A 16-year-old knocks on your door for some candy, how do you feel? I can tell you that based on what I feel, we are way too old to be going trick-or-treating on Halloween. 

This annual Halloween activity is defined as a “just-for-kids” event. But what defines “kid,” anyway? Do tweens and teens make the cut? Can moms, dads, or adults trick-or-treat? In my opinion, Halloween should be saved for younger children, not teenagers or adult figures. Going out and trick-or-treating at that age is just awkward. We are simply too old.

Most teenagers tend to stop trick-or-treating at ages 12-16. In some places, trick-or-treating has some restrictions. In Upper Deerfield Township, New Jersey has had a trick-or-treat age law in place for over thirty years that restricts trick-or-treating for kids over twelve. In Chesapeake, Virginia, they have decided that age fourteen should be the cutoff, while the city of Bathurst in New Brunswick, Canada, passed a law to prohibit kids sixteen and older from ringing doorbells, and to add, there is a $200 fine if you are caught. Do I agree with this? No, not at all. If you want to go out and knock on people’s doors for candy, go for it but you should not be fined or told not to just because you are simply too old. But we should be letting younger children get that experience of dressing up and trick-or-treating on Halloween. We had our experience when we were younger, let other kids have that experience too. If you do end up trick-or-treating, just be considerate of the younger children. It is their childhood, let them experience Halloween to the fullest. 

Dressing up is a different story. I think that dressing up for Halloween is so much fun whether you are going to a costume party or dressing up with friends. It is just the trick-or-treating part that is controversial. It really depends on what you want to do but we should not be going out, ringing on doorbells, and asking for candy. If you ask me, it’s a bit embarrassing honestly. When asking around our school, I found out that 13 out of 20 high school students are not going trick-or-treating. Do they know they are too old? What’s the reason behind this? In my household, at my age now, I should be passing out the candy instead of going around asking for it.

Instead of trick-or-treating, go to a party, go hang out with your friends, dress up, watch scary movies, decorate, or pick out and carve pumpkins. There are tons of other options than trick-or-treating. As children, going out for Halloween was a tradition, but now that we are older, that tradition should no longer be allowed.  Even if you do end up going out, just be thoughtful of the children who are trick-or-treating. It is not entirely fair if we are out and about taking candy from houses and leaving no room for younger kids. In my opinion, we are just too old to be trick-or-treating.