Childhood Fears Are Nothing To Worry About
Q. Within the last month or so, our just-turned 3-year-old daughter has become afraid of the dark, barking dogs, trucks and thunder. She’s also convinced there is a monster in her closet. She seems to develop a new fear every week and is not at all comforted by reassurances or explanations from us. We’re at a loss as to what happened to set this off and how to deal with it. Do you have any suggestions?
A: To begin with, fears of the dark, “things that go bump in the night” (or day), and other occurrences are typical of this age child. They are the by-products of two very positive developments:
The flowering of imagination. Three-year-olds have acquired the ability to conjure up images and scenarios of things both real and unreal, but lack the ability to control the process.
In fact, it’s as if the spontaneity and unpredictability of their imagination often controls them. On the negative side of this are fears, while on the positive side are the beginnings of creativity and the invention of imaginary playmates.
A sense of self. A child’s sense of identity is still fairly new and therefore fragile at this age. On the one hand, this age child’s self-sufficiency is growing by leaps and bounds; on the other, the child is experiencing anxiety associated with letting go of his or her parents.
Fears reflect the conflict inherent to this process. They are fantasy-laden expressions of the child’s feelings of vulnerability at encountering the unknown.
Not understanding that fears are normal to the age, parents sometimes misinterpret these attacks of fright as symptoms of insecurity or emerging emotional problems. They react as if the child’s fears were the result of bad parenting.
Feeling responsible, they over-respond with anxieties of their own, and a vicious cycle ensues: The parents’ anxieties confirm and increase the child’s fearfulness, which confirms and increases the parents’ anxieties, and around and around they go in ever-increasing confusion.
Trying to explain away a young child’s fears usually doesn’t work. Three-year-olds are unable to understand that words exist for things that don’t.
Saying to a 3-year-old, “There’s no such thing as monsters” amounts to a contradiction in terms, one the child finds impossible to reconcile.
Reason and imagination, furthermore, exist on separate, non-intersecting wavelengths. The attempt to explain a fear away, therefore, will only confuse a child of this age and increase his sense of isolation and vulnerability. The end result is a child who is more afraid than ever because he’s now convinced his parents don’t understand him and are powerless to help.
The most effective approach to take with your daughter is to first acknowledge the fear: “We know the dark can be scary when you’re little.” Then identify with her: “When we were 3-years-old, we were afraid of dark places, too.” Finally, reassure her of your continuing ability to protect her: “We’ll be in the living room, and we’ll be taking care of you from there. Nothing can happen to you as long as we’re here.” Stay close enough to make your daughter feel protected, but not so close that your presence validates her fearfulness.
If one of you has theatrical talent, you can go into your daughter’s room and “do battle” with the monster in her closet, finally ejecting it from your home forever. This approach is especially effective because it appeals to imagination, the very thing that created the monster in the first place.
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