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Other children have a bad "first experience" when trying something new. A common case is a fear of dogs, cats or other animals. Perhaps the child's first encounter was less than positive. Did the dog growl or snarl as the child approached? Was the child scratched by a cat? Those experiences will almost surely guarantee that the child could develop a fear of the animal. Fear of the unknown can frighten children because those fears are unpredictable. Young children enjoy routine, repetition, and predictability. Fears of the unknown can also arise from something that is misunderstood. One of the most common fears for children and adults is a fear of the dark. This is an unpredictable fear. There is uncertainty in the dark, something unknown and incomprehensible. That is because there is nothing to sense. There is nothing we can see to calm or reassure us that the dark is safe.
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Fear is a force we confront when we try to protect ourselves from harm or injury. Parents can be perplexed on how to address the problem of a child's fear--but one thing is certain, your child either is or will be afraid of something. All of us have fears, the problem is that adults can rationalize them, talk about them and deal with them logically. Children do not have that advantage and that is what parents need to remember: children simply cannot express themselves. There are two fundamental classifications of young children's fears. Those fears that are based on experience and truth that the child knows and understands and the fears that the child simply doesn't know. Many children become afraid when they have to visit a doctor's or dentist's office. That fear is based on experience. They may have received an injection, or had some minor dental work done that caused brief discomfort or pain. The child will associate the memory of the pain with the idea of "go to the doctor's" and become upset, nervous and afraid immediately prior to subsequent visits. |
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