Supporting Your Child’s First (Second, or Even Third) Trick-or-Treat 🎃

Your child’s first Halloween night 👻 can be both exciting and a little overwhelming! Practicing ahead of time can make it feel familiar and fun.

Try this simple prep at home:

• Grab a small bucket or bag.

• Walk around your house and “knock” on each door.

• Take turns saying, “Trick or treat!” and handing out pretend candy.

• Celebrate each turn with a happy cheer or favorite snack!

  
  

This playful practice helps your child understand what to expect—especially if new routines or social interactions can feel tricky. It’s also a great time to practice simple, empowering phrases like “I love it!”, “I’m tired,” or “I want to go home.”

Halloween night can be full of surprises—maybe the weather is chilly, the noises are loud, or some decorations feel a little too spooky. Practicing these phrases ahead of time helps your child feel confident expressing how they feel in the moment.

You can also talk with your child about what to do if they get something they don’t like. Try asking, “What should we do if someone gives you candy you don’t want?” Then model a kind response, such as “Can I please have a different one?” or “Can I choose my candy?” For early language learners, you can also try “Not this one” or “That one (please)”. Don’t forget about using gestures — pointing, shaking head yes/no.

Sometimes things don’t go exactly the way we hope, and that’s okay! You might say, “It’s alright—maybe I’ll get the one I like at the next house.” Practicing these moments helps your child build flexibility, confidence, and kindness when handling little disappointments.

You can also use trick-or-treating to practice temporal concepts—words that show the order of events, like first, next, then, and finally. These words help children understand routines and talk about what happens in sequence.

Here are some ideas on how to use my FREE PRINTABLE HALLOWEEN TEMPORAL CONCEPT with your children.

💜 For older children (4 and up): Invite your child to retell the steps in order. Use my FREE PRINTABLE HALLOWEEN TEMPORAL CONCEPT. Ask, “What did we do first?” “What comes next?” and “What do we do last?”This helps build sequencing skills and strengthens understanding of time-related language through play. This activity is fun with siblings. You can ask your older child to teach the younger one how to go trick or treating!

🧡 For toddlers and preschoolers (under 3): Keep it short but hands-on! Modify language model to be at their level:

• First, pick your costume.

• Next, get your bucket.

• Then, knock on the door

• Last, shout “Trick or treat!”

👻 Click HERE to download my free printable Halloween visual support to make this activity fun, visual, and easy to follow!

Nutthagrita Eller or Vivian Eller is a California Licensed Speech-Language Therapist, provides speech-therapy services to children aged 15 months to 10 years old in the comfort of their homes within the South Bay and East Bay. Vivian specializes in early intervention, speech-language delay, articulation disorders, autism, childhood apraxia of speech, AAC, gestalt language processing.