Teaching and handeling Fears

Teaching without scaring

Generally speaking, most children will be able to handle this information without showing any fears from it. You will be teaching them about some scary situations, and it is possible for a child to become fearful if not handled correctly by the parent. Some suggestions for parents to teach this material without scaring their children are listed below.

·	Remind children that you are teaching them these things so that they will be safe all of the time, and not because you think that something bad will happen to them. Chances are nothing like this would ever happen, but we need to work on being safe no matter what happens, just in case.

Make sure you do not give children the impression that all the world is bad. Explain to them that most people are kind, caring people who love children and would not do anything to harm them. But there are also a few bad people out there who like to hurt children, and we need to be extra careful to keep the bad people from hurting us.

·	Remind children that by learning this, they will be safe no matter what happens. They are learning how to keep safe in all these situations, so there is no reason to be scared.

·	Avoid using words such as death or die, especially with young children. ‘Hurt’ or ‘harm’ is more effective, and something the child has dealt with. Young children do not even begin to understand or comprehend death until about age 6 or 7.

Handling any fears that may come up

Should your have child does end up with a particular fear over anything, take the following steps:

·	Always respect a child’s fears. Never indicate in any way that a child’s fears are ‘silly’ or ‘babyish’ Even if they do seem futile, they are not to the child. Always respect a child’s fears.

·	Follow these steps for putting a child’s fears at rest:

1)	Talk to the child to find out what’s really scaring them. Often times it may be something different than the obvious. Ask them questions to find out what’s really wrong.

2)	Have a talk with the child about why it scares them. Again, it may not always be the obvious.

·	Help the child to overcome their fear by putting it into real terms, and talking about how they can keep safe from it. If the child is scared about a fire happening, you can remind her that as long as she follows the rules and knows how to get out, fire will never get her.