Helping Your Child Deal with Fear

A certain amount of fear is healthy and understandable. It keeps us and our children out of harm’s way. We teach our children to fear running into a busy street, accepting candy from strangers, swallowing unidentified substances from the medicine cabinet, etc. We are, in essence, teaching them caution, which is quite different from dealing with a youngster who is responding to an imaginary rather than a real danger. Here are some common childhood fears, and ways to go about handling them.

Fear of the dark

Generally, fear of the dark occurs when the parents insist that the child stay in a totally darkened room at bedtime or when the child wakes up in the middle of the night. Some children are so terrified by the dark that their heartbeats actually increase. Parents need to recognize that the room looks totally different to the child when the lights are out, and should take steps to reassure the youngster even if the fear seems completely irrational to the parents.

• Use a nightlight, but experiment with its placement to be sure that it does not create all sorts of frightening shadows.
  


• After the light has been turned out, stay in the room for a few minutes and talk about how different things look. A curtain blowing in the breeze looks very different at night than it does during the daytime.
  


• Leave the door to the child’s room slightly open and tell them that you will not be far away. 
  


• If the child awakens in the middle of the night, they should not be invited into your bed or you risk starting a habit that is difficult to break. Instead, comfort them and tell them that you are proud of them for being grown up enough to sleep in a bed by themselves. 
  


• Remain consistent in your approach to their behavior.
  

Fear of the dentist.

Clearly, for adults, this is often an unresolved fear from childhood, since so many adults are fearful of going to the dentist. It is usually provoked in children because they feel they have no control over the situation. It’s a fact of life that children do need to go to the dentist at regular intervals, so their fear must be dealt with and overcome.

• Choose the dentist carefully. If possible, seek out a practitioner who specializes in pediatric dentistry.
  


• Start early so the child will get used to visiting the dentist’s office for simple checkups when just a cursory examination is required.
  


• Teach the child good dental hygiene so that trips to the dentist will be minimal.
  


• Try not to transmit your own fears of the dentist to your child.
  


• Act out the visit to the dentist with your child, helping them to become familiar with what will happen ahead of time, e.g. the dentist chair, opening their mouth wide, the dental tools that will be used, such as the little mirror, etc.
  

Perhaps the kindest thing parents can do when dealing with a child’s fears is to admit their own childhood fears, especially if the parents had similar fears when they were children. The parents can indicate that they understand just how devastating such fears can be and that they stand ready to reassure and comfort whenever the child feels a need.

Fear-busting Strategies

Regardless of the child’s age, basic strategies for helping children cope with fears and phobias are similar:

• Determine the accuracy of the fear. It is important to teach a child to evaluate reality. This is especially important for three- and four-year-olds, who don’t know what is dangerous and what isn’t.

• Give your child your message briefly and with confidence and authority. Discussion and questions can come later. “Some dogs are mean and scary, but this one won’t hurt you.” “Sometimes bad things hide in the dark—but they are not allowed in our house.”
  

• Remove the object of the child’s fear. When it is reasonable and practical, take away or avoid those things that make your child feel afraid. If your child is scared by vacuum-cleaner noise, try to vacuum when she is in another room. However, if your child is afraid of taking a bath, give her the bath firmly and quickly, while reassuring her with a calm and loving voice.
  

• Anticipate your child’s fears. You should not tell your child that you are going to visit Grandma and then show up at the dentist’s office. However, four days of preparation before going to the dentist will only worsen your child’s anxiety.

• Practice sessions with dolls or toys may be helpful, but this should be done only a few hours or one day before the visit. 
  

• Get your child’s attention. This is so basic that it is sometimes forgotten. Getting your child to focus on you, instead of on the source of his fear, is important for making him feel better. Depending on the circumstances, you might simply say, “Jamal, listen to me very carefully. I have something important to tell you.” Or if he is very young or very frightened, you might choose to use a more physical strategy like hugging, rocking, or stroking while calmly telling him, “Everything is okay.”

• Use distractions. Distraction is an especially useful technique for younger children and infants, who have such a short attention span that they will forget what made them afraid. “Look at this light (or pencil or button). Don’t look at anything else. Let’s see what we can do with it.”
  

• Be reassuring. Children are very aware of their parents’ anxieties. The concern that a parent feels for her child might easily be misinterpreted as meaning that the parent is afraid, too. Your facial expression and your words should convey the impression that everything is under control and that everything will be okay.

Text and photo courtesy of Motivated magazine. Used with permission.