"MOM, I'M SCARED"

Fear is... not scary. It's normal to be afraid to avoid getting into trouble. It's our natural instinct. Fear is our guardian, helping us to survive.

As we grow up, we learn to control it because we can explain its origin. "In dark alleys, you can run into hooligans, so I'll find a lighter road," "A thunderstorm is not scary, but lightning is dangerous, so I'll install a lightning rod."

We adults already know this world well, unlike our children, who are just getting to know it. We are their first guides. How can we help our children turn this knowledge into joy, rather than a series of constant stresses? How can we help our children cope with their anxiety and childhood fears? And what exactly should not be done so that ordinary fear does not turn into a phobia that leads to neuroses?

CHILDREN'S FEARS GROW WITH THE CHILD

Fears have always been and will always be in a child's life. This means that they are developing, growing up, trying to comprehend everything that happens to them and around them. Over time, some fears disappear, while others emerge.

Until the age of one, a baby is afraid of being separated from his mother, who at this age is like life to him. This is where the anxiety of a small child begins - the fear of strangers and loud sounds. But already at two, the child will calmly play in the sandbox, not paying attention to his mother. He will still have a fear of losing her, but the habit of seeing her around has dispelled the fear. But a new, more real and dangerous one has appeared. For example, the fear of big dogs or cars.

At the age of four, along with abstract thinking, an imaginary fear is born. The child is afraid of the dark, in which it is easy to imagine a monster from a cartoon he or she has just seen.

After the age of six, children develop a fear of death that is typical of adults. If a child does not receive answers to his or her direct questions (and parents often avoid such conversations), he or she will become even more anxious. No understanding means no peace.

Psychotherapy of childhood phobias (a case study)

An eight-year-old boy's grandfather died. A couple of weeks later, the kid developed a lot of obsessive fears: the fear of being alone in the room, of falling asleep in the dark. It turned out that the reason was that no one had talked to him about what had happened. All he heard was from adults: "Grandpa died". No one told him what "died" meant, and it scared him. It scared him that there was something that could destroy his familiar world.

During therapy with a psychologist, he drew his fear. In the drawing, he depicted himself with a huge puddle of tears next to him. It turned out that the boy loved his grandfather and was upset that he was gone. But watching his parents cry, he was afraid that if he cried, they would be even more upset. That's why he never got over his sadness. And then there was the fact that his mom and dad refused to talk about it, and he had to keep all his emotions inside. As a result, all these fears were born.

All adults had to do was calmly explain in simple words what had happened and what would happen next: "Unfortunately, we won't be able to see Grandpa anymore, and he won't come to visit us. This makes us very sad. We miss him." Such simple explanations would have calmed the boy down. Perhaps he would continue to be sad, but he would stop being anxious because he would understand the reason why. He would also have realized that grieving with his family is completely different than grieving alone.

Silence is a direct path to childhood phobias and neuroses. Pain, sadness, and death are an integral part of life. And if we don't talk about it, it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist and that our child won't face it.

It is more humane to prepare him for the fact that it is normal to be sad and feel heartache. This shows his good heart and ability to empathize. Without these feelings, he would never be able to experience true joy. And don't assume that children won't accept such philosophical conversations. Even if something doesn't seem quite clear to them, they will be influenced by your calm tone of voice, by the very fact of such a one-on-one conversation with an adult. They will feel the most important thing - if mom or dad talks about it so calmly, it means that it is not scary, not shameful, not bad.

EDUCATION BY FEAR IS EVIL

The other extreme is to manipulate children through fear. "If you don't fall asleep, the gypsy will take you away," "If you are naughty, we will give you to the gypsies," "If you study badly, we will stop loving you." Parents scare their children with all sorts of things to make them do what they want. Without thinking about the harm it does to everyone. After all, with this attitude, we lose our children this very minute. How can you respect, let alone be a friend to someone who humiliates, frightens, and unfairly punishes them?

Not to mention the fact that such "scarecrows" from adults can result in a serious neurosis, which is much more difficult to deal with. This is where professional psychotherapy of childhood phobias is indispensable.

Psychotherapy of childhood phobias (a case study)

To calm her grandson down, his grandmother constantly scared him with a policeman. "Are you playing? Well, now a policeman will come and take you to jail," she would say, and the boy would be silent for a while.

One day, a friend of his father's in uniform came to their house. When he saw him, the child had a tantrum - he climbed into the closet and screamed loudly as soon as one of the adults tried to pull him out. As a result, he had trouble sleeping and enuresis.

FEARS, CHILDHOOD PHOBIAS AND NEUROSES: WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?

Fears, phobias, and neuroses are not the same thing. It's a chain: fears that can be managed can turn into phobias if not dealt with in time. In turn, phobias, if left untreated, can lead to neuroses.

There is a fine line between fear and phobia. If a child is afraid of the dark but can easily overcome it by simply turning on the light, this is fear. But if a dark room causes panic, and the child will not enter it under any circumstances until someone else turns on the light, this is a phobia, a fear that cannot be explained rationally. And while in the first case the child can control his or her fear, in the second case the child is in its thrall.

WHAT CONTRIBUTES TO THE EMERGENCE OF FEARS?

Overprotection

If you want to raise anxiety in a child, control his every move, forbidding everything that is possible, because absolutely everything is a threat. You can fall off a bike, a dog can bite, a cat can scratch, sand can get in your eyes, a swing can hit you. What kind of a calm and happy childhood can we talk about when everything around you wants to do you harm? "The world is hostile," a child who is under constant stress thinks, grows up and inherits this world. How could it be otherwise, because they are used to seeing only bad things, thanks to their overprotective mother.

