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AJC.com > Metro > View from the cop > Archives > 2008 > October > 27
Monday, October 27, 2008
Halloween advice for kids and adults
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Since Halloween falls on a Friday this year, along with our usual advice about kids, we would also like to offer some good advice for the adults.
Here are a few things to remember:
ABOUT KIDS
• Make sure you the costume is fire resistant.
• Make sure your child can see well through the mash—especially peripheral vision.
• If your child is carrying a prop such as a knife or sword, make sure it’s soft enough not to injure anyone. (Make sure they don’t take the real thing either. Yes, that’s happened before.)
• Supervise the pumpkin carving. Many stores sell carving kits with little saws that are much safer than sharp knives.
• Some folks will have a “Halloween Dinner” before trick or treating.. (Good luck with that. I fooled my kids once and afterwards, they fasted for a week before Halloween.)
• Be especially careful in the roadway. Younger kids just don’t know the danger of darting out into the street. Make sure they have a flashlight and you give them instructions before sending them to the door. Young children shouldn’t cross the road except with parents. Remind older children to check the roadway before crossing. For those of you with kids ages 13 and up—well, good luck.
• It’s Halloween and trickery is allowed. So if some candy should “disappear” overnight, only to re-appear in smaller increments over the next couple of days, well, I don’t think that would make you a bad parent.
• A couple of days before Halloween, I get flooded with calls asking where the sex offenders live and could we round them up and hold them until November 1st? There are several good sites on the Internet marking where registered sex offenders live. We do track them and over the years this is probably the one night they are most likely not to be home. Still, for those of you unfortunate enough to have one in the neighborhood, make sure the neighborhood is well informed. Can you inform your neighbors where a registered sex offender lives? Yes. Again, just know and supervise accordingly.
• For fathers, a good piece of advice. Let the moms run the show on Halloween. Just stay to the side and keep your mouth shut and do what you’re told.
• Halloween on a Friday means more than usual traffic. And one problem we see is older kids are allowed to stay out later. At some point folks, Halloween is over. Trick or Treating after, let’s say, 9 p.m. is tacky—except if you’re at a Halloween party or something. Most of the time, after 9 p.m. it’s more trick that treat. When it’s time to end the candy-giving, turn the front porch light out, release the Dobermans, and hopefully, the kids will take the hint.
ABOUT TEENAGERS
Please remind them that the cops will be out in large numbers on Halloween. We normally have to take one or two home after a pumpkin-related incident. Set some curfews to be off the street. Will it work? Maybe and maybe not but at least discuss it.
ABOUT ADULTS
Have fun, party all you like, enjoy the funny, ridiculous or whatever costume you decided on, but, while you’re still sober, make some arrangements for a designated driver. Why? Other than the obvious reasons, remember that you’ll still be in that costume when we take the mug shot. Going to jail in your SpongeBob costume will most certainly result in your mug shot somehow getting out there. Don’t think this isn’t a small world. You don’t want to show for a job interview next year and after a few uncomfortable moments your potential boss finally realizes who you remind him of. “Ah—I just realized it! You’re the SpongeBob guy on the Internet!!”
Be careful and have fun.
