Baby, don't be afraid! Children's fears of preschoolers - find and neutralize

Why do these “bad” feelings remain in the memory for a long time? What is an unfinished action?

The best prevention of the consequences of stress for both adults and children is to allow them to talk freely about what happened, express their feelings and thoughts, and give free rein to spontaneous, even contradictory, reactions and experiences.

Psychologists know: it is necessary that a child or an adult can freely “pour out his soul” (as poets used to put it), reveal what worries him, find a form for what may have dimly flashed in the mind, heart or impulse ran through the body in time of a stressful episode. Careful attention to small fragments of memory is necessary so that “unfinished, temporarily stopped” actions receive their identification and their place for “unfolding and completion” (naturally, in the form of a game, story or fantasy performance). The spontaneity of recognition, expression of one's feelings, a trusting attitude towards the world and the hope that the world will accept these feelings and treat them kindly must be restored. He will not say: “Your feelings are wrong,” but, on the contrary, will give support with words and actions in a certain (phenomenological) way. The situation can be considered complete when such complementary support opens the way for the expression (outburst) of feelings. In many cases, the victim does not formulate his thoughts and does not give space to his feelings, since there is no person perceiving (listening to) these feelings. Or, on the contrary, he fears rejection, condemnation from those around him, and therefore maintains external calm for the sake of loyalty.

Education

Elena Yurievna Petrova

Webinar

WEBINAR: Working with the consequences of psychological trauma

Participate

We will give an example of such a phenomenological message for an adult below. Perhaps the form will seem too naive to the reader, but a stressful situation is often not the case where complex philosophical reflections or paradoxical proposals are appropriate. For example, a friend or loved one can confirm: “Yes, the situation was difficult,” saying that, yes, the person was very stressed or angry at that moment. That is, to give respect and RECOGNITION to a person’s experience at the level of his phenomenology of feelings, impulses, impulses experienced during a difficult stressful situation (trauma). A friend will refrain from false consolation tactics: “Just forget and don’t think about it: it’s all over” or “don’t be so afraid and worry, because everything ended well!” Such remarks seem supportive and reassuring, and their structure tells the person: “Your feelings are wrong, replace them.” It’s amazing how often, in a stressful situation, loved ones confuse support with “silencing spontaneous feelings”! If the situation was really difficult, it is better for the child or adult to express in a calm and friendly atmosphere what they really experienced at that stressful moment.

Game therapy products

The presence of an adult who will be the leader is required - a parent, a play therapist. The presenter provides the child with tools so that he can open up in a playful way, selected strictly individually. This could be: modeling from plasticine, dancing, drawing, dolls, sand, construction sets, role-playing stories, outdoor games. In addition, any other means can be selected to reveal the child’s personality, his inner world, simulate problem situations and resolve conflicts - external and internal.

Sources:

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4825459/ The Effect of Group Play Therapy on Social-Emotional Skills in Pre-School Children. Ahdieh Chinekesh, Mehrnoush Kamalian, Masoumeh Eltemasi, Shirin Chinekesh, and Manijeh Alavi
2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2989834/ Play Therapy Considerations and Applications for the Practitioner. Ritesh Kool, MD and Timothy Lawver, DO
3. O'Connor K. Theory and practice of play psychotherapy. - St. Petersburg, 2002.

The information in this article is provided for reference purposes and does not replace advice from a qualified professional. Don't self-medicate! At the first signs of illness, you should consult a doctor.

Two strategic goals in the work of a psychologist in connection with some manifestations of PTSD

When working with PTSD, two areas of work open up for a psychologist. The first direction is to identify the nature of excess stress in a person and help cope with stress. The second is to explain to parents or loved ones how to replace components of communication that are harmful to the victim with more effective and beneficial ones for everyone. These areas go well together and can be discussed in detail. First, the psychologist may present some ideas about how to help a person who has experienced stress in the past and now has signs of PTSD. Then, discuss what and how loved ones can do to support the rehabilitation process and prevent PTSD in the event of stressful (traumatic) situations in the future.

