There was once a 14 year old boy who was reading a scary story. One night he read a particularly frightening chapter right before going to bed and found that he was not able to sleep all night. The next day his mother scolded him for falling asleep at the breakfast table. He told her what he had done, and then asked whether it was a sin to read a scary story since the Bible says that "perfect love casts out all fear". Good question; it deserves a good answer.
Fear, in itself, is not wrong. What is wrong is when we let fear overcome us. After reading a book (for example, about zombies) that frightens us, how do we deal with the fear? If it keeps us up all night, then the fear is overcoming us. If we consider the situation, think it through, and trust the Lord to help us, then we are overcoming the fear. When we give in to fear (especially for things that we are not supposed to be afraid of) then it becomes our master and we are crippled by it. This is the fear that Jesus wants to rid us of.
There is actually a significant value in fear -- it is the natural response that God created in us to help us deal with dangerous situations. It alerts us to our need to deal with things, and if we protect children from any and all experiences of fear, then we will be preventing them from dealing with life. God does not want us to live life in terror--of course not--but He does want us to be able to deal with anything that this world sends our way. Fear alerts us so that we can turn to the Lord and overcome the fear. As has been said, bravery is not the absence of fear, but courage while one is afraid.
When we experience a trial or a difficulty in our lives, our Lord does not desire that we respond like we are living in a "Prozac" stupor. Fear is that internal response that tells us that we need to call upon Christ Jesus for help and then prepare ourselves for what is to come. If everything is "calm and peaceful" in our hearts when things are falling apart around us, then we will not be thinking clearly about what we are supposed to be doing. Even Jesus said there are things that we are supposed to be afraid of (cf. Matthew 10:28). To eliminate all fear from our lives is like eliminating smoke detectors from our homes; fear tells us that something is wrong. It is not this kind of fear that perfect love drives out.
No, this is not just a shameless plug for scary movies (as many of you know, I do like them, but I would write this even if I did not). Many "scary movies" are just blood and guts portrayed for sadistic people; that is not what I would ever encourage. The people who produce those have something seriously wrong with them. I do, however, encourage parents to expose their children (of course at age appropriate times) to "scary stuff". This does not mean that everyone should watch scary movies or read scary books, but it does mean that we each need to learn how to deal with a scary world. The fact is, though, that not all scary stories or movies are filled with hideous violence; some have great moral lessons, and some even come from true events that clearly give support to the Church's teachings on evil and the demonic realm.
I am one of those people who, oddly enough, thinks that boys and girls should be raised differently because they were created differently (no "co-ed" stuff in our homeschool). Because of this, I often (especially lately) encourage parents to be sure to "toughen up" their boys by having them learn how to deal with the scary stuff in life. Our children (boys and girls) should not be brought up in a sanitized, sterilized, secure bubble that prevents them from realizing the world is fallen.
One way to help children learn how to deal with this fallen world, is by exposing them to "safe" scary stuff (stories, etc.). A book is "safe" because you can actually put it down and consider what you would do if you were in the same circumstances as the characters (think of the Hardy Boys books). This is one of the greatest values of it; to train the mind in "what would I do" scenarios. Of course, you do not want to show them the movie "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" when they are 10 years old, so there is always supposed to be a clear discernment of what a child is ready for.
I know of a family who agrees with what I am saying in principle, but they have (in my opinion) ignored proper restraints. This same family allows their children to read and view things that are vastly inappropriate for the maturity level of the children (or maybe I should say, the lack of maturity). I warned them about it long ago, but they believe that "everything will be fine". Time will tell, but this is a common habit today. A deep discernment is required in this effort (I cannot say this too much!), so I do not encourage people to be haphazard in making these decisions.
Our family does not "do Halloween", but the principles behind a "playful scare" are exactly what I am speaking about. A "scary challenge" that makes the mind respond with "how should I deal with this?" is the way that we attune ourselves to being ready for when the challenge is actually life threatening. Consider children play-wrestling (what I call "wrassling"); they are just having fun, but they are also learning how to deal with real life situations that they may encounter someday (and should be guided by their parents in this).
As the civil governments continue to seek more and more laws to prevent every possible accident from occurring, we should realize that there will never be enough laws for that; and that is a good thing. God occasionally wants us to "skin our knee" so that we can better deal with how to respond when it is more than just skinned, but broken. All of these little challenges are the things that help children to grow into the wise and mature adults that their parents want them to be. Parents, will you give your children this extra help that they need?
