Recommendation on the prevention of childhood fears
Children's fears ... What is it and how to fight them? Generally, the reaction of adults to children's fears can be very different. Some parents begin to panic and immediately taken to give the favorite child sedation. Others simply did not pay any attention to the feelings of the child, believing that over time it will pass by itself. Still others are beginning to criticize and even punish any innocent child, believing that all the fears he has invented in order to get certain concessions in the discipline and additional privileges.
And only a small part of the parents make the right decisions and calls for the qualified help of a child psychologist. But this is absolutely correct, because ignoring the children's fears can significantly exacerbate the situation and lead to severe complications such as child neurosis that requires serious treatment, often in the hospital. Timely work of psychologist with children's fears will help to eradicate the problem at the very beginning of its development.
Even if you happen to avoid neurosis, fears of a child left unattended, can cause significant harm to the child's psyche. After all, many phobias and complexes inherent in adults, have their origin in childhood.
The essence of the child's fear
What is the children's fears and what is the nature of their origin? Fear - is the emotional reaction of the psyche to the impact of threats. However, as the analysis of children's fears, their specificity is that a real threat, as a rule, does not exist, and the very emergence of the problem is caused by a very rich and colorful children's imagination. The source of the child's imagination is his environment, particularly adults, too emotionally discussing the problems of children in the presence of fire, natural disasters, accidents and other accidents.
Children's night terrors can be caused by watching horror movies. Often we think that a child of his own affairs and do not pay any attention to what is happening on the screen. But in fact, it seems very deceptive - baby like a sponge, absorbing all the information. And since he did not always fully able to distinguish truth from fiction, it subsequently leads to childhood fears.
The causes of fear in children
Also, there are many different prerequisites for the development of fears in children. The causes of their often hidden much deeper than it seems. Where adults do not guess to look for them. Psychologists call the main ones:
Whatever it may seem strange, but urbanization has brought the huge contribution to the increased frequency of cases of childhood fears
A child may feel lonely, tired of the constant abundance of new, often completely unnecessary his information. In addition, urban children tend to often suffer from hypertrophic parental care, which is also very adversely affects the child's psyche, making the child insecure and fearful.
Lack of communication with adults is also far from harmless
No computer games, television and the most expensive toys can not replace a child living human communication. The absence of close emotional contact with parents in half of all cases the cause of the children's fears. Very often, for their complete elimination of simply spending more time with the child. And not just located there, namely, to communicate: to make joint trips, play, read.
Psychologists have noticed a certain pattern: children who do not receive the necessary for their age physical activity, more often faced with the problem of occurrence of their fears.
The dominant behavior of the mother is also a cause of childhood fears
If a woman takes a leading role in the family, allows itself to aggressive behavior in relation to the rest of the family, fears of a child in such a case it is provided.
Brawl in the house and almost inevitably lead to the emergence of strong children's fears
The child is not fully aware of what is happening in his family, but the fact that something is not right, it feels great. And these concerns are embodied in fear, even though the true causes of childhood fears and remain a mystery for parents.
Diagnosis of childhood fears
An important component part of the work of the psychologist with children's fears is their diagnosis and identifying the causes. As a rule, for children's psychological diagnosis of children's fears, there is no difficulty. They are all very similar. Each psychologist has its own method of identifying children's fears. But in general, in essence, they are all very similar and based on the basic features of a typical child's psyche.
Absolutely any method of diagnosis of childhood fears aims to identify not only the species of mental illness, but also the cause of its occurrence. Some experts use for this painting, others - modeling, while others prefer to talk to the baby. It is difficult to name the best diagnosis of childhood fears, since all these methods yield equally effective results, and the choice of method should take into account a number of individual psychological and age characteristics of each child.
Classification of childhood fears are two main types:
'Dumb' fears
This is when the child himself denies there is a problem, but it is absolutely clear to parents. These often include fear of animals, loud noises, strangers and unfamiliar environment.
Fears - "invisibility"
Here, the opposite is true. Baby understands their fears, but adults, in contrast, do not notice any signs of the presence of a child. Invisible fears are much more diverse, psychologists have identified a great number of them. We present the most common:
The fear of punishment for a child of any wrongdoing
Moreover, the error may be so slight that adults simply did not pay her any attention. The presence of such fears indicates serious problems in the relationship of the child with their parents, sometimes may result from overly strict treatment of the baby. In the event of such a fear parents have to seriously think about their behaviors with the child and to revise it in order to avoid serious problems.
Fear of blood
A lot of kids in the form of a small droplet of blood appeared from skinned knee, begin to cry so hard that you would think that the wound - it's not small scratch, and filmed live skin, which, among other things, a pack of salt sprinkled. In fact, the child is not screaming in pain, and in panic. It is absolutely uncontrollable child is feeling, so laugh at him is not necessary. Fear of blood due to the often banal ignorance of physiology - the baby seems that all the blood spilled and he will die. Indeed, fear of blood is derived from the fear of death.
The death of parents - is also quite common kind of childhood fears are often generated by the same adults.
As you can see for yourself, is not always the fact that the child does not tell parents about their fears, it means that they are not really. In that case, if the parents deny the phenomenon of children's fears as such, and therefore does not see the need to work with them, they may be asymptomatic. However, in this case a negative impact on the child's mind will be many times more difficult than if the parents have recognized the problem and help the child overcome childhood fears.
However, parents who themselves have the doubtful nature and excessive impressionability may also exacerbate the situation by creating unnecessary commotion around her, thereby concentrating the attention of the baby and fixing the current problems. But working with children's fears is precisely to identify the fears and cause the child to forget them, not focusing on them to the attention of the child.