Classification of fears by age

Age fears

occur in most children at a certain age. They are fleeting, arising as a reaction to personal and mental development. Such fears pass as the child develops.

From birth to 1 year, the child is afraid of:

• loud sounds;
• people he doesn't know;
• heights;
• separation from mother;
• change of usual environment.

Between the ages of 1 and 3 years, children are afraid of:

• getting injured;
• natural phenomena (thunder, lightning, strong wind, thunderstorm);
• separation from parents.

Age-related fears from 3 to 5 years

The child is as emotional and sensitive as possible. His sphere of knowledge expands, his imagination actively develops. A characteristic fear of this age is the fear that parents will stop loving.

At 5-7 years old, a child is afraid of:

• his death;
• parental death;
• nightmares;
• injections and hospitals;
• heights, darkness, depth;
• punishments from parents;
• loneliness.

Between the ages of 7 and 11, children are afraid of:

• Fear of death of loved ones;
• Fear of bad grades;
• Fear of punishment;
• Fear of fires, robberies, attacks.
• NOT meeting parents' expectations

Goal two. Working with parents. What and how can parents do?

What can a psychologist advise loved ones if an unpleasant episode once happened to a child or adult, and they want to help as much as possible with good mental rehabilitation after this episode? Obviously, you need to somehow talk to the person and let them talk, even if it’s a child (especially if it’s a child). If it is known for sure that a difficult situation has occurred, it is useful for loved ones to show respect for emotional reactions and responses to the stress factor. I can assume that often close people act in relation to those who find themselves in a really difficult situation, using tactics familiar to them from childhood in relation to a completely different category of experience. If they are used to calming overly nervous relatives, it seems to them that, by analogy, they also need to calm those who have experienced real stress. This tactic denies the reality of the experience, and we know that the first basis for rehabilitation is for the person to be supported in the reality of his existence. Including in the reality of lived experience.

How to talk to a child after suffering stress? How to talk to a child in a situation where he is directly experiencing stress? The answer is straightforward: acknowledge the fact of stress and acknowledge the full range of feelings that the child exhibits. If the basis of these feelings is, in addition to the relevance of the emotional response to the current situation, the additional unpleasant effect of anxiety generated by PTSD, then a position of respect and acceptance on the part of loved ones is doubly necessary. This receptive and phenomenological action creates a platform for the disclosure of experience and its processing. By the way, processing can happen without the help of a psychologist. For example, if parents encourage spontaneous expression of feelings, the child may express feelings during spontaneous play. Or he may, during a night's sleep, see, concretely or in symbolic form, an old traumatic episode. Often the dream itself does the work of symbolization, identification and response; it can provide a place and form for the work of completing unfinished actions by the psyche. The work that they forgot to do during the daytime. And then, fortunately, you won’t even need the help of a psychologist.

Indications for use of the method

For small children, everything is a game. Therefore, it is impossible to highlight significant evidence, since games are the main leisure time for children. When children play, they are in a good mood and do not regard it as something unpleasant and repulsive. Game therapy products are effective in the following cases:

• phobias;
• unsociability, isolation;
• aggression towards others and animals;
• disobedience or excessive obedience;
• problems in relationships with parents, brothers and sisters, etc.;
• retardation in speech development;
• bad habits (for example, chewing a pencil while drawing);
• constant stress;
• problems with academic performance;
• problems with reading. Source: O'Connor K. Theory and practice of play psychotherapy. - St. Petersburg, 2002.

Parental influence on emotional processing after a stressful episode and on the recovery process.

