Tips to take care… if you plan to scare.
Posted Oct 30, 2015 9:04 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Who doesn’t love a good scare on Halloween?
For some it may depend on what the scare is, and how old they are.
That’s why it’s important to know your audience if you plan on handing out some Halloween frights.
Kelly Moroz, director at the Moroz Child Psychology Group, says it’s also important we do so in manageable doses, especially for kids.
“Children look forward to facing a fear that’s within their capability,” he said. “I can’t think of many kids that I’ve met, or anybody for that matter, that likes to be scared out of their control.”
He adds fear is a unique emotion because we crave it unlike others, such as anger or sadness.
“When it comes to fear, and perhaps through evolution, there does tend to be this desire to have a little bit of it in manageable chunks,” he explained.
That’s why there’s nothing quite like sitting at home on Halloween with the lights out watching a good slasher film, but all that blood and gore can be a little overwhelming.
In the culture we live in, with so much uncensored content on streaming services, desensitization is a legitimate concern and Moroz says content creators are always trying to push the envelope, so kids are probably becoming desensitized to a degree.
“One would only guess there’s probably a higher proportion of blood and guts in those situations so if that is the case, there might be a little desensitization to that,” he said, adding parents these days seem to be doing a pretty good job explaining scary things to their children.
Moroz explains if something does put a legitimate scare into your kids, it’s important it’s dealt with so it doesn’t linger.
“Otherwise the likelihood of a fear turning into something bigger, an avoidance of Halloween or Halloween parties, the risk of that is very high if they leave the evening feeling terrified,” he said.
