Parents: This Halloween, how young is too young for haunted houses?
Oct 13, 2017, 4:35 AM | Updated: Oct 31, 2017, 3:07 pm
With Halloween just around the corner, many parents have an important question to ask themselves: Is my kid too young to visit haunted houses?
“As much as your 10, 11, [or] 12-year-old wants to go through one of these mazes, what really are you allowing them to be exposed to?” said Sarah VanHolland, a licensed professional counselor at Doorways in Phoenix.
VanHolland said children’s brains may lack the ability to differentiate what is real and what is fake at a haunted house.
And while your child may put up a fight, parents who feel like their kid is not ready for a haunted house can either stand their ground or make them a deal.
Parents can say, “‘yeah, we can go but I’m going to go with you and we have to go through it together and you have to be willing to talk to me about it afterwards,” VanHolland suggested — which is almost guaranteed to make your kid drop the idea completely.
