Does exposure or development help kids deal with 'scary' books?

[LynnS6]

Last summer, dd (age 7 now, 6 then) could barely get through the Rainbow Magic series because the goblins and mean Jack Frost were 'too scary'. She wouldn't try the Magic Tree House books because they were too intense. Seriously. We don't watch many movies because my kids haven't been able to handle them.

Dd's reading really took off in the last school year and so she's been reading an amazing variety of books, especially in the last few months. Everything from 11 Birthdays and the Main Street Series to Betsy and Tacy and The World According to Humphrey. Some of these had intense/deeper issues, some were just plain fun. (I'm in love with the cute Humphrey series.)

So, this last week, dd read Harry Potter and shocked me! While parts of it were scary, it wasn't nearly as terrifying for her as I feared it might be. (For the record, her older brother (age 10) was reading it, and she kept eavesdropping while I was reading a chapter to him at bedtime. She got very interested and really wanted to read it. I wasn't so sure it was a good idea.)

I'm puzzled by this sudden ability to handle more scary stuff/suspenseful stuff. Her 10 year old brother just this year decided that he'd try Harry Potter and see if it was too scary or not. (I have over-imaginative kids, what can I say.)

Now I'm pondering whether dd's had some developmental leap or whether it's simply exposure to a lot of different books that helped desensitize her to/helped her deal with more suspenseful stuff.

Ds' reading has not been nearly as wide ranging, and he's been much less willing to try intense stuff. He tends to find a genre and stick with it. I believe he spent all of 2nd grade reading nothing but the Boxcar Children books (or was that 3rd grade?). He's finally expanded this year in 4th grade, mostly through some school based activities.

What do you think? Is it development? Exposure?

[APToddlerMama]

I think it is both.  But I don't necessarily think that is a good thing...If my son was scared of something, exposing him to more of it wouldn't be my idea of a good way to get him over it.  Waiting/development would.  Its not that exposure doesn't work, but it just doesn't fit with my parenting style. 

[meemee]

looking at dd's way - i'd call it developmental. 

its the realization between make belief and real world. being able to differentiate.

for dd what has scared her has been suspence. always. always. always. she has been able to handle violence (at 3 1/2 totally into spiderman - the real movie) but she could not sit thru bugs life even at 5. the scene where the bird attacks and one doesnt know if its going to get the ant or not.

she is still this way. her fear is gone but the butterflies still remain. she wants to watch and wants to go thru the process. she'll have me sit next to her and hold her while we watch a scene together.

she shocked me though too. her reading suddenly took off too. she went from dr seuss to eragon in a month. this was first grade. she tolerated reading in K. got her some phonetics lessons (headsprout) and she took off (at least that's what i think - she is a whole language learner. why else would a child who knew both upper and lower case alphabets at 18 months old wait to read till 6?!!) but that has always been her personality.

anyways back to the fear thing. there was no question of exposure in our family. if dd was afraid no way would u be able to get her to do anything. she recognise the spines of scary books. i wouldnt push any exposure on her because they would worm themselves in her imagination and she'd scare herself. 

however around 5 - 6 she went thru a huge spurt. h u g e. emotional to the greatest peak i have ever seen in her. overactive imagination playing havoc. goblins on the bathroom linoleum print so for a long time she couldnt go to the bathroom alone. hormonal. deep frustration. first prepuberty. by 6 she started BO (winter right after she turned 6. winter was her emotional growth spurt and summer her physical).

but coincidentally after she settled down in january her reading just took off. she also went and saw HP on the big screen (huge step for dd who refused to watch ice age because of that squirrel scene) but to date still refuses to read Lemony Snickett. 

that is why i say in dd's case it seems developmental. not just the fear thing. but also reaction to nos. she was much more reasonable. she no longer fought all my nos. i'd explain and she'd accept my explanation. woah another huge shock for me. a shrug or ok instead of a bunch of questions and accusations of unfair. 

[One_Girl]

My dd did the same thing at that age and I do think, and have been told by others, that there is a developmental leap at that age that has to do with the parts of the brain that reason.  There were many things my dd was able to do at that age that she just couldn't do the year before.  She was actually exposed to some of the same books in daycare but they had to find a way to let her opt out of the books then because they were too scary.  A year later we were reading and re-reading those books because she couldn't get enough. 

[St. Margaret]

My dd loved the rm books at three (and still does at four) but she did a leap too with regards to scary stuff. She really wanted to try a Disney movie and it was too scary-- but nit the shark, oh no, she loved that-- it was the witch with all the flashing. Now she started making up HORRIBLE stories about smashing goblins (very detailed and various) before the film, and we do limited screen time, we do like Mary Poppins and I though Alice in wonderland (the cartoon) was unfortunate in the near constant smacking around of all the characters. So this was coming from her. She also asked for more movies after a while and was never scared. Well one moment at a climax but yeah it's supposed to be scary. It lasted two seconds, before we could even skip ahead. But out of several movies, she loves them, that was it. And we just read the lion the witch and the wardrobe-- big hit, and I checked a lot-- never scary. Just good fun. I think she built up this tolerance in her mind with her play... And she knows movies and books are pretend. But sometimes she used to get bothered by other kids games and I wonder if she's over that too? She was bothered by a few boys today but they were shooting and very rough and loud and trying to exclude from play structures... Yeah I think kids CAN be desensitized to it by exposure but we waited best we could for her to reach that place on her own.

