Today there was a letter to the editor in the local newspaper. Apparently a mother went with her children into a local retailer and found a Halloween decoration at the entrance. The decoration was a 4-foot-high, motion-activated skeleton that danced and sang whenever anyone came within a few feet. Fun ! Anyway, the mother was complaining that this toy scared her three-year son to the point that he wouldn’t enter the store and has vowed never to go to that “scary store” again. The mother stated in her letter that until ShopKo removes the offending decoration, she won’t be patronizing there.
I don’t have any children, so perhaps my lack of parenting instincts is coloring my view of this. But I feel that if I had a three-year-old who afraid to enter a store over a tuxedo-wearing, dancing skeleton, I’d wonder aloud why God gave me such an insufferable sissy for a child.
Maybe I’m becoming that old man who complains about how kids today have it so easy compared to my day (I’m only 34), but I remember being spooked by the Haunted Mansion at Walt Disney World and my mother’s exact words being “toughen up.” I note that Mom was never verbally abusive or anything like that; she naturally expected that her son wouldn’t be a scaredy-cat.
So I ask: are children today being raised to be cowards? Are over-zealous parents, desperately trying to shield their children from any and all unpleasantness, turning them into scaredy-cats?
I can’t really say I’ve seen any evidence of such things. In fact, it seems to me that children go into more mature movies, haunted houses, etc… at younger ages now than they used to. Of course when I was a kid in the eighties I never wanted to do such things. I was afriad of dogs, the high diving board, and countless other things, but I don’t think my parents were concerned about it. I grew out of all of that by the time I was seven or eight.
Supposedly back in the forties and fifties there was serious problem with children fainting at animated Disney movies because they were so frightened, though I have only anecdotal evidence to back that up.
In defense of the child, the skeleton is bigger than he is. Plus, he’s only three. Three year olds are known to have irrational fears. My son is scared of the vacuum cleaner.
The problem is with the mother. The appropriate action is to explain to the child that the decoration is pretend, can’t hurt him, etc. Fears should not be played into.* I’ve explained to my son that the vacuum can’t hurt him, and had him get used to it when it’s not running. Now he’s still nervous of it, but all he does is goes and sits on the couch until I’m finished doing the floor. That’s how normal parents deal. Obviously this woman is of the type that wants to keep her child in a bubble, and yes, those kids do tend to end up “insufferable sissies.”
Yeah, I think the mom was totally over-reacting. Sure that kind of stuff scares kids, it’s supposed to. She should have explained it wasn’t real and maybe asked the clerk if he could show the little guy how it worked. Kids love finding out how stuff works. It likely would have distracted him from how scarey it was. Especially if the clerk let him turn it on and off.
I have a son, but I can’t remember him really being scared of stuff like that. I don’t think it’s kids in general, just some of them are more scared than others. My best friends son is pretty much a scaredy-cat. Even she admits it.
Total agreeance. Nothing wrong with being afraid of something, but it’s the parent’s responsibility to teach kids what to be afraid of and how to deal with it. I’d be willing to bet this particular three year old is “afraid” of lots of things, and gets lots more attention from mommy because of it.
When I was three & had been scared by something like that, mom would probably have explained to me if I was afraid of that, then I’d be too afraid to go trick-or-treating, and thus wouldn’t get any candy. “Oh well, let’s go then.” “No wait mom! I’m suddenly not afraid anymore!”
My Dad would have “gave me something to really cry about” had this been me.
I’ll admit my Dad was a tad bit on the extreme side. I am however, thankfull that he taught me to face my fears though.
I took my kid to a haunted house once when he was young. About half way through it he started crying. They then had this “Cute-sy” puppy dog charcter come out and ask me if they wanted them to take the boy outside. To which I proptly told them “no, my son would be fine.” The rest of the way through I tried to explain to him over his tears it wasn’t real. He kept crying anyway. Funny thing is though after we got out, the crazy little tyke wanted to go through it again!!
Whenn I asked him why, he said he wanted to see if he could go through it with out crying… :rolleyes:
My first child was scared of everything when she was little. Because of this, I kept her from seeing even vaguely scary movies. She had nightmares after seeing the original, cartoon “101 Dalmatians” because of the Cruella character. “Snow White” just about did her in. She refused to even look at our neighbor, a woman who had been a favorite of hers all her life, for weeks after the neighbor came by in a scary mask on Halloween. Until she was in third grade, she refused to go through a Natural History Museum volcano exhibit because the “lava” under a transparent floor frightened her. I would have probably avoided any store with a dancing skeleton when she was going through that stage, but I certainly wouldn’t have complained to anyone about it.
My daughter outgrew her irrational fears stage without me ever telling her to “toughen up” or insisting that she do things that frightened her. If her fears interfered with a group activity, I just removed her from it without fanfare. I didn’t cater to her fears, but I didn’t try forcing her to ignore them, either. She got over it by herself about the time she realized that her friends were getting to see and do things that she was missing out on. She’s now fourteen, and she enjoys making fun of me because I don’t like scary movies.
Not too long ago I read an article which suggested that the reason children invent fears, like the monster in the closet, is that children seem to be hard-wired by evolution to be fearful. Today’s children don’t have to worry about predators the way our ancestors’ kids did, but that “fear instinct” is still there.
