Halloween and Children with Additional Needs
Mark Arnold
Mark heads up Urban Saints pioneering additional needs ministry programme and is co-founder of the ‘Additional Needs Alliance’, a learning and supp...
Halloween is a time of the year that many children really look forward to, a time for fantasy and fun, a time for dressing up and scary stories, a time for ‘trick or treat’ adventure and lots of sweets!
The marketing around Halloween seems to ramp up to even greater heights every year, with major supermarkets dedicating whole isles, sometimes several of them, to their Halloween merchandise.
Advertising supports this with lots of TV adverts featuring ghosts, ghouls, pumpkins and spiders’ webs. Then there’s the BBC Strictly Come Dancing ‘Halloween Special’!
But while this is a fun time of year for many children, it can be a really difficult time for some, including many children with additional/special needs.
For them it can be a confusing, anxiety inducing, or even utterly terrifying time.
But it doesn’t have to be like that; if we stop for a moment to think about the things they might find hard and how to put things in place to help them, they can safely join in the fun too.
So, what are some of the things about Halloween that children with additional needs can find hard:
- Stranger Danger?
Why is it OK to speak to strangers today but it wasn’t yesterday? What has changed? What will the rules be tomorrow? Why?
- Fake or Real?
When that line is crossed for a child that believes that the person really has hideous injuries or has been turned into something evil, theirs is the terror that is real.
Cue massive meltdowns, sleepless nights, and recurring anxiety.
- I’m Scared Enough Already!
If it’s hard to deal with the day-to-day anxiety that they face about going out on a regular day, ramp this up multiple times when Halloween is involved.
- What About Me?
Here’s another opportunity for them to feel left out, rejected and uninvited because they haven’t been included… again.
- Parent Problems!
There are loads of other reasons beside these, but there are also ways to make Halloween easier for children with additional or special needs so that they can join in too…
Here’s a few ideas:
Prepare them in advance, giving them a visual timetable of what is going to happen, how and when.
‘Prime’ some friendly neighbours who are known to your child and that you can visit safely with your child knowing that they won't do anything too scary or surprising.
Choose less gory and blood-soaked outfits. It’s more about the dressing up than who can look the most terrifying and there are plenty of options to choose from.
Choose sugar free sweets, or better yet try some healthier snacks themed around Halloween (satsumas as ‘mini pumpkins’ for example).
If you are hosting a party, think about who might be left out and make sure you invite them.
Have fun but keep checking on how your child is feeling.
If they are struggling, have something that they love doing ready at home, so that you can easily return to that and help them have fun in a different way (carving pumpkins – they don’t have to be scary, making pumpkin mini-pies, decorating a jar to put a battery night-light in, apple bobbing, toasting marshmallows…)
I hope that Halloween is a spook-tacular success for you all this year, especially for those of you with children with additional needs!