This Halloween, let your Kids be Spooked, not Traumatized

My late mother loved Halloween. She would set up a haunted house in the hayloft of our barn hanging sheet-clad ghosts from the beams and bowls of peeled grapes for eyeballs scattered throughout hay bales.  Kids in our neighborhood loved coming to our house for Halloween. 

But for many kids, gone are the days of furry puppy dog costumes, bedsheets with two slits cut out for eyes or jean overalls stuffed with hay to resemble scarecrows. Many costumes have turned ghoulish and even terrifying for kids (and adults like me.)

We have a street in our town where neighbors try to outdo one another with Halloween decorations. Many are cute, but over the years, most have gotten bloodier and more frightening; resembling scenes from an R-rated movie rather than a kids’ event. One home had a bloodied faced person hanging from the porch. As my eyes traveled down, I saw that his legs had been cut off. Spiders the size of cars hung on the sides of houses and skeletons anchored in their yards carried axes, bludgeoning other skeletons. Aside from being ghoulish, this didn’t even make sense (as though decorations should)…