How can I help my child cope with fears?
Although it can take time, children can learn to face down their fears. In this video, psychologist Dr. Tamar Chansky, who specializes in anxiety, offers de-scare tactics for parents of fearful kids.
Transcript
With bees, you know, are they afraid that they're going to sting them? That as soon as they go outside, they're
gonna be attacked by bees? [GENTLE MUSIC]
All children have fears and situations that they want to avoid. Usually, children have an average of about three things
that they're afraid of at any given time. Those might be swimming pool, or bees, or dogs,
or raising your hand in front of the class. What is common, though, across all of those different situations is that what kind of cooks up fear
is not having enough information about the situation, or not having enough experience interacting in that situation
to see that you could handle it competently. So what's a parent's job? It's really about tackling those two pieces.
So the first thing is to find out what your child is afraid of in that situation. With bees, are they afraid that they're
going to sting them, that as soon as they go outside, they're gonna be attacked by bees? Well, they need to get some new information about it.
What can be really helpful is helping your child to go from this very afraid state about the bees,
or whatever the target is, to becoming an expert about it. So do some research with your child and then ask your child to teach somebody
else what they had learned. When they're in that empowered situation of telling grandparents or a neighbor about what they've learned about dogs
or bees, they shift into a much more powerful mode, and that's gonna be helpful for them
for the next step, which is actually having the experience of interacting in that situation.
Remember, it's not sink or swim. You never wanna force your child to do more than what they feel ready to do.
Progress is really made with slow and steady approach. So your child can look at bees in a jar
or out the window from a distance, and little by little, get closer. Maybe change the feeling about them by giving them a name,
talking to the bees, saying hi to them. All of those things just help your child to relax
and feel more comfortable in the situation. And then, they're going to not want to avoid that situation.
They will know that they can handle it themselves. [HEART BEATING] [AUDIO LOGO]
parenting
Browse videos by topic categories
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
ALL