Halloween Secrets.... keeping Scare face safe Help keep things safe this Halloween Here is my most vivid memory of Halloween, told in the present tense for added realism: Im about seven years old. My parents make the quite reasonable decision that we would embark on a family outing while my younger sister is at a friend’s house. My mom and my dad and I go out and grab some burgers, and then, as it is mid-October, we pay money for admission into a converted warehouse in downtown Grand Rapids that has been transformed into a make-shift haunted house. My dad is tickled by the adventure, and although my mom is dubious as to the child-rearing judgment in this family-bonding moment, haunted houses were less common then they are now and my father is particularly determined. Like a typical episode of Modern Family, we head on in. “This’ll be nothing, tiger,” my dad says, and I smile, because I like it when he calls me tiger and I’m proud that he’s proud that I don’t seem scared. But I am completely terrified. I can still smell the stale odor of the warehouse to this day. I can still feel the bowl of cold noodles into which they thrust our hands and told us that we were “fingering brains”. I recall like she is standing behind me right now the probably very nice high school girl who is at that moment dressed like a witch with green skin and who comes towards my mother and me with her fake nails painted black and her cackling laughter echoing off of the fake ceilings. I want to simultaneously scream and run away and wet my pants. We spend the rest of that awful afternoon with my mother announcing loudly to all who can hear in each successive room of the warehouse that her “son is very, very scared” and therefore most of the ghouls leave us alone. We are in and out of that warehouse in like thirteen minutes, but I tell you now that it felt like a month. I thought of this story today as I was asked yet again the same question that I seem to be asked a lot this time of year. How scary is too scary during the Halloween fright season? There’s of course no clearly correct answer. It’s more that in this age of potentially near constant parental worry, moms and dads understandably also worry that they might irreparably scar their children if they don’t get things exactly right on all fronts. These worries apply as much for complicated issues like bullying as well as for seemingly mundane concerns like Halloween appropriateness. Here in Boston there are haunted forests, haunted amusement parks, and marathon scary movie nights in local cinemas and all over television. Where can you comfortably bring your child for a little October fun? One of the first things I learned in my child psychiatry training is that parents are the best judge of what their kids can handle (notwithstanding my parent’s ill-fated decision to take me to that haunted house). If you as a parent really love this stuff (and my dad did love old scary movies) then you’ll need to be extra careful in assessing your child’s capacity to enjoy the same material. This is because we parents might want our kids to like what we like so much that we might inadvertently subject them to our likes even if they’re not ready to endure our affinities. Realistically speaking, you are unlikely to do any real harm if you use good judgment, but that’s of course not the same thing as saying that it’s OK to knowingly do harm. In fact, after that haunted warehouse trip, both my dad and mom apologized to me and it was probably that apology that makes me remember this experience so fondly. Parents, even on Halloween, are allowed to mess up. They just ought to acknowledge to their kids that they’ve made a mistake. Having said that, it is always good to think developmentally and psychologically. There is indeed a body of literature suggesting that some forms of entertainment can be traumatizing to vulnerable individuals. At the same time there’s a small but robust debate about the possible service that scary stories might serve in the course of healthy development. My goal here isn’t to do an exhaustive review of the research. It’s just to point out that others have thought a lot about these issues, so we have some data to go on as we plod forward towards October 31. Here are some guidelines that will hopefully make this year’s autumn goes as smoothly as possible. -As we child clinicians are fond of saying, think developmentally. Toddlers and school aged kids are still prone to magical thinking. They’ll have a hard time distinguishing reality from fantasy, and this is especially the case when they’re all revved up. (I still recall, as will many readers, that super-scary witch in the Snow White part of that that Disney World ride. I was sure, absolutely certain, that she was real.) As a safe bet, unless you really think your toddler is uniquely drawn to and enjoys and is at all not bothered by the scary stuff, I think I’d stick with cute doggy costumes and princesses for Halloween until that toddler is a bit older. -School Aged kids are more likely to embrace the scares, but you should still check in with your grade school children before they embark on an outing with friends to something like a haunted amusement park. Talk to your child in private, away from friends and even away from siblings. Make sure that he or she isn’t going under duress. If your child doesn’t want to go to the haunted warehouse, then you can offer to help them to safe face and manufacture a family excuse. Your child can always meet up with his pals later. -Adolescence of course gets more complex. Middle school children are all about belonging to a group. It was in fact the captain of the 7th grade football team at my school who was absolutely terrified of the haunted house we all went to as a team. In retrospect, I’m guessing he knew he’d be scared but he was actually more scared of not belonging. Just as with the school-aged children, you can always ask your middle school child in private what he or she really wants to do. As a parent, you have a unique ability to help your child to escape significant embarrassment by taking the fall for them. -For older teens, it’s all about that fine balance between limits and trust. The “trick” part of “trick or treat” is much more appealing to teens, and that trick can end up being pretty scary for parents. There’s no shortage of horror flicks about this very topic, and indeed the topic itself is the subject of intense scholarly discourse. Remember that as much as teens look like they’re not listening to you, they probably are. And as much as you may sound like a broken record (an admittedly dated simile these days) you still need to say the same things over and over. No booze. Drive safely. No real knives. (Last year some teens came to my house on Halloween with real butcher knives. They got neither tricks nor treats from me…). Stay in touch. Establish a curfew. Be aware that the police are everywhere on Halloween, and that that’s a good thing. And, as this age, help them to be able to say if possible to their friends that they aren’t going to that warehouse because it just isn’t their thing. This is all about identity formation, about your teen establishing what he or she values. Help them to be proud of who they are.
Posted on: Mon, 20 Oct 2014 11:08:33 +0000
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