Last night, my children joined in that annual tradition where ordinary boys and girls transform themselves into witches, pirates, princesses, Spidermans and various ghouls in the pursuit of collecting confectionery from nearby neighbourhood houses. Of course, I’m talking about Halloween, which is without question my favourite secular holiday that our society celebrates for the simple fact that for one day of the year, kids everywhere get to revel in the simple pleasures that come with childhood.

Without question, the world our children live in today is far different from the one my generation grew up in with new dangers like cyber-bullying and even identity theft in addition to those threats that we had to deal with as children. There’s also a greater pressure on children these days to live according to some schedule or activity regimen – I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve heard fellow parents complain about how many sporting events, tournaments, dance practices and so forth they have to take their kids to. And every time, I find myself biting my tongue from pointing out the obvious of who chose to sign them up for so many activities instead of just a select few. After all, let’s face it – children by nature lack the ability for self-control as well as knowing their limits and as such, that kind of decision-making lies squarely on the shoulders of the parents. Put it to you this way – switch these activities for video games or some other toys at the department store. If your child asks that he/she wants all these toys, are you simply going to buy all of them or are you going to inform your child that we can’t get everything we want simply because we want it? I think you can appreciate now why I discretely roll my eyes when I’m subjected to hearing these complaints from other parents about how busy their children are as a reply to my mentioning the fact that my kids were joining a swimming class this session.

That’s why Halloween for me is so important to make a big deal of, not just for my kids, but for all kids because on that day, we don’t expect them to be minature versions of ourselves, checking the calendar to see what’s been booked that day and such. Click here to continue reading »”The Magic of Halloween”