How To Handle Your Child’s Depression During Halloween
Kids generally love Halloween. Most of them wait for the day anxiously and unless the unexpected happens, they will do all they can to make it a memorable period. However, not all children anticipate the holiday. Sometimes the fear and anxiety are just too much for the kid, often leading to the child’s depression. Acknowledging anxiety of the occasion is the first step in helping your child deal with these challenges. As a parent you can help by:
- Talking to them about it – make time to talk to the kid about the scariness of Halloween and what it all means. See if you can get Ferre Leavers’ Box Full of Feelings, which is a great resource for helping kids understand and deal with feelings. If not, you can make your own box of feelings based around the four major feelings – fear, anger, happiness, and sadness. At the end of your lesson, the child should be able to get in touch with their inner feelings, recognize and name their emotions, and be able to accept such feelings.
- Discuss the creepy noises – a great deal of their depression is likely to come from the weird and creepy noises. If you are taking him or her to a Halloween event for the first time, they may find the environment to be disturbing.
- Let them play with the masks ahead of time – if you let the child see, touch, and play with the peek-a-boo mask before you are at the event, the fear is likely to be gone by the time they arrive.
- Everyone dresses up – as part of a group play, encourage your kid to dress up. Actually, it would be much better if everyone participating in the play dress up. You should also encourage the chid to ask others to take off their masks to reveal who they really are.
- Letting them draw pictures to dispel the fear – drawing as an art is a way of expressing emotions. By drawing pictures of monsters and goblins and then discussing what is real and what is not, the child will learn to deal with scary things.
One of the biggest problems with depression is that it’s very difficult to know when it really started. Always call Visions on 866-889-3665 for more information on issues related to Halloween and your child’s depression.
Originally posted on May 7, 2014 @ 8:43 am
