Frightening Books can Aid Children in Dealing with Fear
Your child loves scary books and stories. He insists on saving his allowance for another "Goosebumps" book.
But you aren't sure if this is healthy for him to do. After all, such books often feature graphic depictions of horror and violence and you aren't convinced that this is good for kids. As a parent you worry that books (and movies) could cause your child to experience some kind of psychic warping.
But the real question is: Can your child tell the difference between fantasy and reality?
Much psychological research has explored the line children pass as they learn to distinguish fantasy from reality.
For instance, four-year-olds, it's been found, do become fearful if confronted with something that is frightening. However, older elementary school children are able to distinguish between frightening things. That is, they are able to tell the difference between something that could happen (which will frighten them) from something that couldn't happen (which no longer scares them).
Other studies show that four to six year olds are not always certain that a creature they had imagined could not become real.
It's often around age seven that children become more adept at dealing with imaginary horror. Children younger than seven still have a tenuous grasp on what could or could not happen or what is or isn't real.
Another way of looking at it is in terms of a child's ability to read scary stories. Few children below the age of seven could actually read a "Goosebumps" book, for instance. So, if your child can read a scary story chances are better that they can handle it.
The fact is, though, that most children, like many adults, like to be scared by books and movies and rides at amusement parks. Generally these forms of amusement provide harmless ways of getting excitement. But they also offer something else.
And that is a context in which they can master fear. As long as the amusement (like being at home with others whom they trust or holding a parent's hand in a haunted house on Halloween) is safe, they can experiment with scary situations.
It's the idea of having control that makes a difference. Having control over the fear or anxiety is the key. With a book, a child can stop reading it, read it with other people in the room, or take a break from it to reassure himself that the events depicted couldn't really happen.
Granted the rush of chemicals when they get scared or anxious makes children feel tingly, this is okay as long as they realize there really isn't any peril.
But the real mastery comes about because children can imagine what they would do if they fell into a dangerous situation. Children (and adults, too) can feel this sense of mastery and powerfulness when they consider that they would not go into a cemetery at midnight during a thunder storm or that no matter what they would never open the basement door and go down alone into that dark, dank basement just because they heard a strange noise down there.
In a lot of ways, for children, this is a growing experience and practice for using good judgment in real life.
Copyright © 1999 James Windell. All Rights Reserved