Mom and dad make scary movies even scarier

Parents have been told over and over not to let kids watch TV alone. But now a new study shows that advice can backfire: Researchers found that children who watched television with their folks were almost four times as likely to be frightened by scary programs as those who viewed alone.

As the season of ghouls and gore (and horror flicks on cable) begins — and as some parents worry the new film “Where the Wild Things Are” may be too intense for their youngsters — this new study highlights the confusion many parents experience as they try to ease kids’ fears.

The findings were perplexing even to the authors of the study. They had expected to prove that parents had a comforting effect on their kids, according to the report in the upcoming issue of the journal Child: Care, Health and Development.  Instead they found that parents’ attempts to offer solace to scared kids may just make matters worse. 

The researchers, led by Dr. E. Juulia Paavonen of Finland’s National Institute for Health and Welfare, asked the parents of more than 300 5- and 6-year-old children detailed questions about the kinds of programs their kids watched, how often the children viewed programs alone or with a parent, and how often the children were frightened after watching their usual TV shows.

Some of the study’s results could have been predicted: almost three-fourths of the children had been scared by TV programs, with more than 40 percent suffering from nightmares associated with TV viewing.

What did startle the researchers was the impact that parents watching and discussing the shows had on kids. Kids were more than three times as likely to be frightened if they talked about scary programs with their parents. And they were four times as likely to be frightened if their parents watched TV with them.

The researchers suggest that well-intentioned parents might be inadvertently turning up the volume on fear. That can happen simply because children are watching their parents’ reactions.

Uh-oh, mom flinched
Peggy Loper remembers watching TV with her mom as a child. “I’d always want her to be there if there was something scary on,” says the 48-year-old student from Quinton, N.J. “Then I’d see her flinch and get even more frightened.”

How to ease your kid's fears — Remain calm yourself and try to understand exactly what has made your child feel frightened and vulnerable. Try to figure out what they want from you. — Help them to focus on reminders that they are safe. If you can, determine the source of their fear. If it’s a story told by friends or a TV show, for example, you can tell them it’s not real and that someone is just trying to scare them. If the fear is the result of a real event, try to help the child past their fears: for example, if someone close has died and the child now fears being alone, explain that while it’s hard to lose someone but that the death doesn’t make the child more vulnerable himself. — Often a switch of focus can distract young children from what has frightened them. You can tell them a story or ask them questions about their day or remind them of other things that they find pleasurable such as their favorite song or a fun family vacation. — Tell them stories about when you have been brave and of children who have been brave. — Remember that fears are very real for children and they don’t have our ability to step back and evaluate. They depend on us to limit their exposure, to reassure them of their safety, even if what’s scared them seems stilly to us and to help them calm down. — Remember, it may take only a few minutes and a few occasions to help your child get over fear. Source: Patrick Tolan, professor and director for the Center for Positive Youth Development at the University of Virginia

While the new study’s findings are counterintuitive, they’re not necessarily surprising, says Golda Ginsburg, an associate professor and director of research in the division of child and adolescent psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore. They show that parents need learn better ways to help kids get over fears.

In studies where researchers have videotaped parents talking to kids about fears, it was clear that parents often make things worse — sometimes just because they want so badly to make their kids feel better, Ginsburg explains.

For example, she adds, when a child who’s been sleeping alone wakes up frightened in the middle of the night and comes to the parents’ bedroom crying, the  temptation is to just comfort the child and maybe even to let him sleep in the parents’ bed.

But by hugging and cuddling the child, the parent positively reinforces the child’s anxieties — and makes it less likely the child will get over the fears and be able to sleep alone. What you want to reward is bravery, Ginsburg says. And that might mean giving the child a reward that depends on how many nights he sleeps alone without getting up in the middle of the night.

That type of scenario sounds familiar to Kathy Jackson, a 50-year-old marketing analyst from San Jose, Calif. Jackson remembers when her middle-school-age daughter refused to take showers unless mom was there to watch and protect her from anything and everything scary.

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