How to Help Your Child Overcome Common Fears

From babies to adults, everyone will experience fear and anxiety at some time in their lives. While it’s normal for your child to experience fear, as a parent you can support their healthy development by assisting them with dealing with their fears. A child who overcomes their fears can be better prepared to deal with uncertainty and challenges later in life.

Common child fears

Children of different ages might have fears for varying reasons, and the nature of your child’s fears can change as they grow. Common fears range from strangers, insects, and blood, to heights and darkness.

• Babies – Babies often have an anxiety or fear of strangers, and may cling to you when they’re in the company of people they don’t recognise.
• Toddlers – It’s common for toddlers to have separation anxiety and to fear anything unfamiliar. At this stage, they fear things because they don’t yet understand what’s going on in their environment, experts suggest. As such, they might have an irrational fear of something as unthreatening as a haircut.
• Younger kids – Younger kids around the ages of four or five tend to have more complex fears based on what they can see and what they can imagine. For example, monsters under the bed, ghosts, and what happens when they’re away from you are common fears.
• Older kids – Older kids between the ages of seven to 12 tend to have fears that are based on reality, such as injuries or natural disasters. Experts suggest while they’re at an age where they know bad things can happen sometimes, they might not have the necessary perspective to assess probabilities of things like hurricanes or gun violence happening.

Other fears might not be correlated to brain development or age, but could be due to a previous experience. For example, your child might have seen a vicious dog before, and has now come to fear dogs as a result.

Signs of anxiety and fear

If your child is fearful of something, you probably know about it. They might scream and run away, cry and struggle, take shallow breaths, or get cold hands and feet. Other signs of anxiety and fear include impulsiveness, distraction, twitching, sleeping longer than usual or problems getting to sleep, sweaty hands, accelerated heart rate, headaches, nausea, and stomach aches. These signs can all help you work out whether your child is anxious or fearful.

Strategies for helping your child

There are many different ways you can help your child. The best approach to take may depend on your child and the nature of the fear.

• Validate the fear – Let your child know that you understand the fear is real to them. Don’t trivialise the fear as this can hinder your child’s ability to overcome it.
• Project confidence – At the same time, it’s important to show your child that you, the parent, are not scared of the source of their fear.
• Roleplay – Roleplaying can help your child gain a new perspective on the fear. For example, you can roleplay with a toddler who’s scared of haircuts by using tongs on a doll or Daddy or Mummy, instead of scissors. Showing them a doll or a parent getting a haircut can ease their fear.
• Provide sensory calming – A child deep in fear can benefit from you reassuring them physically. Hold your child, pat their back, and rock back and forth to give them reassurance. Once they’re out of their fearful moment, engage them in a physical activity – such as trampoline jumping or swinging – to release the tension. At the same time, verbally reassure your child.
• Change perception – Explore other ways to change your child’s perception of their fear. If your toddler has a fear of insects, read them books about bugs, worms, and butterflies, or draw pictures of insects and tell a story about them.
• Clear up misconceptions – Try to talk to your child about any misconceptions they have. If they fear water, talk through how bath time is safe for them and how the water won’t harm them.
• Help test the edge of fear – Help your child keep edging towards their fear without getting to the level of panic. Gradually, with incremental working up to the edge, they will learn to decrease their fear, and eventually conquer it. For example, you can help a child with a fear of water by rubbing water on their face and working up to splashing in a shallow puddle.
• Role models – Expose your child to role models who deal well with your child’s source of fear. An older cousin, a neighbour’s child, or a sibling can all be great role models for showing your child a new perspective. As a parent, you can also model good behaviour; for example, how to greet and play with dogs for your child who has a fear of dogs.
• Coping skills – Teach older kids specific coping skills to help them through their fear, such as deep breathing, counting down, or affirmations.

Dealing with phobias

When fears and anxieties persist and become extreme and severe, they might become phobias. Your child’s reaction to the source of their fear can include hysterics and be otherwise extreme, often lasting for more than a few months. Around three to five percent of children develop phobias. If your child has developed a phobia, it’s best to speak to a psychologist, paediatrician, and/or mental health professional about it.

Supporting your child in overcoming their fears

Fear is a natural part of life for children, and as a parent, you can support your child in overcoming their fears. Taking an empathetic and supportive approach will often be enough to assist your child in successfully dealing with their fears.

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