Teaching children how to deal with fear
Shots. Scorpions. Snakes. Spiders. What do these words have in common, other than starting with the letter “S?” The answer is that these are things that some people are afraid of regardless if they are adults or children.
Recently, my husband and I were discussing the doctor’s appointment for one of our daughters and I mentioned that maybe we should take both of our little girls, so that they could get a flu shot. The oldest heard us and instantly cut into the conversation, asking why we would take her to get a shot, as if it was the worst thing in the world. Simply going to the doctor’s office makes her nervous.
Being afraid is very natural. It’s a sensation that something doesn’t feel right. It can be challenging to explain to your children that everything will be OK when they feel so upset and insecure. Tears, meltdowns and tantrums can all be an outcome of a child being afraid.
Daniel Huerta, a writer with Focus on the Family, clearly explains how to help children see fear. “Our kids’ built-in ‘alarm system’ will be triggered by many different things — storms, spiders, news reports, ghoulish Halloween displays,” Huerta writes. “I tell my son and daughter that fears are a bit like the smoke alarm in our home. The alarm keeps us safe by alerting us when there’s a fire. But sometimes, like when we’re cooking bacon, the alarm just starts beeping anyway. We need to let in some fresh air, but the house isn’t burning. Likewise, our fear alarm often ‘sounds’ the same, whether there’s a serious emergency, or we just need to take a fresh look at the situation.”
As adults, we struggle with our fears and sometimes we do not know how to handle them. The smoke alarm analogy makes us take a step back and analyze the situation. We can learn about this approach as adults, but how great would it be to teach children how to handle their fears at a young age. Learning how to see and deal with fear at a young age can significantly help them to better deal with fears as adults.
Asking your child questions like, “Are you afraid? What are you afraid of? Why should/ shouldn’t we be afraid of that? What is the worst thing that could happen? If the worst thing happens, how we deal with it?” can help them analyze the situation and put things into perspective.
This upcoming Halloween season is an opportunity to teach your children about fear and how they can properly deal with it. When the opportunity arises, take a moment to chat with them about what makes them afraid and guide them in how they deal with their fear. They may realize that a scary decoration doesn’t mean “the house is burning,” but instead we just might need to “let some fresh air in.”
Diana Maldonado is a community outreach specialist at Yuma Regional Medical Center. She can be reached at dmaldonado@yumaregional.org.