5 Halloween Safety Tips for this Spooky Season 

When spooky season is around the corner, there’s lots to be excited about! Ghostly decorations, startling good costumes, scarily delicious candy, and more are just a few of the highlights we all look forward to. But the holiday also brings some real-world dangers that understandably get many parents spooked. So we’ve put together simple yet helpful Halloween safety tips to ensure your family can enjoy this wickedly fun holiday! 

A Safer Spooky Season: 5 Halloween Safety Tips for Families 

1. Check your child’s candy 

This is the safety tip we hear every year, sometimes from viral posts online or even from trusted local police departments that warn us of the potential dangers found in Halloween candy. We’ve been warned about everything from needles to candy laced with drugs and more. 

If we look at the numbers, it turns out there’s rarely ever been a case of a child’s death or injury due to nefarious tampering with their Halloween stash. However, it’s still good practice to take a preliminary look through your kid’s candy just in case — particularly looking for choking hazards for younger kids and any candy that looks spoiled or unusual in any way. 

2. Monitor for spooky content 

Back in the day, parents just had to make sure their kids didn’t watch a horror movie at the theaters or a friend’s house. But nowadays, there are tons of videos on YouTube, TikTok, and countless other online platforms with far more scary and gruesome content than can be found even in a rated-R horror film. And kids can easily share these with a quick text or Snapchat message. 

Bark’s content monitoring allows parents to keep tabs on those videos that their kids may send or receive. Parents can get alerts if there’s any content that’s too mature or inappropriate for their child, ensuring that their kids are safer this Halloween, even in the digital world. 

3. Use reflective tape or glow sticks 

Halloween is known to be one of the most dangerous days for children and pedestrians. With the increased number of kids haunting the streets trick-or-treating, it increases the chances for accidents to happen. 

That’s why it’s strongly recommended to have your child wear a brightly colored costume, put reflective tape on their costume or candy bag, and carry around a flashlight. A more fun alternative to a flashlight would be glowsticks to add to the colorful fun of the night! 

4. Have open discussions about stranger danger 

Without turning it into a lecture that falls on deaf ears, be sure you spend some time educating your child about stranger danger while trick or treating. Whether this is their first year participating in the neighborhood tradition or they’re roaming around the same streets they have their whole lives — it doesn’t hurt to remind them of the age-old, tried-and-true safety tips while out and about.   

Some points to share with your kids before they go out trick or treating:

• Don’t get into a stranger's car or enter their house 
• Keep watch of your surroundings (i.e., notice if someone is following you, trying to engage with you, etc.)
• Don’t walk and be on your phone at the same time.
• Stay together and use the buddy system.
• Stick to well-lit areas of the neighborhood.

5. Consider a GPS tracker 

One thing that can really give parents peace of mind is knowing where their child is without relying on the child to give them periodic updates. Especially if this is their first year going out alone, having your child use a GPS tracker can be super helpful. 

This is why Bark offers live, GPS-powered tracking with all our products — the Bark app, the Bark Phone, and the coming-soon Bark Watch. You can pull up your child on our handy map to see exactly where they are, or you can use our location alert feature to get notified every time they leave or arrive at pre-set locations like school and home. 

Staying Safe Beyond Spooky Season

We hope these Halloween safety tips help your family have the best Halloween experience yet! Along with content monitoring and location tracking, Bark offers a whole suite of parental control features that can help you keep your child safer online all year round. Learn more about Bark’s products and how they can meet your family’s specific tech needs.