by Pat Lamb (Author of: Let the Children Come; Children, Come to Me; When the Stars Fall Down; Widening the Church Doors to Teach the Narrow Way; My Thinking Book; Love is…) Books are available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble; www.patlambchristianauthor.
Train up a child…
Children at Halloween
Children sometimes have a difficult time sorting fact from fiction. Halloween is a time that provides a real challenge to children in this area. They hear about ghosts, goblins, witches, etc. They often don’t know what to believe and become quite frightened and confused. Halloween is also a time when many parents submit to reckless abandon and allow their children to eat candy to the point of illness.
How should we deal with our children at Halloween time? In my opinion, truth is always best. Children should be told of the origin of Halloween. Where did Halloween originate? There is much information about this on the Internet. Parents who do not have a computer may go to the library and use a computer there.
The Celts, who lived in Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France, celebrated the New Year on November 1. They believed that this marked the end of summer and the beginning of winter. Winter was associated with the dead. The Celts believed that the night before the New Year, the boundaries of the living and dead became blurred. On October 31, they celebrated Samhain (pronounced sow-in), a time when they thought the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. Their return, they believed, helped their priests, called druids, to predict the future. Druids built big bonfires, dressed in costumes, and burned crops and animals as sacrifices to their deities.
After the Romans conquered this area, two of their holidays were combined with Samhain and later the Pope designated November 1 as All Saints Day. It is widely believed that he was attempting to replace Samhain with a church-sanctioned holiday. The day was also called All-Hallows which meant all saints. The night before All-Hallows Day was called All-Hallows Eve and later was called Halloween
Children need to know that Halloween began as a pagan holiday because those people either didn’t know about Jesus, or did not believe in Jesus. This is the reason many churches provide alternative activities at this time of year.
My suggestion: Tell the children the truth. Then, tell them that in our day and time we know about Jesus and do not have to be afraid of people coming back from the dead. Let them dress in costumes that are fun costumes…not skeletons, witches, etc., and let them go trick-or- treating in safe places accompanied by adults. When they come home, sort through their gatherings, allow them to eat a little, and put the remainder up to be rationed to them at certain times such as at the end of meals.
There is a learning benefit, believe it or not, in dressing in costumes. Children learn to think as another (whatever the costume represents). Many people do not know how to put themselves in someone else’s shoes. Being able to act or think as another leads to the development of empathy. Also, a great deal of creativity goes into costume making.
Halloween can be a fun and safe time. I wish it were called “Costume time” or some other name other than Halloween.