Chaperone policies help California theme parks, but do they hurt kids?

What’s the scariest part of theme parks’ Halloween events? The haunted houses? The scare zones? The prices? Those might be fair answers, but here is something that should not be bothering anyone — the people around you in line.

It’s next to impossible to put tens of thousands of people into any space without someone causing another offense. But with Halloween season now underway at parks across the country, many parks are implementing chaperone policies to help keep the peace during their haunt events.

With the former Six Flags and Cedar Fair parks now merged as one company, the new Six Flags has brought the former Cedar Fair’s chaperone policies to the legacy Six Flags parks, including Six Flags Magic Mountain. That means that both Six Flags Fright Fest and Knott’s Scary Farm will be requiring teens and kids to have an adult in their group in order to enter.

That leaves Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights as the sole local theme park haunt to welcome unaccompanied teens this year. Based on what I have seen, they are turning out, and that has some fans unhappy.

Plenty of them have taken to social media to share anecdotal reports of misbehavior, especially by young visitors. But others have noted swift responses to trouble-makers who have been removed from houses.

No one wants to see disruptions of what creative leaders have designed for their haunts. It’s like someone standing to interrupt a play or movie. If chaperone policies help keep the peace for after-hours haunts, I expect to see more parks adopt them.

But at some point, teenagers need spaces where they can do all the dumb, offensive stuff to each other that kids do before they learn better. When I was that age, I was the straight-A, “responsible” kid, and I still acted like an idiot as often as not. The most powerful social lessons I learned when I was in school did not come from teachers, parents or cops — they came from other kids who calmed down and showed us how to be respectful for a change.

Granted, Halloween Horror Nights and Knott’s Scary Farm are not the places where teenagers should be learning those lessons. People pay a lot of money to enjoy the experiences that the parks have designed — not to get caught in some immature kids’ sideshow. But if children are to have chaperones watching over them every waking moment until they become legal adults, a lot of them never will learn how to self-regulate.

When adults order teenagers to disperse from their neighborhoods, stay away from each other in malls, and quit hanging around in public parks, then they should not be surprised when the kids try taking over theme parks, or any other space where they can congregate without being told to go away.

If we want young people to grow into respectful adults, we need to allow them space in which to learn how to do that. If that’s not to be in a theme park, then we need to find other spaces for teens to call their own.

Originally Published: September 17, 2024 at 7:23 a.m.

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