Dear Etiquetteer:
I enjoy your blog and Instagram feed very much. It has been the source of numerous inspirations for lesson plans for my students. In anticipation of October activities, I have questions about perfectly proper deportment for Halloween. I work with visually impaired students, and I need to know how to make Halloween easier for them, because pranks can get out of hand.
How does one mitigate unwelcome relaxation of etiquette for supposed humorous tricks? My students often get "jump scare" pranks directed at them by otherwise caring friends and family members at community events or family gatherings. It is perceived that they are easy to sneak up on and get big reactions from due to compromised sight. Younger people usually get a pass at being visibly upset. But the young adults I work with are called poor sports when they voice objections to being prank targets.
How should one decline a treat? These young adults also are navigating their first "grown-up" social occasions and are leary of being offered confections which are not easily identifiable, and therefore are possible prank situations. Typically, their struggle is choosing between becoming vulnerable to a trick versus offending the host by rejecting what they have prepared.
Additionally, they worry about polite ways to ask costumed revelers to identify themselves as festive attire often makes for hidden identities from the perspective of people used to relying on generalized cues such as silhouettes or profiles and signature accessories. I have explained that these are concerns for many people and are part of navigating the overall Halloween experience.
These specific scenarios seem to be annual concerns for each group of high school seniors I work with.
Dear Educator:
Etiquetteer cannot even pretend to have your experience working with the visually impaired, and was going to turn to the experts for Chapter and Verse on this subject. But the Hallowe’en pages at Perkins School for the Blind, Society for the Blind, and Braille Works are geared toward much younger children and trick-or-treating, and not teens, young adults, and parties. So, let’s break some ground together!
By design, Hallowe’en makes the familiar unfamiliar and a bit sinister. Part of its celebration is to revel in scaring and being scared. And that's one thing if you have all your faculties to begin with, but quite another if your eyesight or mobility is compromised. So the first thing we need to establish is quite clear: it’s not good sportsmanship to prank someone who can’t respond in kind. The visually impaired have far less ability to sneak up on the rest of us and yell “Boo!” or put a bug in our drinks.
The question really is how to turn a disadvantage, vision impairment, into a strength. And the way to do that is with Laughter and Gentle Mockery. How would it be if, after having been pranked, they remarked “Oh, my disguise must be really good this year! You didn’t know it was me and that I wouldn’t be able to prank you back” or “Oh, no fair! I’m no challenge. You need to try that on someone else who can really come back at you.” These responses need to be kept light, and delivered with some laughter, because as you point out, it’s easy to get tagged as a spoilsport*. More importantly, this moves the focus from the pranked being frightened to the prankster making a cowardly choice. Yes, this does require keeping your wits about you, which Etiquetteer admits is a challenge.
When offered refreshments, your students might ask what’s in it, and even explain candidly (depending on their trust level) “Hallowe’en throws off all my visual cues. I can’t quite make out what it is.” A cookie shaped like a spider usually is not made with spiders, etc. On the very rare chance that they do end up with a prank treat, the key is not to over-react — because that’s what the pranksters want. Remove it from your mouth — restrain any urge to spit it at them — and respond as good-naturedly as possible “Oh, it’s easy to fool me. I hope you have better luck with someone who can really tell what they’re getting into.” This should instill a healthy sense of guilt into the prankster — but again, it needs to be kept light.
The playing field is perhaps more level where disguise is concerned, as even a simple mask can throw off someone with the keenest eyesight. Etiquetteer got through an entire office Hallowe’en party once without realizing that the “corrections officer” he was talking to was really the woman who sat two cubicles away. The point of a disguise is to fool everyone, not only the visually impaired. But at most traditional Hallowe’en parties, there comes a time of unmasking**, and after that Etiquetteer would think it Perfectly Proper for your students to ask “The time has come, and you’re going to have to help me figure out who you are.”
Otherwise — and this is Perfectly Proper for everyone — don’t badmouth anybody, because they, or their closest friends, could be disguised within earshot. Etiquetteer considers mild flirtation permissible, but the emphasis is on mild. And finally, just as young children are encouraged to trick-or-treat in groups, your students might head to parties in a group — perhaps even in a themed costume*** — to be supportive in case someone does get pranked.
Etiquetteer wishes you and your students a safe, fun, and Perfectly Proper Hallowe’en!
*Also unjust, but there you are.
**Midnight is traditional, but not all parties go that long, and there are Those People who just don’t want to wear a mask to begin with who take it off five minutes after arriving.
***Many years ago Etiquetteer and eight friends went as the Hollywood sign to a costume party, which just involved tuxedos and large Styrofoam letters. Simple and easy.