Kids in the Park: Two Days to Halloween

The kids and volunteers of SQUADS

By Lianna Shen
October 31, 2007

I’ve been spending a lot of time with the kids in Regent Park. I’m the kind of person who thinks I’m really good with kids because I’d like to think I am sweet and personable ☺ I smile a lot, I don’t use big words, and I can get my hands dirty. I was excited about Halloween in Regent Park.

I went to the Salvation Army 614 Church to attend a SQUADS get-together. SQUADS is a kids group that meets on Monday nights, and on this particular night there were a bunch of 7-12 year olds hanging out in their costumes because it was October 29 – almost Halloween.

No one wore one of those pre-packaged costumes you get at novelty stores. One kid said he was a jack rabbit and wore a Bugs Bunny mascot’s head with his normal clothes. One girl was a “princess cat” and had her face painted like a cat’s but wore pink and a tiara on her head. Even the volunteers dressed up – one guy showed up in full-on robot gear, and couldn’t sit down in the group circle when instructed to do so. Some of the older kids didn’t wear costumes and acted like they were proud of this, but when it came to one un-costumed girl’s turn in the circle to talk about her costume, she got defensive. “I don’t have one, okay!” she shouted.

We spent the night doing halloweenish things like “bobbing for apples”, as in apples were tied to a string and the kids had to try to eat them with their hands behind their backs. Bugs Bunny really enjoyed the eating part and continued to eat the apple after his one-bite task was completed. “You’re eating the string!” shrieked one of the little black girls. She and her posse laughed at him while he giggled and kept eating. Like he cared.

Bobbing for apples

Pumpkin carving was the event of the night. Split up into three groups, the kids took turns scooping out the seeds and giving their own two creative cents. Some wanted ears. Others wanted a pretty pumpkin. It was quite the collaboration.

Princess Cat carving a pumpkin

An 8-year-old named Ashton showed up late and was dressed as a vampire of some sort with a ghoulish mask. Under his cape he had curly brown hair and his skin was the perfect shade of mocha. Beautiful kid.

Ashton

He took to me right away because I was taking pictures. He wanted to take pictures too, and how could I say no…he was so cute! I handed over my sleek black digital.

Little did I know, he was going to hijack my camera for the next thirty minutes. Ashton ran around taking pictures of his peers, and I was getting a bit worried so I followed him around and at one point suggested we take a look at the pictures he had taken so I could check on my settings to make sure he didn’t screw anything up. After pressing the play button we realized that he had not in fact taken any pictures yet. He wasn’t holding the button down long enough.

I explained to him that with this camera you have to hold the button down until you see the picture on the screen, and that you have to hold the camera steady so it doesn’t get fuzzy. He took his lesson very seriously, nodding, asking questions.

After our little “workshop”, he strutted around a bit more calmly, snapping pictures here and there. He would get right up into some of the kids faces and take his pictures. I was excited because I knew he was getting some good ones.

After, we looked at the pictures together and he was so proud. I was genuinely impressed. “These are better than the ones I took!” I told him. I meant it, too.

Portrait By Ashton

I had to leave because I had to drive up North for an interview, and I felt bad taking the camera back from him. But I had a voice recorder on me that I wanted to show him – I figured he might be interested.

But as soon as the camera was back in my hands, he ran off. He obviously had no interest in anything else I had to offer. Yeah, I was sad.

I stayed a few extra minutes, watching Ashton. He was going from table to table, not really taking up any tasks that the other kids were doing – carving pumpkins, drawing, talking. He couldn’t stay in one place. A wanderer.

Some teachers might call this ADD. Or Hyperactivity. But after seeing Ashton with a camera, I know he has no problem focusing or concentrating, if he wants to.

Not to sound like an expert on child behaviour, but I think there are a lot of kids like him out there who get labeled as such. Perhaps they’re really just not interested.