Parents: Find a way to have Halloween
As children in our area prepare for Halloween, and the potential for trick-or-treating, safety should remain everyone’s top priority.
In addition to the increase in foot and vehicle traffic as youngsters seek out sugary treats, this year also brings concerns related to the novel coronavirus.
Local medical professionals have advised exercising caution in a number of ways, with Uniontown Hospital’s chief medical officer noting the best way to avoid unnecessary exposure is to not trick or treat at all.
But Dr. Surabhi Gaur also recognizes, like many parents out there do, that children need something to look forward to during this time.
She’s right.
This pandemic has thrown off school schedules for students, and shelved or altered many of their school or extracurricular activities. They sit in classrooms physically spaced out, wearing masks, and are instructed to avoid close socialization.
They’re told incessantly to wash their hands frequently (good advice any time, though not always top priority for the youngest among us).
As adults we recognize the things we need to do to stay safe, and we just do them. Those things just became another responsibility we bear.
But, as adults continue to cope with the stressors of our changed lives, we do so with the benefit of experience, and the know-how to express our frustrations constructively.
Children, for the most part, are not quite as fortunate, if only merely because they have lived fewer years and are less likely to have weathered storms.
Their anxiety, loneliness, confusion and frustration are less likely to be articulately voiced, and more likely to be expressed through misbehavior, apathy or isolation.
We need to listen better, even when our children aren’t directly speaking to us, and Halloween offers us the opportunity to let them have the sense of normalcy and routine they yearn for.
Perhaps you’re uncomfortable allowing your children to go out with the masses, door to door to collect candy. Medical professionals agree there certainly are increased risks in allowing them to do so.
Instead, a couple of neighbors might band together to have a socially distanced, COVID-19-friendly Halloween party for a few.
If there aren’t neighbors with whom to do that, individual families could have an at-home party. Go all out decorating the house, plan appropriate Halloween movies and games and tell scary stories while everyone dresses up in costume.
And if you don’t have children in your household, perhaps you could take a cue from West Brownsville. The borough is planning a “reverse parade” where fire trucks will go through the streets handing out candy to costumed children at home.
Youngsters in your neighborhood would undoubtedly appreciate treats delivered to them, and with coordination with their parents, could be costumed when you do it.
The point is, there are ways to observe Halloween this year, even if trick-or-treating isn’t one of them.
We owe that much to our children.