Fear is an alarm system that protects us from dangers and ensures our survival. The amygdala, which is the center of the feeling of fear in our brain, creates a "flight or fight" response with the signal it sends to our body and protects us from possible threats.
For example; When you see someone approaching you quickly with a cutting tool in their hand, the emotion you will feel at that moment will be fear, and your reaction will be to immediately move away from the environment or fight with that person.
So how does such a necessary and vital emotion cause phobias and It can turn into intense anxiety, have you ever thought about it?
For example, how can some people be very afraid of spiders, while others can handle that spider without hesitation? Or how do some people constantly experience the "fear of an earthquake?" while others easily return to their daily lives?
The answer to these questions is; It is hidden in the fact that the person who is afraid also feels insecurity. In other words, if we lack our basic emotion of trust, we also experience fear.
For example; Being alone, entering a foreign environment, or being separated from the mother of a 1-year-old baby makes the baby feel insecure. A baby who does not feel safe becomes afraid. He can show his fear by crying, getting angry or rejecting the need to feed.
Fear is an emotion that we are born with and reinforce by experiencing or learning.
For example; While falling from a height and a sudden loud sound are fears that we all inherit from birth, a snake is a fear that most of us learn later.
A periodic feature called animism is observed in a child between the ages of 2-4. In other words, children at this age who cannot distinguish between living and non-living things may not feel fear by considering a living object as inanimate or an inanimate object as living.
For example; For a child between these ages, a dangerous spider may be perceived as an innocent toy. However, if the child is bitten by the spider or if the feeling of fear about the spider is conveyed by his environment, the child develops a feeling of fear towards the spider.
Anxious sentences spoken to children activate the feeling of fear in children and leave the alarm system of the fear center on. That is, the child constantly feels fear in a place where he should not feel fear. He/she becomes afraid and experiences intense anxiety. This fear that the child experiences is not a healthy fear.
If you do not wash your hands, you will catch germs, if you do not eat your food, you cannot grow, if you do not obey, God will burn you, if you cry, the police will take you, if you misbehave, the doctor will give you an injection, if you do not keep quiet, I will leave you here, if you let go of my hand, thieves will kill you. Words that impose intense anxiety on the child, contain abstract content, and reinforce fear, such as "it will kidnap you" or "don't approach the dog or it will bite you", can cause phobias and anxiety disorders in the child.
Children before the age of 12 think concretely. Concepts containing abstract features have ambiguous meaning for these children. In other words, they cannot make sense of abstract concepts. Therefore, thoughts caused by uncertainty scare children. In other words, religious concepts, death, divorce or fantastic topics are quite challenging for children's cognitive perception.
For example, if you tell a 5-year-old child that if we do good deeds, we will go to heaven, if we sin, we will burn in hell, about angels wandering around or about the devil pursuing evil, the child will also think about it. Some anxiety-inducing fears may develop, such as not being able to be alone, not being able to sleep alone, fear of the dark, and the thought of imaginary beings.
In order to overcome his fear; Forcing a child who is afraid of being alone to leave him alone in the room, telling a child who is afraid of the dark "what is there to be afraid of" and belittling his fear and leaving the child in the dark, making a child who is afraid of ants come into contact with an ant without his knowledge may cause these fears to increase in the child, spread to other fears, turn into phobias or anxiety disorders.
The child, who is only afraid of the dark at first, may become afraid to even go to the toilet alone due to the parent's harmful attitudes.
There are also fears that arise from the parent's protective attitude, that is, the feeling of inadequacy. It is generally seen in cases where families with only one child or children at a very young age harm the development of social skills in the child by overprotecting their child. These children may experience intense fear of failure due to lack of self-confidence caused by the feeling of inadequacy. He may have a fear of loneliness because he believes that he cannot succeed alone. These anxiety-based fears can be combined with other fears.
Another important issue that causes fear is the exposure of children to images containing violence, fear and abstract content. If the games the child plays and the cartoons he watches are not appropriate for the child's development and age, the child may develop many types of fear, especially night fears.
The feeling of fear is necessary and vital like our other emotions. It is our wrong attitudes and the anxieties we feed that turn fear in the child into an unhealthy emotion.
If you do not want your child to develop unfounded fears and phobias, you can first prevent his fears by giving him the feeling of confidence he needs.
All children should be taught trust instead of fear. I wish them a happy childhood.
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