Halloween Safety Tips

As I began looking around for useful material to blog something here about Halloween safety, I found that the Internet has lots of information. The first three notes I made were these important safety tips:

• Make the costume eye holes big enough so your child’s vision is not impaired. Peripheral vision can be blocked if the holes are too small—making crossing streets in the costume very dangerous. To be completely safe, use face paint instead of wearing a mask.
• Pumpkin-carving with a sharp knife should be supervised carefully, especially if small children are involved.
• Costumes and party decorations must be fireproof! Pumpkins with candles inside need to be a safe distance from clothing, curtains and anything else that might catch fire.

There are other basic safety rules, especially for trick or treaters. Rather than summarizing them, I think it is more helpful to point you to some top pros:

There is the Red Cross Halloween Safety Tips for Kids and Adults. (Image of the ghost above is from the Red Cross website.)

A commercial website called Halloween Safety Guide has extensive tips for kids, adults, parties, costumes, trick or treating, yard haunts and pet care.

There is also a simple game to play that makes some of the most important points here: Play the Halloween Safety Game. Children who have clicked through the steps to play the game will be made aware of some rules that prevent danger.