Scary stories and ASD 5yo

[Anonymous]

Stories of scary characters (Pennywise, candyman) have been circulating around my 5 year old’s classroom for the last 2 weeks. I asked his teachers to talk to the class, and they did. I’ve also tried hard to explain it’s pretend, but I can’t convince him. He’s afraid to go to the bathroom by himself and keeps waking up scared in the middle of the night. I’m not sure if it’s just being 5 or autism makes it harder to distinguish real vs pretend. Any ideas?

[Anonymous]

Wow. My 10 years old is not even exposed to these 2 scary characters you mention above. It is not even halloween. Whom spread these? From older kids at school or someone else? I will notify teachers/principals and let them to tell kids that they are not real. 5 year old is young to understand, autism or not.

My kids are upset over a cartoon character losing mom even though they know those are fake. My kids play video games, but they know any movies/shows/games from tv/computers are fake or acting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow. My 10 years old is not even exposed to these 2 scary characters you mention above. It is not even halloween. Whom spread these? From older kids at school or someone else? I will notify teachers/principals and let them to tell kids that they are not real. 5 year old is young to understand, autism or not.

My kids are upset over a cartoon character losing mom even though they know those are fake. My kids play video games, but they know any movies/shows/games from tv/computers are fake or acting.

Several years ago, I had to forbid my kindergarten class from playing Squid Game's version of Red Light, Green light. It's absolutely shocking what kids are watching. If it was just one kid, I'd assume they watched it without their parents knowing, but more than half my class had seen it.

[Anonymous]

My kid got in trouble for running around pre-school yelling "Bloody Fingers" and talking about knives.

Turns out the inspiration was a book the preschool kept reading which actually contained the words "Bloody Fingers" and had a twist ending where someone needed a bandaid.

Same preschool also called me in because my son made a gun motion or built a gun out of Lego. As teacher was lecturing me, the class alpha raced by with an obvious gun made out of bristle blocks. I nodded my head and said, "Yes, I see, he was behaving like Billy over there....(shocked silence)"...and then said "I'll encourage him to behave better!"

Moral is, don't always assume it's other kids. The curriculum and/or teacher's control over the class can also be the problem.

[Anonymous]

Last year a whole kindergarten class at my school was obsessed with Huggie Wuggie (google it if you have to). This year we have a kid obsessed with the song Dumb Ways to Die. It’s shocking what parents allow their young children to see online.