These Are the 23 Emotional Stages of Choosing a Costume With Your Kid

Updated on 8/16/2018 at 12:45 PM

Either right after Halloween of last year or sometime over the course of this year, your child saw a movie/played a game/watched a TV show that had an awesome character in it. Their immediate response to this awesomeness was likely, "I want to be this for Halloween!" Sounds all fine and dandy, right? Wrong.

As Halloween shops pop up in local malls and your child watches more and more movies with great characters, the art of choosing a Halloween costume suddenly becomes your and your and child's Everest (and in this metaphor, you are tethered to your child, who is frolicking in a field at the bottom of the mountain as you try to climb to the top swiftly and efficiently while being chased by bears).

In short, it's damn-near impossible to come out of this experience unscathed.

If you're anticipating a million changes of mind, buying and returning three costumes before settling on the right one, and endless tantrums in the middle of the aisle, where, of course, the animatronic decorations are going off as you try to pick up your child off the ground, we totally feel your pain.

Read through for the 23 stages of choosing a Halloween costume with your child.

First you go out and buy the costume your child has been asking for for months.

And then promptly return it after you’re informed by said child that there’s no way they said they wanted to be that.

You have a lengthy discussion with your kid about what they DO want to be this year, and inevitably decide on nothing solid.

You drive to the store, are assaulted by a thousand costume options, and realize you want no part of the next hour of your life.

As your kid stares at the wall of costumes with glazed eyes, you pray to the Halloween gods that this will be painless(ish).

Your child starts running and pointing to every costume, saying, “WOW!”, “I LOVE THAT MOVIE!”, and “OH MAN, THAT'S COOL!"

You try to remind them that they can only choose one, but they aren’t listening, and all hell is breaking loose.

You share a look with the other moms whose children are bouncing off the walls with your kid.

You try to grab your kid's attention for a minute to help them narrow down their options.

You swiftly get the attention of an employee and make your child choose two costumes to try on in the fitting room ASAP.

Okay, three costumes.

You enter the fitting room, hopeful that one of these costumes will come out of the store with you.

Your child either loves or hates all three costumes — either way, they don’t want any of them.

You agree to let them try one more costume on, and wait with bated breath as they check themselves out in the mirror.

They’ve done it! They’ve chosen a costume! Let us all rejoice!

You bring the bagged costume to the register, where the line is as long as your patience is now short.

While waiting in line, you see your child’s eyes wander back to the costume wall and panic.

As you pay, you will the cashier to go as fast as possible before all of the people in the store witness a class-A meltdown.

Your child starts to panic — they have not chosen the right costume.

You beg the cashier to let your child run back to the fitting room employee to grab one of the other costumes they tried on.

It works and you finally buy the decided-upon costume. Small victory!

TLC