Parental conflict

Parents are the whole world for a child. And if something goes wrong with them, the child considers himself or herself to be to blame.

Therefore, when parents quarrel frequently, a child may suffer from nightmares, insomnia, depression, start harming themselves, etc.

Information from social networks that is not controlled

Another reason is the large amount of information available. Unfortunately, parents are not always able to keep track of it. And even a seemingly harmless computer game can scare a child. However, the game MOMO with a scary creature in the form of a female bust on chicken legs with a pale face can easily scare even an adult with nerves of steel. It appeared online a few years ago thanks to a message from an unknown person. Someone wrote that they needed help and asked to call the number. Many people fell for this trick, and the game spread around the world, causing harm.

That is why routines, family rituals, and reasonable restrictions are important. All this gives a sense of stability, reliability and security in the world.

WHEN TO SEE A PSYCHOLOGIST?

Not all fears need to be addressed to a specialist. Parents can often cope with them themselves. For example, with the fear of monsters and ghosts.

And the first thing to do is to talk to your child about it. But not before bedtime: it is better during a sunny day when the child is lively and cheerful.

Kids believe in magic, and you can take advantage of this. Buy a "magic" nightlight and tell them that now they can easily disperse all the monsters in the room. Or listen to the advice of child psychologist Svetlana Royz, who drove away scary monsters from her daughter by spraying water from a respirator. She called it a "scarecrow". Any object in a mom's hands can become magical.

Another effective way is to draw or model the fear together and then defeat it by simply kneading it in your hands. However, parents should be prepared that sometimes a child can make something unexpectedly scary. No wonder kids are afraid of these monsters.

Psychotherapy of childhood phobias (a case study)

One day the boy decided to show his mother his fear. He took plasticine and made a "scary" ghost, which, he said, was always walking with him. When his mother saw it, she was frightened: "Something is wrong with my son!" After working with a psychologist, it turned out that the boy had a fear of death. And when you know your fear by sight, it is easier to fight it.

We adults must understand that what is ours is ours, and a child's is a child's. Sometimes it is enough to ask: "Tell me about your ghost, what is it like?" to make sure that it is not always something necessarily bad. Such a trusting conversation usually begins a peaceful but effective war against fear.

FAIRY TALE THERAPY

Probably one of the best forms of communication with a child about his or her fears. When mom or dad come up with a fairy tale story together, where the main character is a character with a similar name or character. And the main plot of the fairy tale is a situation in which it is difficult for the child to cope in reality. For example, a child is afraid to swim. Together you can invent a story where a rabbit or a squirrel was also afraid to swim. And all the animals in the forest stopped being friends with him. And he began to think that he should overcome his fear and love swimming. Then the adventures began, with the help of which the rabbit overcame his fear and found friends. He became brave, and everyone began to respect him for it.

The main condition for fairy-tale psychotherapy of childhood phobias to work is consistency. Once is definitely not enough. For example, you will have to fight the fear of the dark for a month or even two, during which you can either invent a fairy tale with your child, or sculpt all the monsters, or draw them together. You don't have to do this every day, of course, so as not to sharpen the focus. Twice a week will be enough. You don't need to give too much guidance - just ask questions, and let the children draw how to defeat their monster.

If everything is clear with kids and the "magical" world, what about teenagers? In this case, parental hugs, confidential conversations, and time spent together will help. Such support will give them a sense of security and love.

If parents do not give their child this feeling in time, believing that all these manifestations of love (especially to a boy) are calfish tenderness, they will get the result in the future - an anxious, insecure adult who suffers from loneliness, because others will perceive his restraint as indifference and selfishness.

In a situation where adults feel that they are unable to help a teenager, it is important to consult a psychologist. The specialist has many tools to help the child open up in order to eventually overcome childhood phobias and get rid of the neuroses that accompany them.

HOW TO PERSUADE A CHILD TO GO TO A PSYCHOLOGIST

Psychotherapy of childhood phobias begins with honesty. So if you feel that you need to see a specialist, say so: "I see that something is happening to you. You are sitting at home, not going out. Let's go see a specialist who can help you." You shouldn't think of some kind aunt who will talk to your child about something and pry into his or her soul for some reason. Once you have deceived them, it will be difficult to regain their trust.

Of course, there will be some explanation of what will happen at the meeting: "It will be a conversation. The psychologist will ask questions, and you will try to answer them the way you feel. Choose a day when it would be convenient for you." It is important to make the teenager understand that he or she has the right to choose. If possible, he or she can choose a specialist by going to the website and reviewing all the candidates for his or her trust. When a child is involved in the process, he or she feels that it is his or her decision, not one imposed by parents. This feeling will be reinforced by your promise that in case of discomfort, he or she can leave and choose another psychologist. It is important to note that you will be there for the child, even if the conversation with the specialist is one-on-one.

However, the first conversation always takes place in the presence of parents, as the child is a reflection of the situation in his or her family. Therefore, a specialist should get to know all the participants in order to understand it. Often, in order to solve a teenager's problem, it is necessary to solve a problem related to his or her parents. So it's easy to bring a child with an attitude: "We brought him/her here, now you have to deal with him/her" will not work. Being in therapy in an atmosphere of acceptance, the teenager returns home and is faced with the same "cockroaches in the head" of his or her loved ones. And everything only gets worse. Therefore, psychotherapy sessions for childhood phobias are a joint effort between the child and his or her parents.

If something happens to your child, it means that maybe something is wrong with you, maybe you don't react in the right way or you don't know everything. You need to understand and accept this. As well as the fact that, most likely, to help you cope with obsessive fears and neuroses, you need to change your worldview. In other words, you need to change. But as practice shows, such changes in oneself are always for the better. It is always the way to a better version of yourself. Isn't that wonderful?

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