This can be very confusing to them. Recently, McMurray-Schwarz heard an account of one little boy's comments when he was dressed up in costume. It's just me. He was using his comments to signal to his parents that it's scary when they're dressed up, McMurray-Schwarz said. On the other hand, young kids like to pretend, Phillips said.
Fantasy play is a powerful learning tool that children use to find who they are.
Children's understanding of fantasy and reality develops throughout elementary school, McMurray-Schwarz said. She said for young children, dressing up as something else or scaring other people is fun. Phillips said activities need to be age-appropriate, and children need to be closely supervised about what they're wearing and where they're going. Phillips doesn't recommend even mild haunted houses for children until they are at least 9 or 10 years old. Later, when children are 13 to 15 years old, they are more capable of handling scarier haunted houses, he said.