I don't know about you, but I love Halloween! It is my all time favorite holiday; I love all the decorations, the treats, and the anticipation of all the little kids wanting it to be time to go trick or treating. I even sometimes enjoy the good scare and occasionally the classic scary movie. However, with a toddler it sometimes can be too much. Last year I remember walking down the Halloween isle at the store and everything scaring him! This year hasn't been as bad and Lucas has even been excited for some of the decorations to come out that he could help put up. I want Lucas to enjoy Halloween and to love it as much as I do, but I don't want it to scare him.
What have you done to make Halloween fun, but not scary?
How do you encourage others in your family to have fun, but again, not be scary?
What toddler activities have you found that have been fun?
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4 comments:
We just try to do some simple craft/art project every couple days to decorate the house. The kids love seeing their stuff up on the walls and windows. We also dig out the Halloween picture books and read a lot.
It's always fun to start a neighborhood ghost or two--send a copy of the ghost with a cute poem (you can find it on the internet) with a plate of treats to some one. That person then does the same to someone else and keeps the chain going.
We also used to make donuts every Halloween growing up. It's trickier to do with little kids because of the hot oil, but they like shaking the donuts in the toppings. You could start some sort of goodie tradition.
Just avoid the scary movies while the kids are in the house. :)
We have FUN at Halloween. We usually go to the corn maze (before it is dark so no scary people jump out at my children), make either sugar cookies or a haunted gingerbread house (sometimes both) and carve pumpkins. Those are fun things for kids that aren't scary. If your kids aren't ready to carve a pumpkin, you can always have them paint it!
I have the kids practice saying, "I'm not scared of you! You aren't real!" We practice ahead of time. Then we look at the "scary" but rather benign Halloween decorations in the store when it's not dark, and touch them so the kids can see that they are like toys, not real. We talk about how people will wear scary things, or have scary things in their yards. If people have Halloween stuff in their yards in advance, we look at it during the day and practice saying, "I'm not scared of you! I'm brave!" Stuff like that. So when they are starting to get scared, I can remind them of what we've practiced.
We also read Halloween books and make treats! We put up cute decorations at our house!
My kids love the scary factor. It is me who hates it. There is a lot of cutesy variety to Halloween. Just focus on that. If you child really scares very easily maybe skip going to the whole family Halloween party this year. Or...Maybe go to the dinner and the beginning can be toddler friendly and then go home so they can make the rest of if scary. It is just one year. Maybe by next year he will be ready for the scare factor of it all.
Maybe you can have him be a superhero for Halloween and he can have a special mask that blocks out the scary guys. That way he feels protected and empowered to handle the scariness that is inevitable. My nephew did that all the time. Whenever he felt too scared...especially in public, he would just put on sunglasses and feel much better.
Good luck!
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