Answers

Are Halloween T-shirts too scary for toddlers?

The difficulty is that most Halloween imagery is built to frighten, and a very young child has no framework for treating that as fun. The distinction that matters is not how graphic something is but whether the child can hold two ideas at once — that the thing is frightening, and that it is not real. That capacity develops gradually, and before it does, a scary image is simply a scary image.

What works instead is a genuine design tradition rather than a compromise. Harvey Comics built an entire catalogue in the 1950s on supernatural characters with the threat deliberately removed: a ghost who wants friends, a witch who refuses to curse anyone. The same approach runs through preschool and family animation, and it supplies all of the season's visual vocabulary with none of its content.

One practical point that is easy to miss: plenty of adult horror characters are manufactured in toddler sizes. The existence of a 2T does not indicate the character is suitable, and it is worth checking what the property actually is rather than assuming the size range answers the question. This site filters its children's pages on the character rather than the garment for that reason.

• Under about four: stick to friendly ghosts, pumpkins and cartoon monsters.
• Four to seven: gothic-comic characters generally land well; slasher imagery does not.
• Let the child choose where possible — a character they already know is rarely frightening to them.
• Check the property, not the size range. Adult horror is widely sold in children's sizes.