Three kids dressed as a pirate, a skeleton, and a witch.
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Pirate, skeleton, witch: Tweaking fears of crime, innards, and spells.

According to this New York Times article, some schools are encouraging kids to dress in positive costumes for Halloween, which means, for instance, "historical characters or delicious food items."

Now, many of the costumes of my childhood were positive. I remember being a blue fairy, and also a nurse, and I'm sure both of those would pass muster. But one memo to parents says costumes can't be "scary." The "not scary" district and the "please come as food or history" district aren't the same, but imagine if you tried to follow both of those guidelines.

What if you are afraid of giant boxes of cereal? That would seem to indicate that the "box of Wheaties" costume referenced later in the article would not suffice. Or what if your "historical character" were, say, Napoleon? Some people would be afraid of Napoleon, and others would not know who Napoleon was, meaning they would assume you were dressed as "angry short military person," and plenty of people would be upset about that. Come as a cat, and you could potentially bother those with allergies. I shudder to think how many costumes would be frightening if you were afraid of mass media or consumerism.

I can certainly understand discouraging axe-murderer costumes. That seems prudent, to say the least. But I would struggle to think of a costume so positive that it could not possibly scare anyone. Come to think of it, the Blue Fairy is a little creepy, and nurses give shots.