As we see, the actions of loved ones towards someone who has experienced stress play a decisive role in how the process of recovery after the incident will occur. As we have already discussed, you should not simply expect that if you do not mention the troubles you have experienced, they will somehow disappear from your memory. Helping and supporting a person in a stressful situation requires from the person providing support not only goodwill or sympathy, but also a certain mental attitude. I remember a conversation with an interlocutor who talked about his mother and her reaction to stress: “My mother is a very impressionable and emotional person. As a child, I knew for sure that if I told my mother, for example, that I had cut my finger and was bleeding, she would begin to worry and worry so much that she would become simply scared for her. And therefore I tried to solve all my problems on my own. I did it so that my mother wouldn’t find out about them.” Another example points to the possible negative role impressionable relatives can play in dealing with a child or adult who is in a stressful situation: “When my grandmother saw me fall out of the tree, she became so worried that she had a heart attack.” . It is clear that under these conditions the victim received little attention to exactly what feelings he experienced at different stages of his relationship with the tree - what did he feel, what made him climb the tree, how did he experience the loss of balance and the fact that he did not cope with the task? It turned out that the child’s stress became aggression for the grandmother and for her health, a system of relationships was created in which there is a place for blocking feelings, shame and guilt.

The third case illustrates how the feelings of an adult capture the emotional experience of a child into their flow. I remember working with blocking feelings that were a consequence of shock trauma. Anya says: “I was 6 years old. I really wanted to be as dexterous as the boys. I climbed a tree and then realized that I couldn’t stay on the branch. And she began to slide off her to the ground. I was plump and not very dexterous. Then my mother saw me and rushed to me in horror. I fell to the ground. Mom grabbed me in her arms and ran home, then to the doctor. I didn’t even have bruises, but I was terribly scared and this episode resonates with some kind of indescribable tension throughout my whole body.” A detailed analysis of the situation showed that in the episode there were two completely different events that “stuck together” into one block, and therefore created the preconditions for recording the shock experience. There was the first episode in which a girl, out of excitement, climbed a tree, could not stay on the branch and deftly (“even without bruises!”) slid to the ground. It was a complete action with good contact with your body and with the physical world: with the tree, with gravity and with the earth. Such an action required the integration and completion of some new communication with surrounding people in the episode. The girl conquered her fear and coped with a difficult physical task. She did it not for the audience, but for herself. This was her process of recognition, positive emotional evaluation, joy, experiencing victory or other strong feelings. However, for mom it was a completely different episode. The mother saw her daughter falling from a tree, drew a picture of the terrible consequences (spinal injuries, bruises, disability and other horrors) and experienced an affect of horror. When the mother began to interact with her daughter, the strength of feeling on the part of the mother literally captured the girl. And this force (the horror experienced by the mother) interrupted the flow of the child’s own emotional process.

During the consultation, I initiated a small play episode, which played a crucial role in ensuring that rehabilitation proceeded freely and new creative and adaptive processes could be launched in Anya’s soul, so that the girl could return to a free flow in her emotional life. A dialogue took place in a metaphorical, playful form that should not be carried out in real life. After a careful and detailed reconstruction of the sequence of events, the therapist found it useful to invite the interlocutor to play a short rehabilitation scene in which Anya told her mother: “Mom, this is your fear and horror! I feel good after this episode with the tree. I fell smartly and I'm proud of it. Horror is not my emotion. This is your fear. Therefore, take your fear back and do with it what you want. You can throw it in the trash. Or you can remember. But this is your fear, not mine! This game had a healing effect, since blocking one’s own affect and being overwhelmed by horror turned out to come from the horror of another person, close and dear. The girl was involved in experiencing her mother’s horror and interrupted her own experiences and feelings. She was frightened by her mother’s reaction to the situation and, through “merging,” maintained her fixation for many years.

The fourth type of situation that I would like to briefly mention is the situation of parental anger. There are circumstances when an adult is so angry with the child himself for his carelessness or with another adult who caused the child’s stress that he forgets about the feelings of the victim and focuses on the educational process or on anger towards someone else.

