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[Below is the original script. But a few changes may have been made during the recording of this audio podcast.]
When your little one trick or treats this Halloween will they think your neighbor’s bloody monster costumes are real, instead of pretend?
A growing body of research has found that the child's specific age makes a big difference in his or her ability to differentiate between say a ghost and someone wearing a white sheet.
A study in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology asked 64 pre-schoolers from ages 3-5 years to categorize a series of characters, like monsters, fairies, dragons, knights, dinosaurs as well as Santa Claus, Superman and Michael Jordan – into either real, pretend, or not sure categories.
The three-year-olds correctly categorized real characters 33 percent of the time (real being Jordan, dinosaurs, and knights), but the four and five-year-olds got them right 74 percent of the time.
All of them had a tough time with the fantastical creatures such as fairies and dragons, categorizing them correctly only 39 percent of the time.
Interestingly, among the pretend characters, the four and five-year-olds placed Superman in the correct category, but consistently placed Santa incorrectly. They insisted the gift-giver is real. The three-year-olds, on the other hand, pretty much confused all characters except for the knight, oddly enough.
So if you answer the door to any three-year-olds this Halloween, be gentle…because to them, this night is as scary as living inside the movie Nightmare on Elm Street.
–Christie Nicholson
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Add CommentThis article illustrates an interesting point, that point being it isn't right to scare (small) children. However, for older kids it's a different story. If you decide to be festive this Halloween and set up a "haunted house" or something of that sort then it would be entirely appropriate to give these kids a thrill by giving them a little scare every now and then, so long as the children aren't toddlers and such. Scaring kids that young is just wrong, mean-spirited, and detracts from the experience of enjoying Halloween for the children (whom this holiday is for anyway) rather than contributing to it. Now if a kid is old enough to not be afraid of their own shadow, adding a mystery or thrill to the occasion will likely make the day more memorable as well add to the "ghoulish" atmosphere that pervades this holiday. After all, aside from being about the kids, Halloween is about confronting our fears and making light of them, not cowering from them and as such turning the occasion into a boring sugar-coated "disney" version of what it was meant to be.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisof course 3-4 year olds are going to insist santa claus is real...because we tell them he is! children rely on their parents or gaurdians to help them differentiate between truth and lie, so if we tell our children santa is real, they will believe he is real, and if we tell them the scary monsters walking around on halloween are just normal people in costume, they'll believe that too, since they're dressing up aswell.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisperhaps, we are erroneously telling children to believe that Santa Klaus is a myth, when in fact there is a historical foundation of truth behind the myth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisperhaps, we are also desensitizing children to demons when we all know that everyone has their demons and such understandings of the human psyche goes back to the ancient Egyptians at least.
Of course I told my kids Santa Clause, the tooth fairy and the easter bunny were real. As they got older and finally seriously asked me "is Santa Clause real?" I said "Yes, it is just that he is me." The same goes for the tooth fairy and the easter bunny. My kids thought this was funny and continued to tell the story of this "revelation" to their friends at school. I now have a college student that is 100% sure Santa Clause is real and she comes home every few weekends so Santa Clause will let her use his washing machine.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFirst of all, I never truly believed that Santa Claus was actually REAL but I was open to the idea. I was convinced that he lived somewhere in the forests of Russia rather than way up in the arctic. As far as monsters go, 27 years ago in the fall of 1981, I was a toddler and at night I would hear voices in my room coming from the closet . It was a mans voice and I got pretty scared and woke up my parents to complain about it, they said it was just my baby sister crying but I called it "the woo's". Even then I had to see or hear something in order to believe in it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTraditional Halloween nights were originally ones of gruesome horror& nights of terrorism. Today, cultures still celebrate All Saints Day as the day when dead spirits visit the living. Halloween is Satanisms most important day of celebration. So why would rational, loving parents allow their children to celebrate this holiday in tandem with the ignorant, the superstitious and the criminal?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHalloween is very much a holiday about death. But even if its origins were debatable, its very symbols of fear, torment and sorcery made into cute childrens costumes seem ludicrous and unstable. What if, in a few hundred years or so, when the horrors of the Oklahoma City bombing and 9/11 have faded, people start wearing Timothy McVeigh or Saddam Hussein costumes? Oh, he looks so adorable in that turban! Lets get a picture of that! How is that any different than dressing as a Grim Reaper, demon, or terrorist pirate?
