How to Help Children Get Through a Scary Movie
Despite our best efforts not to scare our children at an early age, our children have friends. And these friends have older siblings or YouTube, and they are often very happy to introduce them to the terrible villains of our childhood – Freddy Krueger, Pennywise, Michael Meyers, Jason Voorhees. Remember how creepy the gremlins were ??
This is exactly what happened when Reddit user u / atavix recently sent his eight-year-old daughter to a friend’s house on a game date . Instead of enjoying a couple hours of old-fashioned fort-building fun, her little girl first met Chucky:
She was very intrusive and it was clear that something was bothering her. When I asked her in the car, she told me that her friend showed her a video of Chucky and she was terrified. It was hard to know for sure, but I take it that it was about 15 minutes out of two or three YouTube clips that Chucky was in.
After living in fear for several days at home and at school, u / atavix asked for advice and received an offer from u / DallySleep, which received strong support from the Reddit community: to lift the veil of horror movies.
Maybe find suitable behind-the-scenes videos of Chucky – how they drew him, how they made him move, interviews with the actors, etc. together. Wider shots showing all the cameras, scenery, and so on can also help her understand how unrealistic it all is.
It is difficult for young children to understand that something that looks so real and so intimidating is just a group of people playing pretense. It doesn’t look fake, it doesn’t sound fake, and the images are too intense to just take your word for it. But you can show them how to pretend it is. Here are some more ways to do it:
- Find old episodes or clips of Face Off , competition / elimination series featuring special effects makeup artists.Here’s an example that shows how monsters and ghouls are made of silicone, spray paint and other materials – and you see how artists interact with models and take their comfort into account.
- Show your child how stop animation works to demystify animated characters. This behind-the-scenes look at how Kubo and Two Strings were created is incredible (as a bonus, it shows how much patience and painstaking work goes into creating shows our kids love).
- Be the first at your local haunted house (or call ahead) and ask if your child can go for a run while walking down the path without all the special effects and creepy voices – just bloody victims and zombies regularly greet them with friendly voices. It helps them see everything there really is: the view.
If your kids want to watch something that you think they are probably ready for, but it might scare them a little, you can do it all ahead of time. But when a sudden, angry clown phobia catches you off guard, repair the damage by looking for behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with actors playing the characters that terrified them.
Fair warning: many Reddit users who spoke out in favor of showing children how horror works were themselves scared as children. After taking a look behind the scenes, they then fell in love in horror, trying to even dream of making their own horror films. But hey, it’s better than being afraid that Chucky is around the corner if they know they shouldn’t share their newfound love of horror with their other little buddies.