Article:

The relevance of the chosen topic is due to the fact that senior preschool age plays a special role in the mental development of the child.
At this age, the foundations of the future personality are laid: a stable structure of motives is formed; new social needs are emerging. Psychologists call this age “tender.” Older preschoolers are open, trusting and sensitive. And therefore they are as vulnerable as possible. They are easy to offend, injure, and cause severe mental pain. Almost all childhood neuroses start at this age: stuttering, phobias, tics. The theoretical basis of my work was the works of such scientists as M.M. Bezrukikh, S.P. Efimova, I.V. Dubrovina, V.I. Garbuzov, A.I. Zakharov, E.B. Kovaleva and others.

The purpose of the work was to determine the influence of the organization of psychocorrectional work on the level of anxiety and fears in children of senior preschool age.

To achieve this goal, the following tasks were set:

1. To identify psychological and pedagogical aspects of the manifestation of fear and childhood anxiety.
2. To study methods of diagnosis and the possibility of overcoming anxiety and childhood fears in preschool age
3. Develop a correction program to overcome fears and anxiety in children
4. Conduct re-diagnosis of the level of anxiety and fears in children; compare diagnostic results before and after correctional classes with preschoolers.

Object of study: the emotional sphere of children of senior preschool age. Subject of research: features of psychocorrectional work with fears and anxiety in children of senior preschool age

In my work I used the following research methods and techniques:

• “Drawing of a Family” (Taylor K.);
• “Non-existent animal” technique (M.Z. Drukarevich);
• anxiety test (R. Temple, V. Amen, M. Dorki);
• “Cactus” test (M.A. Panfilova)
• test “Fears in houses” (A.I. Zakharov and M. Panfilova)

In my work I use the following principles of psychocorrectional work:

• The first principle is the unity of correction and development. This means that the decision on the need for correctional work is made only on the basis of a psychological and pedagogical analysis of the internal and external conditions of the child’s development.
• The second principle is the unity of age and individual development. This means an individual approach to the child in the context of his age development.
• The third principle is the unity of diagnosis and developmental correction. The tasks of correctional work can be understood and set only on the basis of a complete diagnosis and assessment of the immediate probabilistic prognosis of development, which is determined based on the child’s zone of proximal development.
• The fourth principle is the activity principle of carrying out correction. This principle determines the choice of means, ways and means of achieving the goal.
• The fifth principle is the approach in correctional work to each child as gifted. This principle means that children with whom psychocorrectional work is carried out should not be perceived as “second-class” children.

I also use the following methods to correct fear:

1. Playing with fear;
2. Drawing fear;
3. Verbalization of fear (fairy tales, short stories, scary stories).

Based on these data, I compiled a set of correction techniques, which includes:

1. Techniques based on the use of the game method: “Playing with the dark”, “Leapfrog”, “Blind Walk”, “Guess who I’m afraid of” (by the first and last letter).
2. Methods based on the use of isotherapy: “Deal with the drawn fear”, “I’m not afraid.”
3. Methods based on the use of fairy tale therapy: “A fairy tale about fear.”

Games and their role in the psychocorrection of preschool children

Games for preschoolers provide great opportunities for correcting the emotional state and personal qualities.

Different types of games are successfully used for correctional purposes when working with children.

I use games to reduce tension, muscle tension, fears and anxiety, and increase self-confidence: “Pump and Ball”, “Shadow”, “Mood and Walk”, “Ivan Tsarevich and the Gray Wolf”, “Gossamer”.

To eliminate fears of unexpected influence, closed space and loneliness, the games “Name”, “Freeze”, “Hide and Seek”, “Blind Man’s Bluff”, “Train Train” are included.

Games aimed at the ability to determine your mood using color “The color of my mood”, “Balloon”.

To overcome confusion and embarrassment when answering, the following games were used: “Throw the ball, say a bad, scary, unpleasant word”, “Throw the ball, say a good, nice, pleasant word”, “Indian Trail”.