Sometimes there are situations in which the parents can not help, at the subconscious level, can project their own fears onto their children. This is usually the fear of the death of parents, sooner or later a child is experiencing any fear of punishment (most common in men). As a rule, if the parents can find their common child fears, overcome them becomes much easier and faster.
We identify the causes of childhood fears
As already mentioned, in order to successfully overcome the fears of a child, you need to use psychoanalysis to find out their causes. At home, you can take a few simple, affordable techniques for parents to identify children's fears, which give a very accurate picture of the nature of the problem:
Painting
Even if your child does not have special artistic talent, you can ask him to draw what his worries. However, the request must be in a very soft tactful manner and in any case should not wear mandative character. Molded from clay suitable for those children who do not like to draw. Recommendations parents in this case are identical.
If the above method does not help identify the causes of childhood fears, you can offer your child to come up with a story in which you will learn exactly what worries baby
As a rule, this method is ideal for determining the children's fears after five years. Be sure to write down the story in the paper. Firstly, thus rendering produced fears that the task of absolutely any diagnostic techniques, and secondly, you can come in handy in the future, in case of repeated occurrence of anxiety and fear in the child.
Another effective way of how to conquer fear in children, a conversation with a child on his exciting topic. An adult, who will talk with the child, should seriously approach this issue and consider in advance a list of questions he asks the child. Also note that all questions were asked in the available for children's understanding level. Do not rush the child to answer, you must give him time to think. In no case can focus on any one reason, since it may lead to a new fear.
The classification of children's fears by age
There are different classifications of children's fears, understandable only to psychologists, so give them all does not make sense. However, the following are the most comprehensive list of common childhood fears, taking into account age features, because this syndrome is different in different age categories.
Children's fears in children from 0 to 3 years
Strange as it may seem, but the children of the first year of life are also subject to children's fears
For example, it may be the fear of the new situation. Surely every mother noticed how the baby should he get into an unfamiliar room.
Also, the kids spread the fear of losing my mother
It is so common that describe the problem simply does not make sense. However, unfortunately, it is often mistaken for such fears and whims of spoiled children.
At the age of one to three years, new children's fears, which have become the unwitting culprits parents crumbs
For example, fear of the dark, when the child is afraid of "babaykoy" and other mythical characters.
There is also the fear of a child left alone even for a minute
As a rule, it occurs because of the fact that the elementary needs of the baby in the parents in the first year of life for ordinary adults felt spoiled, and the child was deprived of constant close contact with my mother.
Night terrors. In most cases, they are continued fear darkness. Remember that watching some modern cartoons can significantly aggravate the situation.
Children's fears in children 3-5 years
For the age group of three to five years are most common fears such as:
Panic fear of loneliness;
Fear of the dark.
Also at this age, some parents were surprised to notice that their crumbs appeared fear of closed spaces, for example, a child may refuse to go into the elevator, or start demanding to leave open the door to the bedroom. Psychocorrection of the child's fear is obligatory, otherwise this fear may emerge in adulthood, turning claustrophobic.
Children's night terrors at this age is called fairy-tale characters as a child at that age equates them with very real people.
Fears of children 5-7 years
At the age of 5-7 years old children's syndromes of anxiety are much more diverse. The horizon of the child expands, and with it, the little man in your life may be new fears.
For example, night terrors in 7 years become a new form - the child begins to be afraid to fall asleep, as in a dream he sees the terrible dreams. And this is a very serious load on the nervous system of the child, so the correction of night terrors 7 years simply obligatory.
There is the fear of punishment. As already mentioned, this is a very alarming signal that the relationship between parents and children is not all right. Psychocorrection children's fear of punishment should begin with a change in the approach to the process of education of the parents of the child. It has long been recognized that the physical effects on the baby brings nothing but harm.
Under the influence of adults talking and watching television in the child can be overwhelming fear of animals, mostly dogs. By the way, adults are often reinforce this fear, unnecessarily sponsoring a child.
At this age a child is faced with the sad phenomenon of human life, like death. However, to realize the end of the child still can not, and so the baby appears the fear of his own death, the death of parents.
In addition, the fear of death of the child, as a consequence, entails the emergence of fear of all sorts of fires, natural disasters, accidents and so on.
Fears of children 7-11 years
The children in the age range of 7 to 11 years there are new fears of a new stage in their lives.
Fear of school.
The fear of the collective, caused by a complex adaptation.
Fears of obtaining a poor evaluation.
As part of the correction of children's fears psychologists give some very useful recommendations to parents. It is scientifically proven that 95% of all cases of childhood fears directly or indirectly involved in this mom and dad baby.
Recommendation on the prevention of childhood fears
Care for the psychological health of the child should be started even before his birth
Child psychologists noted an interesting pattern - the calmer of the pregnancy, the fewer children in the future there are any children's fears. So try as banal as it may sound, the less nervous during pregnancy.
Advice for moms: whatever high office you may do at work, remember that a child - it's not your slave, he does not need a strict manager, but gentle and loving mother
It has been observed that children of power, fear of strict mothers are much more common and more severe form. Treatment of childhood fears are very complicated and often require the use of pharmacological agents.
In no case can not allow the child felt abandoned and unnecessary
Even if you spend most of the time at work, or you have a younger child is born, or for any other reason you do not force remains necessary, overcoming ourselves, pay attention to the child. In the absence of adequate treatment of children's fears, feeling of self-induced "unnecessary", in their teens, this problem may cause a child suicidal.
However, child and instill a sense of exclusivity and it is not necessary
Selfish thinking is also often leads to a fear of losing its exclusive position in the nature of obsession.
Try not to limit the child with peers - is privёdёt rise to fears of school life.
Never compare your child with other children
In no case can not give an example of the successes kid who made his peers. This will most likely lead to a decrease in a child's self-esteem.
