What It Means If a Child Is Carrying a Blue Bucket on Halloween

When we were kids, we used to just carry paper bags or pillow cases to collect candy while we were trick or treating.

Nowadays, you see a lot of kids with either plastic pumpkins or plastic buckets with a jack-o'-lantern face on it. If you see someone carrying a blue pumpkin candy bucket, it might mean that that kid is autistic.

According to Newsweek, it started last year with Alicia Plummer sharing a blue Halloween bucket on one of her social media accounts saying that her son, who is autistic, would be carrying the blue pumpkin while he was trick-or-treating. Since then, stores have been selling blue pumpkins to raise awareness and squash misconceptions about autism.

Palmer used the blue pumpkin and her social media accounts to let her friends and neighbors know that if her son showed up at their house while trick or treating, he may not be able to make eye contact or even say thank you, but that he still enjoys Halloween as much as the other kids. She also included in her post that her son may not be able to tolerate wearing his mask all night long, so people wouldn't give him a hard time about that.

According to the World Health Organization, 1 in 160 kids has an autism spectrum disorder. There are many different aspects of autism. To learn more about autism, including the many signs of autism, click here.

[via Newsweek/World Health Organization]