“If human beings had genuine courage, they’d wear their costumes every day of the year, not just on Halloween.”
                                                                                                       ~ Doug Coupland

The Psychology of Halloween has long been debated because of the terror associated with the holiday.  Halloween has indeed a twofold agenda:  freighting and terrorizing, as well as, playful and fantasy. 

THE FEARS ASSOCIATED WITH HALLOWEEN

Halloween injects the greatest fears associated with humanity into our lives.  From Hollywood to Bollywood, you can view films associated with Halloween.  Halloween grabs hold of the internal frailty of our minds.  It perpetuates the unknown, the undetermined, and the mysteries sometimes involved with life.

Be cautious to moderate your child’s intake of “scary” movies and “scary” novels.  Children can find it difficult to differentiate between fantasy and reality. As parents, we should monitor every single source of conditioning that influence our children. 

While Halloween is known for instilling fear, it does not have to feed into our fears.  It can be a holiday that proves a source of fun, fantasy, and imagination.  For children, it is important to help  develop a healthy imagination filled with creativity and adventure. 

“Dr. Gene Beresin, Director of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Training, Massachusetts General …  Kids love Halloween, and it should not be denied… It is celebrated in schools, at parties, and is looked forward to all year. To deny this, would be a major deprivation, and could even reinforce that something so horrible is happening, that we need to change our ‘business as usual.’ …Halloween is viewed as a party, as a time to dress up, and most importantly, a way for kids to allay fears of ghosts, goblins and supernatural events. It is much akin to playing. We would not want our younger kids to stop playing, since they work out most of their fears through this means.” (ABCNews, 2012, Online)

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