Fear In Childhood

Fear in childhood

As we have commented, many of the children’s fears disappear over time, although there are some cases in which it endures or intensifies, so, it can affect the life of the child.

Both families and teachers are part of the maturation and cognitive development of minors, for that reason they have a very important role. Thanks to learning, the child regulates emotional answers and is able to choose how to act. Adults must take into account a very personalized education and pay attention to the perception of each child’s fear, since it is very subjective.

Regarding teachers, Marina says: "Educators must keep in mind that fearful children are more obedient, they learn more quickly social norms and prohibitions, they respect them more … Be very careful, lest to praise obedience we areconsolidating fear." 

Therefore, teachers must be on a constant alert to detect all indications that can raise skills adopted as a consequence of fear. This can interfere with the child’s life until adulthood, so not teachers should not allow him to do so.

For Gutierrez, parents must have two papers, that of fathers and mothers and coaches.

In the role of fathers and mothers, they must contribute to the son or daughter unconditional love, thus showing the paternal-philial bond that is established, while creating and maintaining a family and a stable home where there is confidence among the members of the unitfamily. This facilitates the avoidance of fears.

This healthy environment will allow the child to have a level of self-control that will facilitate the confrontation of difficult situations and that can produce fear. To create this environment, it will be necessary to establish clear standards applied without severity and with flexible and tolerant discipline. These norms must be adapted to the psychological and physical needs of the child to feel with self-confidence and convinced to control the fears or concerns that may appear.

A negative, both familiar and school environment, where there are discussions and/or excessive tensions, will increase the child’s anxiety, which can trigger that fears become an maladaptive phenomenon that alters and distorts the normal development of the child, therefore, therefore,will make it more vulnerable.

The role of coach, consists in preparing and searching, from the skills of the child, the best results you can achieve. In this way, it will be important that they drop it, to make mistakes and frustrate, in order to develop the ability to resist frustration.

It will be very productive for children, that parents offer them activities, adequate intellectual and physically to them, so that they can make them satisfactorily and feel the feeling of having achieved success. This success must be reinforced with motivation and effort on the part of the child, causing him to carry out the activity and consider it in the form of a challenge. This activity should be stimulated with sincere praise, which will help the child to obtain good self – esteem and self-confidence.

"A child who acquires little security will tend to avoid activities, so that in a circular way he will obtain less opportunities for improvement and self-control, being less prepared will continue to avoid situations …" Therefore, we understand that a balance between theChild’s capabilities and expectations about parents’ high, so as not to discourage the child.

Due to the difference of the two papers they must play, parents can find themselves confused in situations that the paternal instinct can lead to a wrong overprotection, although they know that the right thing in certain situations is to let the child stumble and get ita good learning that will forge your own personality.

In other cases, parents overprotect their children for their own unmoving fear, therefore, permeate their children of their fears and make them vulnerable and self – esteemless people. In addition, we must also take into account the lack of time with which we live, for that reason, parents, often perform the children’s tasks and do not allow them to do them, with error or without it. As Gutierrez says, when an adult does a task that the child could do, it is as if he said: "I already do it, that you cannot"

As we have mentioned earlier, both families and teachers must offer the minor a complete well -being, that is, in all areas, both in the physical, psychic, emotional and social. To do this, the environment mentioned above must be created, calm and firm, with clear standards and at the same time some flexibility. Although sometimes it is difficult to be firm and at the same time get that degree of flexibility, some teachers or parents choose to use fear as a disciplinary factor, which is a great damage to the child, since it can cause anxiety and later disorders. This resource must be eliminated from any educational practice. In the same way that coercion should be avoided so that the child faces fear, that is, if it is obliged to face fear by threating a punishment, it can produce the same effect as in the previous case, anxiety and lowself esteem. There are times, that we try to reason about the absurdity of fear, and this can be somewhat contradictory to the child, since: “If there is no monster under the bed, what do you look like for?" for instance. With which, trying to reassure in excess, can lead to think that there is really a worrying reason. 

Some authors insist that the behavior of fear should not. For this reason, the necessary attention and affection must be paid in each situation, valuing the degree of anxiety of the minor. In the same way, fear should not be ignored, but neither dramatized, and it must explain to the child that the emotion of fear is natural and the opportunity must be given to express their feelings and to know what the true reason for fear isAnd to find a solution. In this way, when we know the reason, we can offer the opportunity to face him.

To do this we will comment on two techniques that we can use:

• Systematic desensitization technique. This technique consists of gradual confrontation to the feared object. To do this, a hierarchy graduated from stimuli must be performed, of the least feared for the most feared. It is very important that the anxiety graduation to which the child is in front of it is very light, since it must go from one degree to the next, provided that the previous one has passed it without anxiety. If it is observed that it has cost him a lot, you can not go to the next degree, since it will cost you much more and this will be counterproductive, because it will have a feeling of low self – esteem.

Steps of the DS:

1. Information collection by thoroughly specifying the problem.
2. Teaching the child relaxation techniques (although with children under 8 it is difficultdiverseness of fear.
3. Raise with the child the hierarchical list of feared actions or situations.
4. Put into practice the previous step, starting with level 1 and gradually rising. The levels will be raised when the child is relaxed, so that it does not imply stress.

For this technique to work, every person who lives with the child should be involved, that is, family and teachers, since they can offer greater motivation and stimulation.

• Emotive images technique. This technique is appropriate for children over 7 years, since they must imagine a situation and work on it. As with the previous technique, a graduated hierarchy of stimuli will be established, from least to greatest fear. On this occasion, we will use as an inhibitor element an image of Al Child is motivating, for example, its preferred superhero or superheroine. The child must create a story in which they will give each character a different role. When the story is narrating, the character must go through the levels of the list, and at the same time, describing how he feels, to see if he is able to overcome it or not, and if he can move on to the next. In this way, the child faces the stimuli feared gradually, but in a playful and motivating way for himself. If the character in his story surpasses the items, it means that he too.

Another way to overcome fear can be minimizing it. As says "when we" dissect "our fears (with common sense and in a concrete way), we see that they are not so terrible."To do this, the adult must make the child reflect on fear and make him reflect on him. In this way, we reduce fear and it will be easier to face it.

On the other hand, you can develop the courage of the child. Showing that only he is the one who has the ability to face his own fear. He says: “courage is the ability to overcome fear, that is, not let ourselves be carried away by the powerful energy of emotion, which demands a denoted effort and a ability to guide us for thoughtful values and not just senses (…) is the rootof our freedom."This statement can summarize it by saying that bravery does not consist of not feeling fear, but in feeling it, knowing and overcoming it by reason.

It is as important.

To be able to develop the courage of the child we can carry out some exercises:

• Physical exercise. It is a way to strengthen the mentality of the child. It is a brain stimulation and a great antidepressant. With sport we are facing frustrations and we have to face them in the best possible way. Therefore, it is an ideal scenario to overcome certain situations that we can only find here.
• Relaxation. This practice, as we know, is antonym to anxiety and allows us to improve its self-control.
• Meditation. With this technique we apply with deep mentalization of thought to the consideration of something, or run about the means of knowing or getting it.
• Theater. With this activity, the roles can be changed and thanks to this understanding emotions of others and their own. In this way the participant must have creativity and initiative, which strengthens confidence in oneself, weakening shyness and fear.

Courage is not only necessary to overcome fears, but also to live day to day. That is the reason why families and educators must encourage the courage and autonomy of their children and/or students. A child who feels capable and brave will see the problems as challenges to overcome and will not be frustrated before them.