How to Help our Child to Deal with Fear

Fear is one of the most common feelings that every one of us come across at least once in our life. Children face this feeling most often as they do not develop a proper logical thinking in this age. When I was a child, I used to fear the darkness of the night. Whenever I was in a dark room, I used to feel as though I was in an air tight box. This feeling came out of my fear for the darkness. We develop fear due to many reasons. An unhealthy environment in the house can give birth to fear in a child’s mind. In many cases it has been noticed that our childhood panic continues even in our adulthood and also impacts our life.

When children fail to control the circumstances or they can’t overcome a situation, they become afraid. A helping hand from the side of the parents is very important for the children in such a stage. When children experience any unbearable circumstance, their fragile sense of safety becomes shaken. The unknown circumstances that kids face in movies, video games or different animation films, leave a mark on their psyche. I still remember one incident of my life. That time I was in 4th standard and I saw a film where an evil person ran after a little boy to catch him. This particular scene made such grave impact on my mind that I started dreaming about the same circumstance where a person was running after me.

Nurturing a child is a very loving experience for the parents. But it is also a very difficult task as it needs lots of attention, caution and affection from the side of the parents. We are not inborn logical thinkers. As we grow old, our logical thinking capability gets sharpened. It is the guidance of our elders that help us in developing this particular trait among us. When we are into parenting, we need to remember that our children will need our help in every walk of their life. To help our child to cope us with any kind of fear, we first need to teach them about how to tackle a particular situation when things go wrong. We have to provide a platform to the children where they can easily express their inner feelings to us. Moreover, we should never enforce our decisions on our kids.

Sometimes children also develop a fear towards their school or academic life. Over pressure from the school or bullying by the child’s fellow mates can be the causes of a child’s fear. If we notice our child going through any such situation, we should try to help out and talk to the school authorities regarding that. Researchers distinguish between fluid and fixed fears. A fluid fear is one that comes and goes. If the fear changes from week to week or remains for a limited period and begins to fade away, it can be considered normal. A fixed fear is one that remains or may even intensify. Fixed fears may require a lot of patience to work through, and may even require special attention from a professional.