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 toddlers 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 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.