids about it before you go tonight . Whatever your rule is , talk to your kids about it before you go tonight . You also might have a conversation around safety and crossing the street right . As things get , as it gets dark , it's going to become more critical that they know those expectations .
Going in , you might tell me , or you might be thinking to yourself well , beth , they already know that We've talked about that a lot .
Great , and I'd encourage you to just have the conversation again , just like I would encourage you to have that conversation every time you go into the grocery store , every time you go to church , every time you go to school right Like re-clarifying , to remind them what the expectations are , and they may end up saying like I know , mom , I'm not allowed to blah ,
blah , blah , but that gentle reminder is what their brain needs to continue to remember what it is that they , that you , expect of them , you know .
Another thing that may come up is , you know , reminding them to say trick or treat , reminding them to say please and thank you , reminding them not to step in other people's yards or you can only go in this particular area . How often should you ring the doorbell ? How many pieces of candy do you take out of the box ?
That's just kind of sitting there and it says take one , which means don't take three . All of these things are issues that you know might come up for your kids , and so my push for us today is to make Halloween best version of what it could be by just clarifying our expectations , and this last reminder is as much for me as it is for anyone else .
Halloween is about fun and joy , and so those moments where you , as a parent , might be getting annoyed at a thing or two , or maybe you're just really stressed from work today or over the weekend or last week . Take a moment to take a breath and say you know what today is about joy .
Today is about fun , and so how can you make it more fun , more joyful ? Maybe there's something special you can do for your kids today to remind them that today is about fun and joy . Maybe you make a new tradition after trick-or-treating and you stop and pick up a pizza on the way home .
Think about how you can be intentional today in making Halloween the best Halloween it can be . Have fun tonight , y'all , be safe and until next time , stay safe and stay well . Thank you you .