Scary thoughts

By Melanie Redman

Photo courtesy of Flickr and mbgrigby

It's Halloween season. I LOVE Halloween. When I was a kid, my folks used to dress up in the scariest costumes and decorate our porch and yard to create quite the spectacle for trick-or-treaters. That all ended one year when some over-zealous parents sued us because their daughter broke her arm on our driveway as she ran from our house in fear from the ghost my step-dad had wired up to swing across her path as she asked for her mini chocolate bar.

Though I'm still bitter about little Jenny's single-armed destruction of my favourite Halloween tradition, I do adore children and the whole Halloween season. Just a little reminder that though I do not consider child obesity to be child abuse, I think we all owe it to ourselves and our community of youth to hand out some not-so-devastatingly-fattening treats. My top three picks?

A work of classic literature - Just toss in a copy of "Great Expectations" and watch their little eyes light up! When the hell was a child hurt by a little classic literature? Sure beats a box of raisins!
A standard matchbook - Give a child a box of matches, and see how creative they can be! You can learn a lot about your neighbourhood's children this way!
The ever-popular popcorn ball - Trust me, most kids won't know what this is or why you've given it to them. It's a safe bet they won't dare eat it, thus staving off childhood obesity!

Written by:

Melanie Redman

Melanie Redman is a Social Mission Collaborator with more than 10 years of direct experience in strategic, leadership and advisory roles across the social mission sector in the U.S. and Canada. She calls many places home - most recently Toronto, Buenos Aires and Seattle - but was sprouted from the Ozark Mountains of Southern Missouri. Learn more about her work at www.melanieredman.com or on LinkedIn.

Responses to “Scary thoughts”

Shana Says: October 27, 2010 10:28 AM

In my hunt to find cool Nestle-free things to give out on halloween - also preferably not over packaged or filled with Palm oil and nut and peanut free egads why am I bothering? I think I should just skip it and sit home in the dark with the curtains drawn - I found this good article on Grist: http://www.grist.org/article/2010-10-22-ask-umbra-on-apples-for-halloween-treats-and-costumes

Of course some parents will likely not let me give their kids apples for fear of razor blades despite it being a big urban legend.....le sigh.

As an aside I hate little Jenny's family!