Halloween for kids with severe anxiety

[KeepingGoingOneDayAtATime]

Hi,

My son has totally crippling anxiety about halloween (and life in general - he's out of school with an EHCP because of it.)

I wish we could defeat that anxiety around halloween because it totally dominates the whole of October in our house.

I wondered - do you think it would work if I put a sign up in our front window that says (Nice costumes only here please. Any horror costumes will get a bucket of water thrown over them. You have been warned!"

It would be so nice if we could have a halloween entirely with just kids dressed as cats and owls, like in the old days. Poor DS is totally bricking it as usual and it's such a waste of energy for the whole family.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Just don’t open the door, don’t bring Halloween up in any discussions and avoid the aisle at the supermarket. Problem sorted. I’m not even sure why you would consider having any trick or treaters if he is so anxious about it, pop a nice movie on, get his favourite snacks in and have a happy evening at home. There is no reason for you to be fussing over something you have need reason to partake in

She might have other kids

I think this is a pretty easy solution compared to other situations. Just don’t open the door.

There are plenty of ways to enjoy Halloween with all kids without allowing trick or treaters. You cannot let a child be utterly terrified just because other children want to do it.

Do some nice Halloween crafts, a nice movie, snacks etc and keep the curtains shut. Easy.

If she does then she come back and say that with some details like if she has a partner and the ages of the children and people will offer specific suggestions.

It would be so nice if we could have a halloween entirely with just kids dressed as cats and owls, like in the old days

Kids were really not 'just dressed as cats and owls' in 'the old days'. There have always been scary costumes at Halloween because that is what Halloween is about. It is about witches, ghosts and monsters. That's the whole point.

I'm sorry that your child is scared of Halloween but realistically, your idea of saying 'no scary costumes' isn't going to work because everyone will have a different interpretation of what that means. Most people would not consider, eg, a child with skull face paint to be anything that would scare anyone, but from what you're saying, it sounds like your son probably does find that sort of thing upsetting. So you just need to close the curtains and not open the door when people knock and act like Halloween isn't happening. It's perfectly fine not to participate in something that your child doesn't enjoy.

My DD is terrified by Hallowe'en. We put a sign on the porch window, close all the blinds and curtains, turn off the ring doorbell and the lights, and watch a film with hot chocolate. She is an only child though so no others to consider.

If her other kids want to do it, then perhaps the other kids could spend Halloween with friends while OP stays at home and has a quiet evening with her anxious son.

Hi,

Thanks for the comments.

The problem is that halloween is actually not so bad round here, but DS's idea of what it's like has become so out of kilter with reality that he's paralysed with terror for literally a whole month before, unable to leave the house and having terrifying nightmares about it. We've done the "no participation" thing for about 6 years, but it doesn't help really. DS just gets more and more afraid each year, because of one memory of one thing that happened many years ago, and because avoidance means he never realises that it's not actually that bad.

In reality if we actually participated, it would just be a few tiny kids and a few of his old school friends and he'd probably be really annoyed when it ended because he'd actually enjoyed it. Getting over the jump to actually participate is hard though, because he has this idea in his head that it's going to be awful.

I've done the sign before (Just "no horror costumes please") and the kids were considerate and just didn't knock if they were in scary costumes. I just hate watching my son tear himself apart in fear of something that has just become to massively overblown in his imagination.

Now that he's out of school, this is also his only chance to see his own school friends and it really annoys me that he loses that one chance.

Sorry I partly just wanted a rant, but it's so frustrating.

I grew up in Scotland where we didn't do trick or treat. We did Guising there and we all wore nice costumes and had to tell a joke or recite a poem from memory to get sweets. It was a much nicer, more child-friendly business. I suspect that has probably changed now even there, going by my school friends' facebook photos.

I'm in Scotland and it has always been trick or treat here!

Also, there has always been scary costumes - when I was a kid almost everyone was a witch or a ghost! I do think there is some rose tinted glasses going on with that aspect.

Could you not host a halloween 'party' - a few friends in preapproved costumes?

Can he not have a play date to see his friends on other days - I am not sure why this is his only chance to see his friends?

Why can’t he see his school friends socially?

The other thing is that he is very bright and I would like to get him back into a school at some point, but the halloween build-up in his head starts very early, like in September, and the school term starts in September. It's going to be very hard to get him back into a school if he's locking himself in the house in terror of halloween within two weeks of the school term starting.

It's just all a bit complicated and the halloween thing can only really be confronted at this time of year. If we just avoid it again this year, then he's going to be in exactly the same hole this time next year, and missing school because of it.

It's really so frustrating. We have an EOTAS package and weekly psychotherapist to help, but it's slow and difficult work.

I accidentally sent him to a secondary school where the SLT think it's hilarious to include horrror in lots of the lessons to encourage the children to enjoy learning, and unfortunately it sank my son entirely. I didn't know they had so much horror in the lessons. He did say, but I really didn't realise the scale of the problem until he was too broken to move to a new school. It was only when he got ill and I took him out of school and started home schooling from the school powerpoint slides, and then I saw how bad it was. Before I saw the slides myself, I never would have believed that they would be exposing him to stuff like that. He's really in a difficult place now and thinks the whole world is wallpapered with horror stuff, which I think it really probably isn't.

He doesn't see his school friends because they are busy and he has autism and crippling anxiety.

I'm using the term "friends" extremely loosely. I mean other people of his own age.

Shut the blinds and turn the lights off.

@KeepingGoingOneDayAtATime
Your poor DS. My DS is 15, has ASD & ADHD. He's not been in school since he was 8. We home educated until we could get his EHCP and EOTAS package sorted out. He also has anxiety, and OCD. He can't cope with being anywhere where he might accidentally get touched by anyone, so that rules out school entirely.

He has weekly sessions with his CAMHS Psychologist and sees his Psychiatrist regularly too.

Halloween isn't too bad for him, but he will be staying away from the front door, leaving that to me, DH & DD to deal with. The thing that he can't cope with is Christmas, and we have to make that extremely low key.

This was basically me as a child, autism/anxiety and a fear of trick or treaters!

I’d be tempted to put a no trick or treaters sign, as I think no scary costumes is too open to interpretation by people, but then rope in some friendly neighbours with small kids or friends to come and knock if you want to go down that path

or skip it completely with just a no knocking sign and let him know no one will knock so no need for the anxiety about who or what might appear? but do some fun Halloween activities at home with no stress of the door yet, to get him excited for next year? A very tame Halloween Disney type movie, sweets, a fun game?

@DrivingThePlot thanks it's really helpful to know it's the same there. Christmas is cancelled here for the same reason. Weirdly it reduces my workload a lot. We're spending the winter doing DIY on the house instead. Our house is going to look like a show house by January. LOL

WTF 🤣
You can’t control other peoples costumes and you certainly can’t assault people wearing clothes you don’t like. Just don’t answer the door or maybe take him out for the evening, cinema or similar. Honestly!

Close curtains, don't answer the door. It's fine. Plenty don't.