Building Community on Halloween

This Halloween, let's make trick-or-treating a meaningful and therapeutic experience with our children. Every celebration presents a teachable moment for families. Trick-or-treating is an opportunity to be part of the community. We get to meet people and share joy with those in our neighborhood. We have the opportunity to model friendliness, respect, and appreciation to our children and our neighbors.

Understanding Community

What is community? Community is a feeling of fellowship with others as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals. Here at White Oak Institute, community is a significant trend in therapy. When we have conversations about interests and attitudes, we learn more about other people. We gain a new perspective beyond ourselves. Therapy is not only about ourselves, but it is also about respecting the differences of others.

Trick-or-treating is a great example of fellowship, as households in the neighborhood cooperate to create a fun event for youngsters. When we give out treats to others, let's model for our children that being generous to others makes us feel good. And when we are given a treat, let's model appreciation for someone's kindness. These progressive skills are promoted at our agency. Positive mental health is a state of well-being where you feel good and function well in the world.

Teaching Respect and Safety

This is also an opportunity for parents to introduce children to the neighbors when visiting houses on Halloween. We can help them be aware of the elderly who may need extra help, or neighbors who are friends that we rely on to make the neighborhood a safe place. At White Oak Institute, we take pride in being a safe place for healthy therapy and development.

We can also point out to our kids that our neighbors put time and effort into creating an exciting event for us to enjoy. This is an opportunity to teach morals and respect, and why damage can be so hurtful. Damage can also mean taking all the candy in the bowl. Neighbors may leave candy out because they are unable to be home to answer the door. Why should we only take one item? To be respectful to others so everyone gets something. Modeling fellowship is about all of us working together to form a better society.

Fostering Positive Behaviors

Fellowship in a community is how we help keep the neighborhood safe. We look out for each other. We respect each other's interests and differences. This aligns with our goals at White Oak Institute. In our therapeutic sessions, we emphasize morals and respect. For our younger clients, Halloween is a great opportunity to model these positive behaviors.

We often lose sight of the teachable "therapeutic" moments when we are participating in a holiday activity. It's easy to get caught up in photo opportunities or in focusing on what we're "getting." But these are opportunities to teach children values and empathy. When our young people are encouraged to have positive exchanges with others, the lesson carries over to future situations — community in the household, community in school, community on sports teams, and eventually community in the workplace. Here at White Oak Institute, we are a community, and therapy is a way to use opportunities to model positive lifelong skills.