Does scaring children really traumatize them?

Question

I'm not talking about scaring as a way of enforcing desirable behaviour, like "eat your veggies or the bogeyman will get you". I'm not even talking about serious scares like faking somebody's death. Just the regular ghost sounds, jumping up from behind with a "boo!", inside out eye lids...

As an older sibling, I did this to my brother and cousins all the time. They'd have a laugh too, after the initial scare. I still love to scare people, and I do it to my nephews aged 4 and 5. My husband feels that I'm scarring them or traumatizing them by doing that. I argue that they don't show signs of being deeply affected by it. They still like having me around. Husband argues back saying it's because they like other things I do with them, like playing and reading, and I'm family. But if I keep up the scaring, they may start to avoid me.

I obviously don't want to wait till that happens. So my question is, does scaring children really traumatize them? As I said before, I keep it "age appropriate"- at least according to me. Is that bad too; is any kind of scaring bad? Kids enjoy the occasional scary joy ride, though. So where do we draw the line?

P.S: My question concerns pre-schoolers above the age of, say 4, as I do think scaring babies confuses and upsets them.

Update: The parents don't mind as long as the kids are occupied and aren't crying/complaining, which they don't, on being scared. (They do shout or run at the initial scare, I mean to say that it doesn't escalate beyond that.) I've asked the parents, the kids haven't been particularly afraid of the dark or going into a room alone.

Answer 1

I can't find any research on this typical but stepped-up-a-level game of peek-a-boo.

I think you have to go with your gut on this one. If any child seems to overly react, then likely you are overdoing it.

If you are actually trying to scare a child, we'd have to ask why, but this doesn't seem to be the case or you would not be asking. I suggest taking the time after a wee scare to ask the child if they like the game. At four and five, they are well capable of telling you if they don't or if they do like it. Kids are individuals, maybe one does and the other doesn't.

I had an uncle that tickled me. I hated it and frequently asked him to stop -- but while laugh-shrieking . Finally I stood up to him in front of the family and told him I hated the tickles and to please stop. He did. So, sometimes children can be afraid to tell you they don't like the game, but asking in a quiet moment can 'fix' that.

Answer 2

A lot of kids do loved being scared. It's the adrenaline rush that is given off I believe. I still love it now when I'm scared. My boy is constantly trying to make me jump and I in turn watch for it and try and get him back. He's loved this from the moment he could walk. If the children enjoy it then there is nothing wrong with it in my opinion and a game of peekaboo isn't going to traumatise. It's when they become uncomfortable that you have a problem and yes not every child loves to be scared so just know their boundaries.

As I said above my boy and I love to scare each other. By this I mean we hide behind walls and jump out. That's about as far as it will go with him however. Visually scaring him would cause tears and may traumatise. What I mean by visually is wearing a scary mask or sitting watching scary films. We read the Marvel Origins and there's a particular image within the Hulk book that always freaks him out and he hides. From my perspective it's not even remotely scary but from his it's absolutely terrifying. As parents it's our responsibility to know what is too much for our children and to ensure we protect them so it doesn't traumatise.

It very much depends on the child and as an adult it's your responsibility to not overstep their boundaries. It's easy enough to identify this. If they are laughing and coming back for more, they are enjoying it. If they don't and avoid you, chances are they aren't enjoying it and this could traumatise. A personal experience of mine is me (I would have been about 10 at the time), my sister (who was around 4 or 5) and my two uncles (who would have been around 16 years+) used to make the house as dark as possible. We would hide and have one of the uncles come and find us. They would make scary noises, bang on things and make everything as scary as possible. When they found us they would grab us and hang us over the stairs and swing us around. To this day we talk about it and remember how good it was. My sister being only 4 or 5 at the time loved it as did I. It was something we used to look forward doing. That being said we were tough children and loved being scared.

Really scary stuff is completely off limits and can traumatise. I was shown the clown out of "It" when I was just a child (I was very young. Probably around 2 and I was made to watch it. Not by my Mother may I add). I went through a phase of thinking clowns lived in lampposts and that they would come out of them to get me. This I was told caused problems and night time was a terrible time. That being said I grew up loving the dark and still do, so long term it didn't have a negative impact on me and I have no irrational fear of clowns either. Actually I'm pretty hard to scare and every horror film I now watch is mundane, whether that plays back to watching "It" is another story.

You've done the right thing consulting the parents and I really don't think there is anything to worry about. Playing pranks and scaring each other is part of growing up. If you're not going to do it, chances are siblings and/or friends are at some point.

Answer 3

I think it would be easy to play medical science games to try to find psychological research back and forth. However, we'd probably have to spend quite a lot of time coming to agreement on the definition of trauma.

