To the editor:

I am writing this as an eye-opener to parents who allow their children to roam the streets on Halloween without any adult supervision.
Like many families, we enjoy participating in Halloween by leaving candy outside for neighborhood trick-or-treaters. We choose to do this because we have a dog who gets startled by the constant ringing of the doorbell. We periodically check the candy to make sure there is enough for everyone.

However, during our last check, less than an hour after putting everything out, we discovered that some children had taken our expensive decorative cauldron, which was holding the candy, and thrown it across our lawn. To make matters worse, they had also taken all of the remaining candy.

I cannot express how disappointed and frustrated I am by this behavior. It is one thing to take candy, which is being freely offered, but it is another thing entirely to disrespect someone's property and intentionally damage or mistreat something that doesn't belong to you.
It makes me wonder what these children are being taught at home. Are they being taught that this kind of behavior is acceptable? Where were their parents while this was happening?

As a parent myself, I can say with certainty that this behavior would absolutely not be tolerated in our household. Whatever happened to teaching children respect, kindness, gratitude, and basic consideration for others? The candy was free and being offered out of the kindness of our hearts. There was no reason to turn a fun Halloween tradition into an opportunity to disrespect someone else's property.

Unfortunately, because of this incident, we will no longer be participating in this Halloween tradition. And that is truly a shame, because the well-behaved, respectful, and appreciative children in our neighborhood will be the ones who miss out.

To the parents out there: Please know where your children are, pay attention to what they are doing, and take responsibility for teaching them respect. Halloween should be about fun, community, and making memories — not vandalism, disrespect, and taking advantage of someone's generosity.

A little candy is not worth sacrificing the values we should be teaching our children.

Lisa Gallant-Stanzione
Bristol