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1. Control your child’s environment. “If there are a lot of fears at Halloween, don’t take your children trick-or-treating in the neighborhood. Take them to the mall or their church or synagogue,” Carter said. Then you know that people will be wearing less-frightening costumes and there won’t be as many surprises. This year she took her two preschoolers to a Hallelujah costume party at church, where there were no frightening masks.
2. Don’t be afraid to ignore the doorbell. “Skip answering the door on Halloween night because you never know who’s on the other side of it,” she said, and the costumes could terrify a particularly sensitive child. “Your kid could be afraid of that person.”
3. Before you take your child trick-or-treating, think of what you might find on the other side of the door. “You could literally have a huge rat opening the door. You know your child. If your child is a little shy around new people, do something else. Now they’re going to start to connect and think people that I don’t know are scary.”
4. Be attuned to your child’s body language. “If you are going trick or treating—you feel your child is old enough and you’re going house to house—and you feel your child is pulling back, read your child’s body language. Don’t push it. Don’t ignore your child’s natural signs. They know how they feel even though they can’t articulate how they’re feeling.”
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