And it can be fun: Last year, I took my three kids — dressed as Darth Vader, Kylo Ren and some days-gone-by movie starlet in a long, silver, sequined dress and white, faux fur stole — to the parking lot of the elementary school in our small Connecticut town, where we sashayed from parked car trunk to parked car trunk. The excursion made for fascinating eye candy: Pounds of fun-size Almond Joy’s, Milky Way’s and M & M’s in large aluminum tubs. Brightly colored plastic buckets with regenerating supplies of Sour Patch Kids, Candy Corn and Reese’s Cups. A parade of, this year, Batmen and Wonder Women. French Bulldogs dressed as hot dogs, yippy Chihuahuas in Yoda attire. And cars decked out like floats: one car a fake pumpkin patch, another a mummy graveyard, a full Hogwarts. Some parents set up, in front of their car trunks, small, carnival-type games, like ring toss or shooting a foam basketball. Children can win small prizes or extra candy.

But this new version of a beloved holiday tradition also has me worried as a researcher who studies mental health. [Is it really that difficult and unsafe to go door to door? What’s so bad about having to trek 10 to 20 yards up a walkway, knock or ring a bell, and wait for the owner to answer? Is it so awful for children to greet their neighbors as the home owners try to figure out who they are, and what they’re supposed to be?]

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I worry that trunk-or-treating is setting our kids up for unrealistic expectations on life, and that it takes away opportunities to learn and practice good life skills. Trunk-or-treating makes candy-getting physically and emotionally easier. Kids don’t have to get cold feet or experience any negative emotions. And they don’t get the chance to read social cues, attempt patience, regulate emotions, or remember manners. It’s a perfect case of what another psychologist, Wendy Mogel, in warned us against in her book “The Blessing of a Skinned Knee.” She worried that we were afflicting our children with ingratitude and entitlement. She argued that with if we made things too easy, our children would become less resourceful and likely less appreciative.

Years ago, Halloween helped in at least some small way to build resilience and grit; it socialized us. We had to put on our huge smiles as we approached a house; we had to perform gratitude when we received a treat (extra gratitude if we got two treats instead of one.) We learned that a porch light meant a homeowner was handing out candy, and a dim porch meant to pass by politely.

It could all feel quite spooky: To trick-or-treat without parents meant overcoming fears, and building independence. We’d shiver in the air’s chill and shudder upon seeing the scary-looking house that stood by itself at the end of the cul-de-sac. We’d wonder: Do we dare knock, and who might greet us? We’d tempt fate for another piece. Finally, with heavy sacks, we’d stagger home.

In some towns, trunk-or-treat events precede Halloween and supplement it. In other towns, trunk-or-treating has replaced the street event entirely. Did this happen for the children, or for the grown-ups? Trunk-or-treating is, after all, more convenient for parents, or can be, anyway. But I also think it’s a sign of our own willful infantilization, the collapsing of the distinction between adult and child. Trunk-or-treating gives us (moms in particular) another social event, and another thing to do alongside our children, rather than letting them go out on their own.