You and your co-parent may not have included Halloween in the list of holidays in your parenting plan and other parenting agreements during your divorce. Now that your child is seeing candy and decorations in the stores, however, you’re realizing that the two of you need to find a way to share in Halloween festivities with your child.
Before the two of you start negotiating how you’re going to split Halloween night or perhaps take your child trick-or-treating together, it may be more appropriate, depending on their age, to find out what plans they might already have. Maybe a friend’s parents have invited them to go trick-or-treating. Perhaps they want to go with a group.
That doesn’t mean, however, that you should ask your child to choose which parent they want to spend Halloween night with. If your child isn’t going out with others, then you and your co-parent should work out how you want to handle it and present the plan to your child as one that you both agree on.
There’s a lot more to Halloween than trick-or-treating
Remember that Halloween isn’t just one night. It’s an entire season. There’s plenty to do between now and Oct. 31. You divide and conquer taking your child to fall festivals, corn mazes, haunted houses and various Halloween parties. Of course, you can decorate, carve pumpkins, watch scary movies and do other Halloween-themed activities in both of your homes. Most kids have no problem getting to do these things twice.
The important thing is not to let any negative feelings about your co-parent interfere with your child’s enjoyment of the Halloween season. There won’t be that many left that your child wants to spend with either of you.
If you find that you need to have parenting time and other details around Halloween codified, you can make modifications to your agreements before next year rolls around.