“Is Halloween too scary for your kids? - msnbc.com” plus 1 more |
| Is Halloween too scary for your kids? - msnbc.com Posted: 20 Oct 2010 10:12 AM PDT Alex Stafford, 3, ran through the aisles of the Costume Castle in Lake Forest, plumbing a treasure of Halloween costumes, props and eye-catching accessories. He dragged an Abe Lincoln mask by its black top hat. He disappeared inside a furry Scooby-Doo garb. He poked at his 14-year-old brother with a pirate-worthy rapier. Ultimately, Alex chose an astronaut costume, but his family's job was only partly done. Tim and Heather Stafford of San Clemente have six children. The three girls -- ages 16, 6 and 10 months -- are all dressing as Snow White. The 14-year-old is going as a skeleton, and the 9-year-old boy, already with a football injury, is playing the part for all its worth by adding some fake blood to his football uniform. "The thought of going up to a door to get candy is exciting to them. It's pure excitement," said Tim, 41. But the rush of Halloween night is not experienced the same way by all the Stafford kids. Tim acknowledges that the younger kids get a little frightened by some of the displays in the neighborhood -- dry ice-created fog and black light, and strangers in scary getups. "Where we live, there are several houses that will do like a haunted house. The big kids want to go inside, but the little ones don't want to, so we usually take a detour around those." Halloween can be exhilarating for children of all ages, but parents should think about ways to avoid causing anxiety in very young children. Some kids younger than school age, infants to age 5, haven't yet developed the experience needed to separate make-believe from reality. With Halloween "season" seemingly starting earlier and earlier each year, children are exposed to ghoulish imagery for longer periods than in the past. And since a plain old skeleton doesn't promise the same fright factor it did to past generations, much of that imagery is more graphic than parents remember. Even something simple like Mom or Dad putting on an innocuous mask can be troubling to a child, says Marni Nagel, a pediatric psychologist at Children's Hospital of Orange County. "Children look at facial expressions to help them gauge how they should react in a situation. If they enter a situation they're unfamiliar with, they look at their parents' faces to see it's OK to go ahead. If they look at their parents' faces and they see anxiety or fear and they say, 'Don't go over there,' they shy away. When you have a mask on you, you're hiding all those important nonverbal cues." Here are some other tips for parents of small children: Supplement your Halloween preparation with non-scary outings, such as a trip to the pumpkin patch or making cookies or decorations. For a costume, pick something your child knows from everyday imagery or cartoons, like a firefighter or a cute animal. Or build a costume out of clothes from home. Scope out the neighborhood beforehand to see where the most elaborate, possibly troubling displays are. "Say to yourself, 'This house has the graveyard and the guillotine, so we're going to bypass that house,'" Nagel said. If trick-or-treating, accompany your child right up to the door so you can explain to them how it's done, and to be there if the host decides to answer the bell in his Darth Maul costume. If you don't want to trick-or-treat, there are plenty of other places to fill the sack full of candy, such as a church gathering, community center party or even the public library. At Costume Castle, a year-round store located in a strip mall, families like the Staffords shopped in an area that's devoted entirely to kid-friendly costumes and gear, like Toy Story and pirates and princesses. The more "adult"-themed items are in the back, and the truly gruesome implements are in a separate aisle. It's there that you'll find the rusty Jumbo Shackles, the Scream Bleeding Knife (a cool plastic knife with liquid "blood" coursing through a clear plastic blade), and the V for Vendetta Belt with 6 Daggers. At the front of the store there's a ghoulish preacher standing next to a headless bride, her two bridesmaids in various stages of bloody torment. Nearby is a gallery of '80s-era masks that are still horror favorites: Jason Voorhees from "Friday the 13th," Freddy Krueger from "A Nightmare on Elm Street," Michael Myers from "Halloween," and Chucky, the doll from hell. "It's because they keep coming out with new movies," store owner Dave Huffman said. "There's a new Freddy Krueger movie, and the new Jason one last year. It never goes away." Huffman, 54, has run Costume Castle as a year-round store for a decade, and also operates a seasonal store at the Tustin Market Place. He notes that the majority of the costumes and mannequins and displays in his Lake Forest location are non-scary, and that his front window has R2D2 and period costumes from history, not macabre displays intended to shock. "Other stores, they go for a lot of the blood and gore," he said. "We try to keep it more Disney. We try to do things fun." Contact the writer: 714-796-2221 or lhall@ocregister.com This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| 4 Ways to Kepp Hand-Me-Down Clothes for Kids in Good Condition - Associated Content Posted: 15 Oct 2010 12:02 AM PDT Many people choose to save money by handing down clothing. This is a practice that has been going on for years and is very effective. There are several ways to keep hand-me-down clothes for kids in good condition. 1) Make sure you get stains out right away. Sometimes, if a shirt or pants get a stain, it will not be an urgent matter to take stains out, but if you are planning on handing down the clothes, you should make sure and  2) A way to keep hand-me-down clothes for kids in good condition is to be careful what you put in the drier. Some clothes are delicate and if you are planning on handing them down, you want to hang dry them rather than put them in the drier. Clothes that have patterns or stitching especially should be left out to dry so they don't get ruined over time. The majority of clothes are okay to go in the drier, but some can have the wear and tear increased if they are dried by machine. 3) Use OxiClean to treat the whites! White clothing is the most difficult to hand down because by the time the white clothing has been used so much, it is in no condition to pass down. Whites need something powerful and OxiClean will meet the need. 4) Do not allow a child to wear formal clothes to play! Many times after church, children will come home and play for a little while outside in their church clothes before mom spots them. Formal clothes may be the most expensive clothes to buy, so handing them down will really save some money. Make sure when they get home from a formal event, that they change immediately and this will help keep formal hand-me-down clothes for kids in good condition. Hand-me-down clothes are only good if their condition is good. Otherwise, you make the next child feel like he is in another category when he has torn, stained clothes and his brother has new clothes. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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