[Smokering]

Ooh, interesting question.

Speaking as a total wimp who used to be even wimpier, it was gradual exposure that allowed me to absorb increasingly scary stuff. I was pretty much an adult, though, so I don't know how helpful that is! Basically, DH is a scifi geek, and from the time we started dating 7 1/2 years ago (ish... yikes!), he introduced me to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and then the X-Files, and then The Lost Room, and so on and so forth... So I sort of worked my way up. Mind you, I still wouldn't watch several episodes of the X-Files alone. :p

Buffy "worked" for me because the characters were so compelling, and there was so much humour and lightness and fun, that it balanced out the odd scary moment (and really, I know Buffy is incredibly tame, but I was VERY nervy!). I imagine Harry Potter might have done the same thing for your DD? The later books do get a lot more consistently dark and bleak, but the first one is largely just fun and exciting - seeing the wizarding shops, the Great Hall at Hogwarts, Quidditch... so on balance, lying in bed at night, she wouldn't necessary retain an impression of scariness above all the other stuff going on in the book, you know?

I did spend several sleepless hours the other night after reading a book about Jack the Ripper though, so, um, yeah.

ETA: There's also a developmental leap where kids find stuff more scary. I know they did a study once which showed that very young kids found Jaws way less frightening than slightly older kids - the young ones just didn't "get" the shark-POV shots, or the various horror/suspense conventions that make those kinds of films scary. A few months back DD, who's three and a bit, started to really notice scary stuff we were watching for the first time - rather annoying, actually, because now we have to censor our viewing around her! She really didn't like the Silents (Silence?) from a recent episode of Doctor Who, purely because they looked uncanny and "creepy" - I don't think she would have registered that concept six months ago. And of course, abstract horror like The Telltakle Heart or The Turn of the Screw would just bore her at this stage. :p

[LynnS6]

Originally Posted by APToddlerMama 

I think it is both.  But I don't necessarily think that is a good thing...If my son was scared of something, exposing him to more of it wouldn't be my idea of a good way to get him over it.  Waiting/development would.  Its not that exposure doesn't work, but it just doesn't fit with my parenting style. 

Just to be clear -- we haven't exposed our kids to more of things they find scary when we can possibly help it. (Ds had a deathly fear of thunderstorms and unfortunately, I can't tell those to stay away.) That's one of the reasons that dd has never seen a movie in a movie theater and ds has only been once. They are simply too intense for my kids. So, the exposure that I'm talking about would be self-selected exposure, kind of like Smokering was talking about. Actually, now that I think of it, ds has been able to handle Harry Potter because he was reading Among the Hidden (which I find really creepy). Or maybe because he's 10 and he now finds some things that were terrifying kind of fun. He actually wants there to be thunderstorms now. Go figure.

Originally Posted by One_Girl 

My dd did the same thing at that age and I do think, and have been told by others, that there is a developmental leap at that age that has to do with the parts of the brain that reason.  There were many things my dd was able to do at that age that she just couldn't do the year before.  She was actually exposed to some of the same books in daycare but they had to find a way to let her opt out of the books then because they were too scary.  A year later we were reading and re-reading those books because she couldn't get enough. 

Yes, I suspect it's a developmental leap that's taken place between 6 and 7. Dd is busy devouring book 2 of the Harry Potter series. I'm worried about book 3, when the Dementors appear....
 

[4Marmalade]

I think it can be a bit of both.  My ds (8-1/2 years old now) has a similar story.  He has always been a more sensitive, fearful child and still is to some degree.  We never watched long movies (we tried Finding Nemo once when he was about 6 and it was disastrous) and even some preschool shows were too much.  As his reading took off he started going through more and more books and very quickly so it was hard to keep up.  I remember tucking him into bed about a year ago to read and he started screaming and crying.  Turns out he was reading "The Witches" by Roald Dahl and it had a scary picture of a witch.  He has a book he refuses to look at because it has a picture of Bigfoot in it.  He's also started crying at bedtime when the light goes out and telling us about a scary book he saw at school.  That being said, as he has read more and more and become older he seems to be able to tolerate more.  Whether it's a developmental leap or just the exposure of reading more and more books that helps him understand the whole idea of a "story" and it not being "real".   He actually loves the Harry Potter books as well (the first two anyways).  

[MJB]

My oldest son has never been bothered by scary books or movies, in fact, he's always loved them. 

My second does get scared, and used to choose not to watch things that were "scary" but we encouraged him, reminded him that he would be safe, and he got over it. We're not watching horror movies but he can handle Harry Potter and the like, and is still 5. I still discourage him from reading scary books, but when we are watching something together, he's fine sitting next to me. I think it is from exposure, once they're old enough to understand it's not real (which is what? 3-4?)

[Storm Bride]

Originally Posted by LynnS6 

Yes, I suspect it's a developmental leap that's taken place between 6 and 7. Dd is busy devouring book 2 of the Harry Potter series. I'm worried about book 3, when the Dementors appear....
 

No telling how it will hit different kids, but dd1 was fine with the first three Harry Potter books (read them to her when she was five). About halfway through Goblet of Fire, she told me she didn't want to read them, anymore. She found the story much harder to follow, and much darker, and just wasn't enjoying it.

[mkksmom]

My dd will be 7 in a few weeks, and I have definitely noticed a change in her ability to handle scary stuff just in the last 6 months.