Teen Halloween Activities

The City of Berkeley Parks and Rec transforms the Grove Park center into kind of a walk-through haunted house on Halloween. It’s free or nearly free and is aimed at tweens/teens. 

Also, the City does a Halloween skate jam at the skate park, if your kid skateboards. Probably also free or very low-cost.

As an adult, I find walking around Russell Street to be fun people-watching on Halloween. Maybe a teen would feel like it’s so close to trick or treating, though. 

We live outside Berkeley, so I can’t offer suggestions on what options might be available there, I do want to provide a general suggestion. Our teen (now a junior) trick or treated as a freshman and sophomore, in costume and with a friend, and had a great time. We do live in a city, and specifically in a neighborhood, that goes all out for Halloween (residents of other cities drive here to safely trick-or-treat) so that may be different and play into whether your teen feels they want (or don’t) to go out. I happen to be of the mind of “let kids be kids as long as possible “, so was delighted, and helped with costume parts when I could, when he opted to dress up. I hope your kid has fun, whatever they do. 

As teens in Albany, my kids tended to gather in a group of 3-6 friends at one of their homes, in costume (often coordinated among the group, like the year my son and a handful of his high school friends, all boys, dressed as different Disney princesses), and they would go out trick-or-treating for a relatively short time in between playing games and watching videos together.  Some teens do have more elaborate parties, but for mine it was always just a few friends hanging out together, organized amongst themselves.  

I love teenage trick-or-treaters, personally...often their costumes are very creative (even if I don't recognize the characters they're dressed as), and I rely on them to reduce my candy supply to a reasonable amount of leftovers toward the end of the evening!

Teens do trick or treat in Berkeley, mine did!  
While giving out candy, I can say I appreciate anyone who wears a costume, and some of the teens are pretty creative.  I have also enjoyed some UC Berkeley Students — most fun is when there’s a group in costume giving their international student friend their first Halloween.  (But I digress).   For teens, strategy and timing is everything.  I think the sweet spot is 7-9 pm.  Some houses in the more popular areas tend to run out of candy by 8pm,  But when I lived on a less popular trick or treat street, I had so few trick or treaters that when some  teens  came along at 8:45 I gave them quite the generous amount, haha it was fun for both of us.   And teens can cover a lot of ground quickly and  “bat cleanup “ so to speak.   I would say, please still remind them of the basic etiquette:  Assume you are invisible while crossing streets, wear a costume or at least show you tried with whatever last minute household items you had on hand, say trick or treat and thank you, when presented with a bowl, only take one unless the giver tells you to take more (don’t ask how many, it just makes us feel bad if we’re on a fixed budget or  live on a popular block where it’s too expensive to give out multiples).  Don’t litter, and  look for places  with decorations, lights or other signs of participation.  

Aside from trick or treating, I will be forever grateful to some very memorable teens who channeled  their creativity into a fun theatrical experience on their front yard, complete with a human zombie and great sound effects when my kid was a little trick or treater.  Those teens were pretty awesome, made some fun memories for the younger ones + parents.