This is something I’ve wondered about in past years - as well as this recent Halloween.
A sizable percentage (at least 25%) of trick-or-treaters kick on our door, rather than using the doorbell. Not a big deal at all, but it just strikes me as odd.
I thought doorbell use was pretty near universal, with the exception of close friends/family/expected visitors who might knock and open the door, without waiting for it to be opened by the host.
FWIW, we live in a middle class burb of Chicago.
How old are the kids? Do we know they’ve been trained to use doorbells? Do doorbells always work? Are small kids excited to get to knock on peoples’ doors? Can they even reach the doorbells? Lots of possible answers, depending.
They’re using both hands to hold that big plastic pumpkin full of candy?
Didn’t conduct a study of age/height of knockers vs ringers.
No, of course doorbells don’t always work, but since I was a kid, the practice was to ring. Usually you could hear the bell. If not, and someone didn’t answer quickly, you might knock.
And no, of course I have no idea what they’ve been taught. I was always taught to use the doorbell. How about you?
Do you have an opinion as to what might be the most likely explanations?
markn - so what, they are knocking w/ their heads? 
Also a middle class burb of Chicago ( waves hi) and the majority of our visitors rang the bell. So it may just be a local oddity.
When our dog was still with us the doorbell scared her very badly, so I would’ve loved if they had knocked!
They kick your door, or they knock on the door?
The evenings here are chilly but nice, so I put on my old peacoat and Captain’s hat, and sit by the door, with a nice book.
Well, in my case, it’s because the doorbell is high up on the door, where you would expect a door knocker would be. Or at least, it would be the case if any showed up - something like 10 years and counting now. It helps that I am at the far end of a cul-de-sac that itself requires a bit of a hill climb to get to in the first place, although I always wonder why none of the kids who live here go to the other houses; I am guessing it is because the city has at least one “trunk or treat”-style event they go to, so they don’t go door-to-door at night.
I suspect that’s a big factor. When we were kids in the 70s and 80s, we were a lot more free to go over to other people’s houses on our own, and so were used to the proper way to notify the people in that house that we were there.
From what I’ve seen these last 20 years, kids these days are almost never going places on their own, and rarely spontaneously enough that you’d have to announce your arrival. Everyone phones ahead, and so are expected. In fact, I’ve seen quite a lot of people these days freaking out over people just “dropping by” their house unannounced.
It’s entirely possible that Halloween is the only time in a lot of these kids’ lives that they’ve ever had to knock/ring the bell. So of course they have no idea what to do.
FWIW, I grew up in the 70-80s and I’ve always preferred knocking, even as an unsupervised kid. I hate ringing doorbells.
Maybe my dog got her aversion to the doorbell from me….
Pulling out my “get off my lawn” card. Could it be that Halloween is actually the only time of the year nowadays that many kids, with their smart phones and instas, actually go to someones house who’s not expecting them and have to use a doorbell?
Sorry for the typo - not aware of any kicking. Presume autocorrect.
Taught by who? My parents certainly never taught me anything about knocking vs. doorbells. I never discussed it with my children either.
Doorbells are frequently obnoxiously jarring, and do disturb dogs. I think knocking is a gentler way of announcing your arrival. I usually ring the door bell only if knocking doesn’t work.
Not all house have a doorbell, none of mine did. We would call out T or T first and that was usually enough to summon someone.
I dunno. Didn’t you ever go anywhere w/ your parents, and see how THEY announced their presence?
And - other than that, I suspect my parents DID tell me some thoughts about was was good manners. Such as - in the days of landlines - let the phone ring up to 10X to let them get to it, but not longer as it might be annoying. Or ring the doorbell once and wait for an answer - as opposed to ringing it over and over.
I often wonder about the people who ring the bell twice. Do they think the first time it mightn’t work? Or I might not hear it?
When my kids were very young and starting trick-or-treating, we certainly told them such things, and to sat “Trick-or-treat”, and “Thank you.”
I’m not saying they sat me down w/ instructional manuals, administered tests, and the like.
Also had my first time trick and treating in the states (my oldest is now three and despite us not mentioning it has been talking about it all year, I’m guessing seasonal cartoons that can now be watched at any time of year are to blame). The convention here (suburb of DC) is if you want to be trick-or-treated you put a display out and then either put a bowl out or stand their yourself to distribute candy. I don’t know if it’s always been this way or if its just a Covid thing.
So no one actually knocks on doors or rings doorbells (additionally none of the kids seems to know what the “trick” part of trick and treat implies, and I wasn’t about to tell them, even when someone is distributing toothpaste and toothbrushes, and just asking for a TPing 
)
ALSO in a middle-class Chicago 'burb (represent!) and almost everyone knocked. I assumed it was a mixture of doorbell height (we had a lot of tykes), unfamiliarity and maybe just having dealt with flaky doorbells before. You ever ring a bell but don’t hear anything from inside the house but then you don’t want to ring it again and potentially be obnoxious? Maybe that’s just me.
Yeah - I get that. But my thought is ring first, and then if there is any question, knock second. I dunno why that is so ingrained in me. Maybe I kinda think the doorbell is a “more advanced technology” and that when confronted with a choice between 2 such options, you tend towards the newer.
That’s certainly one option, and perfectly acceptable. But others presumably have a different view and prefer knocking. In my opinion, there is no hierarchy between the knock and the ring. It would never occur to me to wonder why someone knocked rather than rang the bell.
Thx. Good to know different people perceive things differently. Might make for a fun poll…