I agree with you, Lissa, on fear being some kind of genetic inheritance. I, for one, am lacking it. Scary movies, no, phobias, not really, the dark? The unknown? Death? Pffft, whatever. I probably got it from my dad, who I doubt could even startle to save his life.
I remember once going through a Halloween spook house and my reaction was so non-reactive I was actually grabbed by a couple of the “monsters” trying to get a reaction out of me. One of them pulled my shoe off! Still nothing but I would have wrestled him for it if my dad hadn’t pulled me out of there.
My daughter is almost five and she gets scared by some things occasionally that I wouldn’t necessarily think of as scary (the dumpster truck, for instance). She is simultaneously attracted to and afraid of stuff like skeletons and ghosts and monsters. If she sees something like that in a store (and just yesterday we were looking at some halloween masks that spooked her a little) we always explain (as others have said) that it’s make believe and that it can’t hurt her.
We often hear her repeating that stuff to herself if she sees something scary on television (we’ll hear her saying, “That’s a zombie. Zombies are only make believe. You shouldn’t be scared of zombies”).
I’ve also tried to tell her that sometimes it can be fun to be just a little bit scared, like on Halloween, as long as you know that nothing can really hurt you. She seems to understand that just fine.
It would never cross my mind to blame a store for something like that, and this is just another example of a trend among some to make their own children the center of everyone else’s universe and who expect the world to change for them. Kid skins his knee on the sidewalk? Blame whoever made the sidewalk. Kid drinks a glass of bleach? Take it off the market.
This kind of things extends into stupid overprotectiveness in other areas as well- like baseball leagues which don’t count balls and strikes. God forbid little Dylan strikes out or learns anything about failure.
I don’t know if this stuff really results in the pussification of children over the long haul. I suspect they simply reach a point where they can no longer stand the embarrassment of a smothering parent berating teachers over C’s or lobbying baseball stadiums to take peanuts out of the crackerjacks. I’m willing to bet that these kids can’t wait to get away from these kinds of parents at the first opportunity.
I have twin daughters a little more than a year and a half old. We went to the farm animal barn at the local 4H fair and it turned out one is very afraid of fuzzy little chickies and little furry bunnies (live ones) and the other one isn’t. My parents’ dog (big yellow lab) snapped at the one that’s afraid of the animals when she was younger.
So in a way maybe we are responsible for making her afraid - but because we were underprotective in letting the dog get close enough to snap at her (it was a surprise to everybody), not because we were being overprotective.
The mother is over reacting. Little kids are afraid of things. It happens. We all have stories about the monster in the closet, gators under the bed, the boogie man, etc. It’s something that we all went through. My folks dealt with it by showing my sister and me that whatever it was could not do anything bad, and showing how it worked. By turning it into a big deal, that lady is creating more of a problem. She is reinforcing the idea that it is OK to be afraid of everything, instead of just letting the kid outgrow it.
Personally I would be shocked if my three year old HADN’T been scared of the skeleton.
But I would have held him tightly and told him Mommy was there and NO one was going to get him away from Mommy. Then we’d have hustled into the store. Simple.
I was terrified of climbing bleachers or any kind of open step stairs until I was nearly an adult so I understand irrational fears.
Heh, I remember reading that letter! and thinking (about the letter-writer), What a nutcase! Here’s something that 99% of people wouldn’t even give a second thought to, and she gets all offended and writes a “Won’t somebody think of the children!” letter to the newspaper. But maybe we should cut her some slack; she may well be a new mother, and this is the first time her kid’s been terrified of something.
But I get the impression, from personal experience, that it’s pretty normal for little kids to be freaked out by random things. When I was a child, I hated the story of the Billy Goats Gruff, because there was something about that troll under the bridge that really creeped me out. As far as I know, it didn’t resonate with any personal experience I’d ever had, and I don’t think there were even any pictures of the troll itself in the story book, but still, I did not like that story and made sure to stay away from those pages in the book.
But you can’t scare-proof the world for little kids, because you never know what random odd thing will set them off; and I figure this skeleton was just one of those things. Kind of the way some kids are scared of clowns.
I agree with those who have said the mother’s being over-protective. If she can’t take the time to explain to her kid that the skeleton is not real and can’t hurt him, what’s she going to do during Halloween when there are skeletons coming to the door asking for candy, or passing her kid on the street when they’re out trick-or-treating?
This sort of reminds me of that earlier thread about how purple markers are now used as opposed to red in order to grade tests so that children won’t feel bad when they get a paper back. Makes me wonder if the decision-makers who instituted that policy are somehow related to this mom, or if they prevent their children from entering “scary” stores, too.
I was forced as a kid to play with my cousin who was five years younger. I would try to read and he’d want my attention constantly. I was ten, he was five.
I introduced him to the concept of THE BOOGIEMAN.
I explained that only I could keep him away, and that if he played quietly I would tell the Boogieman to leave him alone. I also told him that his Mom and Dad couldn’t protect him from the Boogieman and if he called them they’d be eaten while he watched.
I had him under control for weeks…
My Aunt Carla was not amused. She had a terrified child screaming in the night that thed Boogieman was gonna get him.
! Anyway, the mother was complaining that this toy scared her three-year son to the point that he wouldn’t enter the store and has vowed never to go to that “scary store” again. The mother stated in her letter that until ShopKo removes the offending decoration, she won’t be patronizing there.