When Creative Play Gets Spooky

With Halloween upon us, I’ve been thinking about a particular kind of play that’s been showing up a lot in our studio. Most afternoons, I’m surrounded by cardboard, paint, tape, and the boundless imaginations of children. Our space is dedicated to creative play; child-led exploration that merges imaginative storytelling with making physical objects and artwork to support it. On any given day, this might mean building castles, using old fabric scraps to make costumes, or hot glueing whatever they find to make new play figures. But lately, I’ve noticed a recurring theme in their creations: things tend to get… morbid. Maybe it’s just because it's been leading up to Halloween, but I have a feeling the theme will outlast the season.

“Why do you have to make everything so gruesome?” A caregiver asked their child at pick-up. The 7 year old was proudly showing her the doll he made- covered in fake blood.

“I just like to make creepy things,” he replied. “I don’t know why.”

A child with his demon mask.

This fascination with the morbid—the bloody, the monstrous, is common among children. In our club, every collaborative mural seems to end up with “a dead guy with blood coming out of him. Every cardboard tube becomes an axe or sword. Once, the children even held a funeralfor a dead bird they found on the sidewalk.

At first, these moments unsettled me. I found myself experiencing what some scholars describe as “adult unease.” My instinct was to step in, to sanitize the play, to make it “nice.” But I’ve learned to pause and check in with myself: Is this actually crossing a line? Is anyone here genuinely frightened? Or am I just worried about what others might think?

Over time, I’ve realized that these dark themes are not cause for alarm. Creating dark situations in art and play are most often expressions of curiosity, empathy, and exploring power. In one study of children’s play I read recently, researchers observed that death scenes often led to moments of deep social connection. When a player “died,” their peers turned attention to the “corpse,” creating care-based storylines. I see this constantly: a child pretends to be hurt, and others rush to make paper casts, wheelchairs from stools, and small gifts. Through this play, they are enacting community—learning what it feels like to be both caregiver and care receiver.

I’ve also learned that gruesome or “scary” play can serve an important emotional function. As Insight Psychological (2025) explains,“Scary play also encourages the use of coping strategies such as deep breathing, humor, or cognitive reappraisal (‘this isn’t real, I’m safe’), which are known to help in reducing anxious responses.” In other words, when children explore fear safely through imaginative play, they are not only expressing creativity but also practicing emotional regulation.

So gruesome play is not something to correct, or redirect. Usually, it's just another way your child is learning to understand themselves and the world. Maybe our role, as adults in their lives, isn’t to stop them from touching the dark, but to remain steady as they do. To show them that nothing they can make or imagine rattles us—that we are unshakeable. In that steadiness, they find their own sense of safety. So even if their dolls look eerie or their art feels unsettling, we can see beauty in what it represents: a fearless act of play, a child discovering themselves through imagination.