Scared Silly
Bugs, heights and ghosts — nothing really scares Sophie. “I’m the kind of person where my brothers call me to get rid of spiders,” she says. “I’m not afraid of a lot of things.”
Though Sophie has few fears — “Except maybe being stranded somewhere alone” — most kids are scared of something. Scott W. says he used to be very afraid of the dark. Telling himself there was nothing to fear helped Scott deal with his dread. “Using a mental process helped a lot,” he says. “When I was scared of the dark and thought there were monsters in my closet, I would say to myself that it was all in my head.’’
Personal pep talks can help kids calm their fears, says Sheila Ribordy, a psychologist at DePaul University, USA. “Sometimes,” she says, “we talk to our head to reassure ourselves: ‘I’m scared right now, but I know the person behind that mask isn’t Dracula.’”
Slowly confronting a fear can also help. Ribordy says kids who are afraid of water can dip their feet in the shallow end and work up to a full dip. But extremes like avoiding the pool won’t help tame terrors, she says.
Some kids worry they’ll get hurt in water. And other kids worry they’ll get hurt by ghosts. Chris D. says the idea of spirits used to frighten him. “I was afraid I was going to see one when I woke up (in the middle of the night),” he says. He’s not afraid of ghosts anymore, but Chris still isn’t up for really scary movies. He isn’t allowed to see most horror movies. And that’s just fine with him: “I’m glad I can’t, because the movies are violent.”
But spooky stuff like horror movies can actually help kids face their fears. Ribordy says both are “controlled situations” where a kid can see how they won’t get hurt. Movies that have kid characters as the targets of terror are best avoided, however.
Also, Ribordy says, fear has its benefits: “Fear is good for us; it stops us from putting ourselves in dangerous situations.”
MCT
Post new comment