This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

When it Comes To Trick or Treat, Is Thank You Too Much to Ask For

Trick-or-treating leads to a question of manners.

When my children get ready to go trick-or-treating, we review the rules.  The rules seem simple enough to me.

  • Always say "trick or treat."  You would not believe the number of children I had that just opened their bag.  This is fine below age 5, but after that you have earn your treat.
  • Always just take one.  A bowl of candy or trinkets is tempting to any child, so a quick reminder helps.  After the sixth grabber at the door, I started passing out the items to limit their take to one.  I only bought 80 Play-Doughts and 120 candy bars.
  • Lastly, always say "thank you."  When our kids were really little (2-3), we told them that if they didn’t say "thank you," they didn’t keep their candy.  It worked then and it works now at ages 5 to 11.  I decided to keep a tally last night of the ‘thank you’s I got.  The final count was 49 out of 144 trick or treaters.  That is only 34 percent!   

What has happened to teaching and showing common courtesy?  Here was the perfect time to practice a social skill over and over and over again.  Someone gives you something, you say thank you. 

Parents are walking with many of the children and could easily remind them.  Heck, they could even model it by saying thank you for them if need be.  Am I that far from the middle that thank yous are too much to expect from kids?

Find out what's happening in Oswegowith free, real-time updates from Patch.

It makes me sad to think that we have largely forgotten to use common courtesy. Manners are a common bond of civility that a community holds.  As this hold weakens, what will happen to the community?

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?