Rights of Tween Passage: Halloween’s Thrills and Chills

The thrill of haunted house and scary movies is a right of passage for that phase of childhood I like to call middledom.  It seems to start around 8 or 9 years of age when kids can separate fantasy from reality but still can wholly immerse themselves in make believe. We have many Flip vids of our girls being Death Eaters, thanks to Harry Potter.

But by the time kids are 14 they are jaded and go the haunted houses or shipyard mostly to hang with their friends. It’s just not that scary anymore. Their logical brains have taken over. Maybe by age 15 or 16 they actually have jobs at these seasonal haunts. (We recently witnessed a bunch to gory teens at picnic tables having a pre-work team meeting outside one of the Halloween destinations. We all got a kick out of wondering what the employee feedback would be. Jane, you need to be scarier. Joe, make your scream sound like its blood curdling.)

This past weekend my younger daughter (13) and her crew went to just such a place. (They have essentially a good 4 weekends coming up for hopping around to the various area Halloween haunts to the detriment of parents’ wallets).  Strangely, though, one of Josie’s best friends decided to stay in this year.  Why?  I asked.

Josie:  Too scary for her.
Me:      Still?
Josie:  I guess so. But she’d never admit it.

Now you have to understand that this pack of girls will do anything to hang together. So for one of them to gracefully bow out must mean that the benefit of her BFFs did not outweigh the cost of 15 minutes of amateur terror.

What’s going on here?

Now I clearly remember a few years ago being the carpool mom for Barrett’s Haunted Mansion. In fact, I was at the exit with phone camera in hand to capture their faces when released from the dungeon. The photo shows three girls, two with huge smiles and one with the face of Edvard Munch’s, The Scream. It’s become a classic snapshot in the repository of BFF photos.

As a psychologist I know what’s happening here. Let’s call the friend Sally. That frightful evening when she was 10 is stuck in her implicit memory bank—that part of the memory system that holds snippets of scenes:

a bloody mummy coming at her with outstretched hands

the screeching of a fake owl in the corner

a room of mirrors where one doesn’t know which panel could open

the clinging of best friends to each other

and the squeals of both laughter and terror all mixed up

For Sally, these images are fragmented, floating around in the recess of her mind: scary faces in confined spaces = feeling of terror.  Sally now has the expectation of being terrified at haunted houses or scary attractions. And the fear could generalize to movies or other similar venues.

Implicit memory is also important for helping us to remember good things like how to ride a bike or tie a shoe. These automatic behaviors we learn through repeated exposure or practice become a part of every day activity; they don’t require much thought.

The other kind of memory is called explicit memory.  Explicit memories are conscious recollections of an experience. For instance, Josie’s memory of that first haunted house experience is something like this:

It was so scary when the mummy came across the room. We all screamed!!!  Sally, Rosie and I clung to each other for dear life. The flying owl was so cool but scared the heck out of us. When it was all over we got a good laugh and wanted to do it again!  But we got ice cream instead.

For Sally, however the event is not so coherent. That’s how traumatic memoires exist in our minds— more like scattered pieces and overwhelming feelings. Dan Siegel, MD, expert on brain development and children, talks about the importance of integrating the implicit and explicit memory—or turning an implicit memory into an explicit memory. One great way to do this is by telling stories.

For Sally, helping her turn that first haunted house memory into a story with a beginning, middle, and end will help her work though her fear of haunted houses. Of course, what happens with middle school girls is that they tease each other to no end, which can unintentionally cause embarrassment or even shame. Sally will not want to fess up. She’d rather “stay in for the night.” Here’s where parents come in. We can help our children go through the memory or a troubling event without judgment. It’s an important skill for life. Through storytelling we can play detective and allow the child to skip over parts that might still be too frightening (and tackle the those parts at later retelling). This helps them see that they are now Ok or that there was a resolution.

What happened at the very start? What were the rooms like? How did you get from one room to another? Was there a path? What were you girls doing or feeling? What happened when you came out? What did you girls do afterward?

Essentially, we need to help Sally turn the event into a story like the one Josie and Rosie have. After all, amusement parks and haunted houses still carry a thrill for at least another 15 years or more. And no one really wants to miss out on that.