facing our (kids') fears

Part of raising well-functioning kids is to help them face their fears. This can prove more difficult when children have highly irrational fears, but I suppose I've heard it said that fear is fear, no matter how rational.

What have my children been afraid of in their "youth"? Funny you should ask. Kate's list is long, and has included smoke detectors (stemming from when one spoke to her in the middle of the night), "jo-joes" (the fuzz between one's toes) specifically when floating in bath water, which then lead to her fear of baths for a good two months (we washed her in the sink), the dark, and lady bugs (for no particular reason). Before she was admitted into the hospital for an outpatient surgery, Kate drew pictures of herself falling off a cliff, and wrote "I'm terrifid." (Yay for good, free, drawing therapy!) Elia has been afraid of God (as explained last week), and after an unfortunate choice of television show (Pushing Daisies) she is now afraid of being alone and of asphyxiation by plastic (simply because people in the pilot episode kept getting suffocated to death with plastic bags). She started screaming half way through the show, but I encouraged her to finish it, thinking she'd see it turns out well. But this was, apparently, not "the best" decision on my part. Nor, after a night of ZERO sleep as she came in and out of our room crying all night, was threatening her that if she did that again I'd stand by her bed with a bag on my head. I never said I was a good parent.

Some childhood fears are good in that they help protect kids from dangerous situations. In a Kids Health article, they write that feelings of fear in children are not only normal, and may change frequently as the child ages, they're also necessary as they help prepare kids to handle "unsettling experiences and challenging situations of life." Fear in itself is not bad, and can be a tool to alert us to be more cautions in certain situations. I guess the idea is that if our kids can learn coping strategies for their "smaller" fears, they will in turn be able to use the same strategies on their bigger fears.

So if threatening our children with the very thing that scares them is not a good approach, what else can be done? In Dr. Michele Borba's list of ten ways to help kids manage fears, she tops the list with "monitoring scary screen consumption." Oops. In my defense, I had to force my kids to watch Frozen, as they weren't sure it wouldn't be too scary. Frozen. The good doctor also goes on to talk about empowering our kids with calming strategies, self-talk, and feelings of control in fearful situations.

Now that the seemingly less significant fears of youth have passed, we're finding our kids' fears are based more in reality. Like of their parents' dying in a car accident, of someone shooting a gun at their school, and of a home burglary. While I can promise Kate that a lady bug and jo-joes won't cause her any harm, I can't promise her that none of her worst fears will come true. Life is all about calculated risk, no? And while the odds of such things happening are not high, unfortunately no one--not even a parent--can guarantee their child an unaffected life. But either we give ourselves up to fear, or we teach our kids how to be smart and to live without--or at least through--their fears.

And so we will continue to do a bang-up job monitoring what images they see on their screens, having open discussions about real risks and safety, and encouraging them to express their feelings. And in doing so, hopefully we will be providing comforting support...just preferably not in the middle of the night.