Can we please try to remember that Halloween is a holiday and not the invasion of Normandy?

The way parents are told to prepare for the festive event, you’d think that only half the kids will ever make it home — and none with their teeth. From Facebook to mommy blogs to notes home from skittish schools, experts are gravely weighing in on what your child should eat and wear and how, with a lot of luck and a fistful of glowsticks, your sweet little moving target just might survive this night of neighbor-greeting and sub-optimal nutrition.

“If it is OK for your child to eat any candy that you approve of, have them . . . eat the candy quickly in one sitting to decrease the amount of time it is in contact with the teeth.”

Well doesn’t that sound jolly? That’s a tip from the Mitchell Dental Spa in Chicago.

Nutrition expert Budge Collinson put out a press release suggesting that parents choose a neighborhood for their kids to trick- or-treat in where the houses are far apart.

Why? “More walking and less candy gathering.” Yes, you’re actually supposed to worry about the steps/calorie ratio, as if your kid is one fun-size Snickers away from bariatric surgery.

And that’s just the food fears — fears that one snack company suggests parents assuage by first filling their kids up on Healthy Warrior Chia Bars, with “twice the fiber of bran flakes.” Because nothings says Happy Halloween quite like regularity.

Then there are the fretful letters home from school principals. This year, many are asking parents not to dress their kids as clowns — because clowns are the new Freddy Kruegers — while some are requesting no masks or costumes at all. One friend told me her kids’ school now gives them the next day off, so they can recover from their sugar rush.

And then there’s what to call the day. Up in Canada, several schools now call it “Black and Orange Day.” But right here in Brooklyn, a couple of public schools are calling it “Character Day.”

Consumed with concern, some communities across the country are also pushing “Trunk-or-Treat,” whereby a bunch of cars form a circle in a parking lot, propping open their trunks filled with goodies. This may seem efficient — if you think Halloween is only about maximum candy collection. But until now it has been so much more.

Really, it’s the one day of the year we let our kids practice being adults. They dress up like adults, head out into the world like adults, even “work” like adults, cold-calling strangers and getting paid in candy.

Now even this nanoparticle of kiddie freedom has been replaced by yet another supervised, adult-organized activity. It’s like replacing tree-climbing with riding the escalator with mom. Yes, the kid is still going up!

But it’s just not the same thing.

Despite our fears, no child has ever been poisoned by a stranger’s candy on Halloween. As for predators, a team of researchers led by Elizabeth Letourneau, now director of the Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School, looked at child-sex-crime stats both before and after local laws forced sex offenders to turn out their lights on Halloween. Her conclusion: “There’s just no increase in sex offenses on that day.”

These happy facts go unnoticed as clinics offer to X-ray children’s candy, and towns require registrants to sit at the police station house during the holiday. And meantime, the advice industry just can’t stop itself.

“A super-long gown may be adorable but it can also cause a fall . . . Likewise, keep sleeve lengths short,” warned one Halloween Web site.

Yes, we’ve managed to turn long sleeves into a life-threatening no-no. The popular mommy blog “She Knows” tells parents to case their trick-or-treat route in advance to make sure there are no “broken sidewalks.” Because how could any child possibly deal with a hazard like that? Another site admonished parents not to let their children use real swords as props, not even if they beg.

Aw gee. Why not?

If you really want to keep your trick-or-treaters safe, teach them to look both ways before crossing the street — the one real danger of the night is cars. Then slap on some reflective tape and send the kids out. This isn’t the Zombie Apocalypse.

That’s Nov. 8.

Lenore Skenazy, author of the book and blog Free-Range Kids, is a contributor at Reason.com.