subject: How to deal with children's fear [print this page] When your child experience fear: When your child experience fear:
Realize that the fear is real. If necessary, get down to your child's eye level and see the fear in his eyes. When children are afraid, they tend to stutter or speak quickly. They can breathe heavily, sweat, cry, experience different pains or develop other symptoms. Sometimes they just freeze.
Give legitimacy to the fear and show empathy: For example: you can say "I understand that you are afraid of the monster. It's okay to be afraid." Avoid disparaging the child (avoid phrases like "It's stupid to be afraid of the dark", or "come on the mouse is not scary ..."). That will only teach the child that there's no good in coming to you when he feels bad.
Avoid comparison between the child's fears and his parent's fears. For example: comparison like "I'm afraid of snakes too" may teach the child that it is OK to fear only those thins that you fear.
Don't be too busy with the child's' fear. If you do that, the child may use fear as a motif that gives him parental attention. Moreover, this by itself can intensify the perceived difficulty ahead.
Ask for a specific description of the object the child fears. If you make it more specific and less general, it becomes less scary. Ask your child to describe the fear in colors, sound, it's characteristics, it's weaknesses, what scares the object that he fears etc.
Gradually, pass to the child the responsibility to deal with fear. Do not be the only one who can cope with the fear because that will only leave your child helpless. If the child will believe that he can also deal with the feared object, he will be able to trust himself as well. For example: When a child fears a monster and the way to deal with it is to sleep with the parents in their bed, the child can end up thinking that only his parents can help him deal with monster, and that he doesn't have the strength to do it on his own.
Try to put the feared object in a different light. For examples: Maybe when the monster spits fire, it is it's way to say it is afraid to be alone and want friends? Maybe the dog barks because he is very excited to see children and not because he is angry
Ask the child to come up with ideas on how to cope with the feared object. Suggest your own ideas. For example: can winning a sword at it might do it? Is there a magic word that excluded it? Is it possible to create a good imaginary monster whose job to protect the child? Choose together one mean the child prefers and adopt it.
Some theories suggest that in order to cope with fear, you should let your child draw the fear and then burn the painting, or throw it to the garbage. To my experience (and according to parents who tried it), this approach is usually efficient for the immediate term only.
Example for adopting these principles to fear of pain/doctor:
Do not lie. If it supposed to hurt, say it. If you lie, your child will not trust you any more and rightly so. Furthermore, if you lie to your child, most chances are that he will lie to you as well.
Give the child confidence that you will be there beside him all the time and help him cope.
Help your child to understand exactly what will happen, in details. That will minimize the uncertainty ,give him the feeling that he is in familiar environment and in control.
If an injection is due, let your child know what it is going to be like. Be as specific as possible. You can visualize it, and stab his hand slightly with a toothpick.
Convey confidence that although it would be something unpleasant, he will be able to overcome it.
Find a way to get your child cooperation. Be sure to convey a decisive message that you are going to go to the doctor/get the shot and so on. The question is not weather you are going or not, but how is it going to be done.
Help the child to stop massive crying: Take long deep breaths (do it with the child).
Do not compare your child to other children who are not afraid. It's legitimate to fear.
Engaging in a constant try to calm the child - can be stressful by itself (to all parties), so it is better to avoid such a behavior. Put a limit to how much time and effort you allocate to reassuring the child that everything will be OK. After a couple of minutes engaging in that, offer only measured empathy in order to show that you are in control. That will assist the child more than ongoing convincing trials.
How to deal with children's fear
By: Dr. Eli Saggie
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