This article looks at ways to share telling scary stories with older children by engaging their imagination and having fun.
Visual stimuli works a lot better with older children so if you can create a spooky atmosphere it will feed their imagination. Use lots of candles for effective lighting - though restrict their use to adults and put them out of reach or danger as safety should always be the number one priority. Alternatively use low watt lamps and add some spooky decorations such as homemade spider webs and ghosts (try wet string and old sheets). Add in some eerie background music and the scene is set.
Ghoststory
Gather everyone round in a circle and get each child to tell their own ghost story. The child who tells the scariest story, or makes the most people jump, gets a prize. You will get a better response if you let the children know what you have planned at the beginning of the party so they can start thinking about some story ideas.
Another suggestion is to start off a story game. It works best if the kids are sitting in a circle. Ask who wants to start the story and then move on to the child sitting next to the story originator. Move around the circle until everyone has added to the story. To add to the effect, have a couple of torches to hand - one for you and one to pass around to the child who is currently sharing their story so they can hold it up to their face. Limit the amount each child gets to add as you don't want the game taken over by the more confident personalities, so just one or two sentences each should do it.
If you're just having a sleepover try turning out the lights and draping an old sheet over the table. You can throw some cushions underneath the table and the children can sit on the cushions with only a torch and some snacks for company and share their stories that way.
Another alternative is to act out the stories. This method is the one that needs a lot more preparation time, but this could mean having an easy way to keep the kids entertained for a good stretch of time while the adults have some time to themselves. You could send the kids off into small groups to come up with some scary story ideas and provide some basic props such as old fabrics and hats. Give them an hour or so to come up with their storyline and give them the option of either reading it out as a group or nominating one reader, or they could act out the story.
If you do choose this option it might be fun to have a camcorder to hand to record the story ideas. This way everyone will have a memento to remember Halloween and how much fun they had using their imagination and working together as a team.
Your children may not know it but you can also feel happy in the knowledge that whilst they were having so much fun they were also developing their spatial, linguistic, and interpersonal intelligences.
If you would like some ideas for younger children you could try this article which was written with toddlers and preschoolers in mind.
Ideas for Sharing Scary Stories - Part 2
Written by Cat Scrivens
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