Halloween costumes in Hawaii can be tricky.

Commercial costumes are made for climates where leaves are changing and temperatures are dropping.

Costumes that boast how they’ll keep kids feeling cozy leave local keiki feeling sticky and hot at the school Halloween parade in blazing 90-degree weather. Forget about wearing a fleece-lined, full-body get-up in a fall festival bouncer.

Five minutes into a Halloween party, my kids start losing layers and next thing I know their “costume” is sweaty kid in a T-shirt and shorts.

My solution is to costume in layers. Perhaps the outer layer is the too-adorable-to-pass-up fuzzy ensemble, but underneath is an outfit that still references the original concept. This year, my 9-year-old is wearing a fluffy tiger outfit with long sleeves, long pants and a hood with a tiger face.

When the day wears on, he can slip out of the jumpsuit and reveal his tiger-print T-shirt.

But the biggest trick kids play on their parents this time of year is changing costumes.

My son spent most of the last 12 months claiming he wanted to be a moss-covered rock, a follow-up to last year’s grass costume.

Last month, he declared he is over rocks and now he’s going as the aforementioned tiger.

At least I have drilled into my kids that once supplies for the chosen costume have been purchased, there is no changing direction.

A couple years ago at the height of the “Pokemon Go” craze, my older son expressed a desire to dress as the augmented-reality app.

Keep in mind I am not a crafty person. My manufacturing skills don’t extend much past tasks that can be accomplished with permanent marker, scissors and a hot-glue gun.

I invited some friends — more artistic and experienced than I — out for frozen yogurt and brainstorming.

We came up with a plan involving Pokemon characters glued onto a mirror attached to his body with suspenders. Brilliant! Until my son decided perhaps he wanted to be Steve from “Minecraft” instead.

With fall festivals to attend all month long, the costume construction starts in late September. That is when the final decisions must be made.

This is especially true when your kids request costumes like ghost shark or grass. (Try Googling “kids grass costume,” you don’t get outfits that simulate a green field, you get marijuana costumes — for kids. Not our style.)

It takes a while to get your kid to sketch what exactly they are envisioning — a shark skeleton with a transparent shark outline or a grass-print shirt with an AstroTurf-lined box and a spiky green construction-paper hat. It’s my job to bring those ideas to fruition.

But that’s the real trick of Halloween — finding a way to treat my kids by making their fantasies come true, if only for a night.

“She Speaks” is a column by women writers of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Reach Donica Kaneshiro at dkaneshiro@staradvertiser.com.