25d • General discussion
Why it's sometimes not a good idea to bring children on Paranormal Investigations
We might think our kids are amazing and 'so grown up' and they beg us to take them on a ghost hunt because they have watched all of the shows on TV and seen all of the movies, but there is an area of duty of care that every tour provider needs to understand before they let allow children to attend.
If you run tours, investigations, or anything that brings the public into a dark building with a bit of history hanging off the walls, you are not just telling stories.
You are legally responsible for what happens to the people in front of you. That’s where duty of care comes in, and it’s one of those phrases people throw around without really understanding what it means until something goes wrong.
In Australia, duty of care is not optional and it’s not flexible depending on the mood of the night. It’s a legal obligation to provide a reasonably safe environment for the people who have paid to be there.
That doesn’t just mean making sure no one falls down a staircase. It extends to physical safety, emotional wellbeing, and anything that could be considered a foreseeable risk.
That phrase, foreseeable risk, is the one that matters because it covers more than most people realise.
Think about what we actually do on a ghost tour or investigation. We walk people through dark spaces where visibility is limited. We deal with uneven flooring, old buildings, narrow hallways, and sometimes confined areas where groups move together.
Then layer on top of that the psychological side of things.
People get frightened, they panic, they react in ways they didn’t expect.
None of that is unusual, which is exactly why the law sees it as foreseeable. You are expected to anticipate it, not react to it after the fact.
Where this starts to get more serious is when children are involved.
The law doesn’t view them as just smaller versions of adults. Children are considered a vulnerable group because they don’t assess risk properly.
They act on impulse, they get caught up in the moment, and they often don’t understand the difference between controlled fear and real danger. That means the level of responsibility sitting on you as the operator increases the moment a minor is part of your group.
And just to be clear, if something does go wrong, you don’t get to fall back on the idea that “it’s a ghost tour” or “they knew what they signed up for.”
From a legal point of view, you are treated like any other event organiser or tour provider. The theme of your event doesn’t give you a free pass.
Children complicate things in ways that are both obvious and easy to underestimate.
Physically, the risk goes up straight away. Kids run, even when you tell them not to.
They lag behind, they rush ahead, they separate from the group without thinking twice. Put that in a dark environment and you’ve got a situation where a simple misstep can turn into an injury. Then there’s the psychological side, which people tend to brush off until it becomes a problem. If a child becomes genuinely distressed, overwhelmed, or frightened to the point where it carries on after the event, that can fall back on you as the organiser.
A lot of people assume that if a parent is present, the responsibility shifts.
It doesn’t.
The presence of a guardian does not remove your duty of care.
You still hold responsibility for the environment you’ve created and the conditions you’ve allowed.
This is where compliance starts to matter, and not in a tick-the-box kind of way. Having a qualified first aider on your team is part of demonstrating that you’ve taken reasonable steps to manage risk. It shows that if something does happen, you are prepared to respond properly.
The same goes for Working With Children Checks. If minors are present, every team member needs to be current. It protects you, your team, and the business as a whole. It also shows that you understand the level of responsibility you’ve taken on.
Once children are involved, your paperwork needs to reflect that reality as well. Risk assessments can’t be generic. They need to account for how minors behave differently. Incident reports, safety procedures, even the way you brief your team all need to acknowledge that you’re dealing with a higher-risk group.
Then there’s the part that catches people out more often than it should, and that’s site restrictions. If a venue says no children, that’s not a suggestion. It’s tied directly to their insurance, their own risk assessments, and their legal liability. If you ignore that and allow children in anyway, you are breaching the conditions of using that site.
That can void insurance instantly, and it doesn’t just affect that one night. It can damage your relationship with the venue to the point where you don’t get invited back. In this line of work, access to sites is everything, and once that trust is gone, it’s very hard to rebuild.
You’ll also run into situations where people book children onto tours knowing they don’t meet the age requirements. It happens more than you’d think.
From a legal and business standpoint, they are breaching your terms and conditions if those age limits are clearly stated at the time of booking. You are within your rights to refuse entry on the night, even if they’ve already paid. And no, offering a refund is not something you are automatically required to do if your terms are clear. They’ve ignored the conditions, not you.
The moment you decide to let them in anyway, everything shifts. You’ve knowingly accepted a higher level of risk, and if something goes wrong, that decision will be part of the conversation. It won’t sit well in your favour.
When things do go wrong, the consequences are not minor inconveniences.
Personal injury claims are the obvious one, whether it’s a fall, an accident in a poorly lit area, or something triggered by panic. Then there are psychological harm claims, which are taken more seriously now than they used to be, especially where children are concerned. Insurance becomes another issue entirely. If you’ve breached your own policies or ignored site rules, there’s a real chance your claim won’t be honoured. On top of that, you’re looking at potential fines or regulatory action if negligence is found.
And then there’s the part you can’t quantify as easily, which is reputation.
One incident involving a child spreads quickly. It doesn’t take much for years of credibility to unravel, especially in a business that relies so heavily on trust and word of mouth.
So where does that leave you in practical terms?
Age limits are not about being difficult or turning people away for the sake of it.
They are there to manage legal risk and maintain a controlled environment where you can actually do your job properly. You’re not running an open-access attraction where anything goes. You are running a structured experience with very specific conditions, and that distinction matters.
Protecting your business is not separate from protecting your clients.
It’s the same thing. The moment you start bending your own rules to accommodate people who don’t meet them, you’re the one carrying the risk.
And that’s not a position you want to be in, no matter how much pressure is coming from the other side of the booking form.
Please understand that we are not trying to stop children coming on tours all together. There are certain tours that can cater to children and present a format that will work well. Check other tour providers to see what they provide. Having worked for over 13 years providing tours and experiences we take on the role of duty of care very seriously and have seen children be seriously scared even before the tour starts and the parents thinks its so much fun. It's not - some nightmares can last a lifetime.
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Why it's sometimes not a good idea to bring children on Paranormal Investigations
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