by Siena Oliver, ’27

News Editor

According to a recent survey by CBS News, 25 percent of people say that Halloween is their favorite holiday. Despite this, many give up on the tradition of trick or treating at some point during their teenage years. This tends to happen for a few reasons, including embarrassment over participating in a ‘childish’ activity, social pressure to stop, and interest in other activities such as parties or hanging out with friends. As a high schooler myself, I too have elected to stop trick or treating. Instead I will be handing out candy at my door, which still allows me to dress up and enjoy the festivities. The motivations for children to stop trick or treating are fairly straightforward, but their parents’ views on that decision are a bit more varied. 

The two graphs below show information taken from an informal survey of eight Hanover High School parents comparing the ages their children stopped trick or treating to the age they believe it is best to stop trick or treating. 

While many parents seemed to agree that sometime in high school is, in fact, the right age to stop participating in the tradition, most also expressed sadness that their children had given up trick or treating.

“Like a part of their childhood was lost forever,” said the mother of junior Sienna Lamond. 

Adam Oliver, another parent in the Hanover community, said he was perfectly fine with older kids trick or treating around the neighborhood. “As long as they’re not interfering with the younger kids having fun,” he said.

The rest of the parents surveyed echoed this statement, agreeing that older groups of teenagers trick or treating is only a problem when they decide to cause mischief or be disrespectful. 

While parents and their kids seem to agree on the general age that it is appropriate to stop trick or treating, that decision has as much of an impact on the adults who are watching their children grow up, as on the kids themselves. As grandmother Kathy Kacergis put it, “you have to keep the spirit of fun things alive,” which sums up the bittersweet sentiment of the parents on this topic.