This month’s post is an open letter to martial arts teachers and martial artist parents worldwide. It’s not about kickpunchery or tapping people out, but it’s about important Halloween safety things you need to know.
As parents, we worry about kids’ safety on this scariest of nights — and it is the scariest. More children in North America die on Halloween night than on any other night of the year. It’s up to us to keep our kids off that list come the morning of November 1st.
As for martial arts instructors, we’re responsible for the safety of dozens or hundreds of children each year. What we teach impacts how they act, and what their parents do to keep them safe.
In both cases, we need to have our facts straight. The things we’ve been taught to worry about on Halloween are not the things we should be worrying about. Likewise, some of the biggest dangers don’t even come to our attention.
So, what should we focus our efforts on? What should we spend less energy trying to prevent?
I’m so very glad you asked.
The Two Halloween Safety Myths
I’m not here to say the police and the media lied to us, but I am here to say they got a few things wrong. Specifically, we’ve been taught to worry far more than we should about candy tampering and stranger danger on Halloween night.
Candy Tampering: Not a Thing
Sometime in the 80s, we got a collective bee in our bonnet about bad people putting bad things in candy to harm random, unsuspecting kids on Halloween night. We got advice about checking candy when kids brought it home, read articles about needles and razor blades in Tootsie Rolls. Communities shifted trick-or-treating from homes to businesses downtown. We really got on it.
Thing is, candy tampering doesn’t really happen. There are zero reported deaths from this in the 50 years people have been paying attention. Twice in that time, kids have died from poisoned candy. In both cases, the poisoner was a family member committing intentional murder against somebody they knew.
Those two cases are horrible, but they have nothing to do with our kids staying safe on any given Halloween night.
Stranger Danger: Just Relax
Monsters are out on Halloween, but most of them are kids in disguise. There’s a common cultural sense that human monsters, the child predator kind, are also about on this night. Kids are everywhere all evening, providing a veritable smorgasbord of opportunity for the worst among us.
But there’s a problem. Kids are everywhere on Halloween night. So are their parents. Normally quiet streets and plazas are full of trick-or-treaters, harried moms and dads, and general revelry. Witnesses are thick on the ground, making Halloween one of the worst nights of the year to try anything evil.
Besides, the local cops for most towns have bought into the “Halloween is playtime for predators” myth, and lock things down for registered sex offenders in the community. Most have specific rules in place, and check them aggressively. Some even require all people on the list to come stay at a predetermined location until kids go back home.
Bottom line: just relax about stranger danger on this evening. Keep a normal level of care and vigilance about this, and things will turn out just fine.
The Real Dangers of Halloween
“Alright, smart guy,” you’re saying. “If those things aren’t a problem, why is Halloween the most dangerous night of the year? Riddle me that, dude!”
You have a point. According to CDC statistics, the causes of death making Halloween so dangerous are traffic accidents and fire. Honorable mention goes to hypothermia and frostbite, though they more often cause hospital visits than actual death.
I’ll close this rant with a list of things we can do, or tell our students to do, that keeps them safe from those three very real, very dangerous, Halloween boogeymen.
- Encourage brightly colored costumes for trick-or-treaters, to improve their visibility at dusk and in the night.
- Opt-out of candles and other open flames in your Halloween decorations. Use LED candles, or colored glowsticks, instead.
- Issue every trick or treater a glowstick on a lanyard to wear while out and about, making them clearly visible for a block or more.
- Whenever possible, go with face paint instead of masks. Masks restrict peripheral vision, making it harder for kids to see hazards.
- Say no to costumes with capes, cloaks, and loose, flowing sleeves. These can drift unnoticed over a flame and catch the costume on fire.
- Have kids wear pajamas under their costumes. It keeps them warmer and makes bedtime afterward go more smoothly.
- Make a deal with your teens to be inside permanently after 10 PM. That’s when the parties start to spit drunk drivers out onto the roads.
- Insist on good shoes or boots while out in costume, even if it doesn’t match the outfit. This makes it easier to avoid accidents and protects from frostbite.
- Make sure all costumes and costume parts are made from flame-resistant materials.
- Trick-or-treat in brightly lit neighborhoods with wide sidewalks and plenty of other families. If possible, opt for malls, pedestrian blocks, and similar areas with no car traffic at all.
I know this isn’t martial arts as we traditionally consider them. There’s no blocking, punching, rolling, throwing, stabbing, or whacking people upside the head with a bo staff. But martial arts is about staying alive, and these things will keep kids alive. I say it counts, and I hope you will too.
Happy Halloween!
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