Posted by Parent, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on Oct 23, 2006 at 11:36 am

Please can you tell my why a church wants to scare our children. I am fed up with the idea of scaring young children at this time of year. I have had enough bad dreams and monsters under the bed discussions and we are not at the end of the month yet. I have children who have over the years almost freaked out over silly costumes and childish scary books. Lets at least have our churches giving a message of God's love, not of Satanic hate.

Posted by lol, a resident of the Meadow Park neighborhood, on Oct 24, 2006 at 11:29 am

your children are wussies

Posted by Parent, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on Oct 24, 2006 at 1:41 pm

LOL

My children are far from being wussies. As young children (preschoolers) my children have always been sensitive and various things scared them (balloons, clowns, strange noises at night, monsters under the bed, to name but a few). As they got older they outgrew most of these but we have had nightmares and scares of being kidnapped or other real world happenings in their place. Yes, they are older now and they can see a costume for what it is worth. But they still do not like to be frightened. Just because a child gets frightened, it doesn't turn them into an object of ridicule. Most children at some stage do get frightened of something while they are young but it doesn't mean we have to promote it. I have no objection to dressing up in a costume, but I do object to Churches being transformed into Haunted Houses.

Posted by AnotherParent, a resident of the Greenmeadow neighborhood, on Oct 24, 2006 at 2:36 pm

Well, parents will have to make an informed choice and I think the church is doing a good thing by giving more information that will enable the parents to make that choice.

Halloween is a tradition - its about haunted houses, scary goblins and spiders and skeletons. Younger children are bound to get scared - so just keep them away. But this will be a great opportunity for the older kids! Most of the scary places will warn you ahead of time .. also a lot of scary places have a scary and non-scary version (Haunted House at the Lemos Farm in Half Moon Bay)

Why a church -- well, probably because they have the room to put up a good haunted house ( I haven't been to this church, though I am planning on going this time ).

let traditions be traditions and kids be kids ...