Instead, it may be easier to find a "safe" level of scaring that your husband can agree with, and stay there.

When you scare someone, you get a response out of them. You get to see that response on the surface, and with the experience of a lifetime of being a human, you can make some half decent guesses as to what that response is doing to them deep in the core (where trauma could be a valid concern). It's hard to prove you're not doing anything to them, but you can argue that you're not doing anything unreasonable by looking at the rest of their life. When they're going about their day to day business, do you see similar responses out of them? How much of this "trauma inducing activity" occurs in their day to day life, without you? Does your nephew skin their knee and fall apart crying? That's certainly more traumatic than getting spooked. How do I know? When you spook them they giggle. When they skin their knee you can see they truly got hurt by it. If they can shake off the deeper trauma of a skinned knee within a minute or two, they can certainly shake off getting spooked!

So if they skin their knee every now and then (which my kid certainly will), you can be quite certain that life is already gearing them up to deal with trauma way more brutal than your mere spooking games. They're becoming adults, one day at a time.

On the other hand, if your nephew is a fragile little butterfly (which it doesn't sound like is the case), and lives a sheltered life where nothing ever disrupts them, then you might need to be more careful. This child may be one that needs a bit more care, and less spooking until they are ready to take on a bit more of what life throws our way. If your nephews are special needs children, then there's a decent chance that your instincts about what is traumatic and what are not may not be so accurate when it comes to them, so you may want to intentionally play it safe. The parents may be able to help there.

Fit your scaring games into the child's life, and you'll almost certainly do well by them.

One particular sign I'd look at is in their response to being scared. Obviously you hope they laugh at it. If they don't laugh, that's a bad sign you're crossing a line. However, watch how they laugh. Do they laugh while trying to get closer to you or otherwise connect with you, or do they have that nervous laugh where they're trying to distance themselves from you? If they're connecting with you after the scare, you know they're overcoming it. They saw the spook, it shook them up, and then afterward they wanted to get closer to the one responsible for the spooking. That's almost certainly healthy.

If when you spook them, they try to withdraw from you afterwards, that might suggest that your husband is right. If they are uncomfortable with the person who is spooking them, that starts to suggest that you are affecting the way they view you (and by corollary, other people) in a negative way. That would also be a good sign that you should stop.

A good sign that you're the one who is right would be if your nephews start trying to scare you in return, but can't seem to do it because they've got too big of a grin on their face while doing it!

Answer 4

a) I guess it depends on the kind of scare and b) you never know until it is too late.

If it's just a basic reflex thing ("boo", "rolling eyes" etc.) with not much meaning => then fine. Most kids like to do it themselves! Note that you can pretty much do those things while being truly funny, not scary (i.e. by getting into it slowly, by having the kids do it along with you and so on). At around age 5-8 or so, children learn to disassociate our actions from reality; i.e. that's the time where they learn about jokes and all such things that are not quite true. Check for signs that they know that you are not actually evil when scaring them in this way, and you'll be all right. If you enter the room, do they tend to hide behind their parents or come running at you? That should tell you everything.

On the other end of the spectrum, what obviously does traumatize them is phsychological scare of the kind that you normally would not inflict casually. Like frequently hearing the parents shouting at each other, with one or both of them threatening with leaving, or worse. Or being left alone at very young ages while not being mobile yet, for long hours every day. Let's not even get into wars. That is not what you are asking though.

Borderline would be ghost stories. I recall some uncle telling really gritty mystery stories once while we were camping somewhere in the woods (me age 10 or so). I definitely had bouts of not liking being alone in dark places so much after that (but got over it). It depends how strong the kid's imagination is, and how good they are at telling a story/sarcasm/irony from reality. They say that that's not a given until 8-9 years old.

That said, I personally make it a point to not lie to or spook children at all, I don't use irony/sarcasm or the more rough "humour / stupid-talk" many adults use amongst themselves (and sure, I do engage in these with adult friends). All children I met so far (my own and others) were very appreciative of being treated earnestly. The last thing I want to do with them is to give them yet another adrenaline spike... they get that plenty from friends, school, older children etc.

Last point: as a parent myself, I would be very unhappy if someone spooked, tickled or pulled my childrens legs. Just saying. If the parents you are involved with don't mind then fine, but... really, I would not make it a habbit with all children. Are the children missing out if you stop doing it? If not, and you are obviously are not sure if it's OK to do it, then that would be a clear sign to stop.

Answer 5

The parents typically know what the kids enjoy something and when it's just the adult enjoying the kid's reaction. If the parents don't mind - and are not just saying they don't mind to be polite - it's probably okay.