What if future Moms bake tall cupcakes decorated as towers, with planes sticking through them and flames coming out the windows? Will that ever be cute? -Or a Pennsylvania-shaped cake w/ a jet sticking up halfway out of the ground? Awww&you did such a good job on those! Can you make them for the school party? How is that different than making tombstone, bloody body or Grim Reaper cakes?
I can just hear the defenders now. Oh, come ON! Its just a cute childrens holiday. Its all in fun! Just because the kids are dressing up as hijackers doesnt mean we agree with it! No one would really MEAN that we should follow in the footsteps of those monsters& Lighten up, for Petes sake. After all, its not like we really know the actual origins behind why it all happened anyway&
Young children dressing up as cute cartoon-ified slashers, terrorists, ghouls, demons, and Satan, creating elaborately gory knife wounds what is this saying about us in general, and parents in particular?? What kind of clear-thinking parent accepts this?
How can society accept this? -Because the American people rarely think for themselves any more. We accept societys traditions with hardly a blink of an eye rather than doing the hard work of analyzing why we do the things we do.
And change is always difficult&especially when one has a lot invested in something. Most of us have a lot invested in Halloween, though it sounds odd to say so. We have years of memories from our own childhoods, and stories from our parents. We have years of celebrating Halloween with our own children. Its difficult to say weve been wrong, and make a change. But we must. Indeed, that is the only way positive and lasting change has ever been effected to admit the way things are is wrong, or not working, and to work for change.
Traditional Halloween nights were originally ones of gruesome horror… nights of terrorism. Today, cultures still celebrate All Saints Day as the day when dead spirits visit the living. Halloween is Satanism’s most important day of celebration. –So why would rational, loving parents allow their children to celebrate this “holiday” in tandem with the ignorant, the superstitious and the criminal?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHalloween is very much a holiday about death. –But even if its origins were debatable, its very symbols of fear, torment and sorcery made into “cute” children’s costumes seem ludicrous and unstable. What if, in a few hundred years or so, when the horrors of the Oklahoma City bombing and 9/11 have faded, people start wearing Timothy McVeigh or Saddam Hussein costumes? “Oh, he looks so adorable in that turban! Let’s get a picture of that!” How is that any different than dressing as a Grim Reaper, demon, or terrorist pirate?
What if future Moms bake tall cupcakes decorated as towers, with planes sticking through them and flames coming out the windows? Will that ever be cute? -Or a Pennsylvania-shaped cake w/ a jet sticking up halfway out of the ground? “Awww…you did such a good job on those! Can you make them for the school party?” How is that different than making tombstone, bloody body or Grim Reaper cakes?
I can just hear the defenders now. “Oh, come ON! It’s just a cute children’s holiday. It’s all in fun! Just because the kids are dressing up as hijackers doesn’t mean we agree with it! No one would really MEAN that we should follow in the footsteps of those monsters… Lighten up, for Pete’s sake. After all, it’s not like we really know the actual origins behind why it all happened anyway…”
Young children dressing up as “cute” cartoon-ified slashers, terrorists, ghouls, demons, and Satan, creating elaborately gory knife wounds –what is this saying about us in general, and parents in particular?? What kind of clear-thinking parent accepts this?
How can society accept this? -Because the American people rarely think for themselves any more. We accept society’s traditions with hardly a blink of an eye rather than doing the hard work of analyzing why we do the things we do.
And change is always difficult…especially when one has a lot invested in something. Most of us have a lot invested in Halloween, though it sounds odd to say so. We have years of memories from our own childhoods, and stories from our parents. We have years of celebrating Halloween with our own children. –It’s difficult to say we’ve been wrong, and make a change. –But we must. Indeed, that is the only way positive and lasting change has ever been effected – to admit the way things are is wrong, or not working, and to work for change.