Poll: At What Age Did You Initially Allow Your Child to Trick-or-Treat Without an Adult?
Saturday October 21, 2006
Reminiscing about it made me wonder, though, about the age when most moms and dads feel comfortable letting their kids trick-or-treat without an adult.
Of course, there are a lot of variables that factor into this decision, such as:
- Whether your child is trick-or-treating with a group
- How well you know your child's friends
- The ages of those friends
- The security of your neighborhood
- The time of day
- And more
Comments
Personally I think that by the time you are thinking of leting your child go by themselves for haloween, you should be thinking of not allowing them to go out at all. I think that by the time the child is 10 that should be their last year of trick or treating. I really don’t think that 15 year old should be going around asking for candy. But then again that just goes back to the whole parents of today thing where parents don’t dicipline their children.
In my opinion, 10 is a good age for kids to begin gaining a little independence. My oldest son stopped trick or treating at age 13. I agree 15 is too old but I also think some parents don’t realize their children are trick or treating. To say parents dont discipline i think is harsh but I think we all need to talk to our kids.
I think that most guidelines say that a child should be 12 before they can go out alone. To suggest that 11 is too old for trick or treating sounds crazy to me! I think all kids should have some years of going out alone without their parents and that would mean that kids should be allowed to go out alone for a few years, meaning till they were 15 or more… Why are we in so much of a hurry to take childhood away from our kids by saying they can’t trick or treat after a certain age? I say…If they want to trick or treat, let them, and let them enjoy childhood fun as long as they are interested in it. They won’t ever enjoy their childhood fun like they do when they are kids!
Well put Robyn, I agree, children should be allowed to enjoy their childhood as long as possible. They grow up too fast as it is! There’s no reason to take it away from them, as long as everyone is safe. As to what age to go alone, I think that depends entirely on the safety of the neighborhood, and the maturity of the child.