So as the brain develops, playing in the dark can feel a lot less scary-and even ride that line between frightening and fun. That means they’re better able to manage their responses to scary things. “The connections between the amygdala and frontal cortex, which is involved in regulating emotion, are getting wired up during that time period,” Marsh says. But as they move through early childhood into the tween years, the brain changes. That means every gust of wind or creaky floorboard is louder every shadow is more pronounced.Īnd because the amygdala, which regulates the feeling of being scared, is highly developed at birth, it’s pretty easy to trigger young kids’ fear response. “The regions of our brain that control our visual and auditory senses become more active,” Zucker says. “It blocks out other distractions and stimuli in our environment.” So when the lights go out, imaginations can run wild.Īnd when anxiety ratchets up, the brain adjusts how it manages stimulus. “For most kids, the dark is a scary place,” Zucker says. "Overcoming challenges can lead to an increased sense of independence, bravery, and problem-solving ability–which in a world of chaos can create a lot of safety and sense of accomplishment for children," she says. Teach children that they are able to do more than they think they can."įor some kids, doing things that are mildly risky or scary can be especially helpful in a child's chaotic life, says Ashley Zucker, a child, adolescent, and general psychiatrist at Kaiser Permanente in Fontana, California. Help them contextualize it, help them think about the risk, and make it fun. "And parents' job is to scaffold those experiences for their children. "Playing in the dark is such a good example of something that kids are afraid of," she says. Parents can help kids build these skills.
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“You cannot learn how to do this from a book,” Marsh says. And without taking appropriate risks-like walking by themselves through a neighborhood or skating under a darkened overpass-many psychologists worry that kids won't be able to take on the bigger risks that come with adulthood. "Kids are built to seek out novel, challenging experiences because that's how they learn," she says. For example, a study found that in 1971, 55 percent of British kids under 10 were allowed to walk alone to places other than school, while that number shrunk to nearly zero by 2010-a percentage that Marsh confirms is likely similar today.Īnd that's actually a problem. Over the last several decades, kids have become less independent, says Abigail Marsh, professor of psychology and neuroscience at Georgetown University and author of The Fear Factor.
Do it outside, and you might bolster your mental health, too. Plus, having fun with the lights out can feel a little bit risky, and that’s a good thing for kids. Playing in the dark can be a great way to take advantage of warm summer evenings or long winter nights while also mixing up routines-something many of us desperately need. “And it's a different feeling when you do it in the dark.” “It's really neat having that experience when no one's around,” Tran says. They watched their shadows grow up the sides of the concrete walls and pretended the shapes were monsters eating each other. Not long ago, Quynh Tran, her husband, and their two daughters, 11 and 14, skated under a Castro Valley, California, highway overpass after dark.