Games aimed at removing emotional blocks and activating the decision-making process: “Pass a scary face around each other,” “Pass something nice around each other,” “The Fox and the Hares.”

Games aimed at overcoming the fears of fairy-tale characters and eliminating the fear of attack by “Koschei”, “Baba Yaga”.

Games aimed at actualizing fear “Journey to a magical land.”

Games to correct anxiety, develop the ability to act in difficult situations “An approaching holiday”, “I came (went) late to kindergarten”, “Once upon a time in kindergarten...”

Games to relieve emotional distress from nightmares “I dreamed”, “I did it”

Games aimed at teaching constructive solutions to situations “Fan of solutions”, “Resentment towards ...”, “If I were dad (mom)”

Game for practicing fear and anxiety “Draw your fear and voice it”

Games aimed at teaching a safe lifestyle, the ability to manage oneself in difficult, frightening situations “Lost in the forest”, “Staying alone at home”, “Lost on the street”, “Broken a plate”

I selected the following gaming techniques: “Playing with the Dark”, “Leapfrog”, “Guess What I’m Afraid of”, “Blind Walk”.

Corrective work is carried out not with fear, but with the child’s personal attitude towards the reasons that gave birth to him.

Art therapy for the correction of fears and anxiety in children of preschool and primary school age

First of all, drawing and depicting are associated with joy, which is why I use this method in psychocorrectional work with children who have mental wounds, unresolved internal conflicts, and anxious children.

While drawing, fears are updated, confidence increases, fine motor skills develop, and anxiety decreases. Then there is a discussion of the drawing, during which the child is asked to either destroy the fear (tear it, crush it, throw it away) - i.e. defeat him, or make friends with him: draw him as not scary. Most often, children chose positive ways to solve the problem, that is, they wanted to make friends with fear so that it would no longer frighten them.

Drawing out one's fears brings the child out of inaction, closedness, and into meaningful action - this is more than just calming down.

I also use techniques based on the use of isotherapy to relieve feelings of constant threat emanating from the outside world in children of senior preschool age; overcoming anxiety, fear, through a graphic representation of your fear. Graphic representation of fears requires volitional efforts and removes the anxious expectation of their realization. In the process of drawing, there is a “revival” of fear, but at the same time an awareness of the conditional nature of its image.

The “Deal with Fear” technique - children must draw what they are most afraid of. And after that it is proposed to “deal with” the fear: crumple, cut the drawing or paint over it with another paint.

Fairytale therapy. The techniques of composing, retelling and analyzing fairy tales were used. Together with the children, we come up with a happy ending to a scary story or endow the negative hero with traits that would evoke sympathy for him or a smile. (They put Baba Yaga in high-heeled shoes, but she doesn’t know how to walk in them and falls all the time).

Psycho-gymnastics is a method of practical psycho-correction based on play. Therefore, psycho-gymnastics is accessible and interesting to preschoolers. Includes mimic and pantomime sketches (for example, the sketch “Kittens”, “Night Sounds”), games to express individual qualities of character and emotions: courage, kindness, etc. (study “Fear”, “Evil Tongue”, the game “Bunnies and elephants”), training in modeling standard situations (“Home Alone”, “Oh, oh, my stomach hurts”). The exercises used are aimed at teaching elements of the technique of expressive movements when studying emotions and acquiring skills in self-relaxation.

I include relaxation exercises in the structure of the classes, which helped prepare the body and psyche for activity, focus on one’s inner world, and relieve excess and nervous tension.

Functional music - calming and restorative - was used to reduce emotional tension and switch attention.

To successfully implement work in this area, I carried out work to improve the subject-development environment of the teacher-psychologist’s office, and also made a large number of visual aids.

At the final stage of the project, a final diagnosis was carried out. To obtain objective data, the same techniques were used as at the preparatory stage. Diagnostics showed the success of the corrective work. In all pupils, anxiety decreased to an average level (from 20 to 50%) - this is healthy anxiety.

Thus, the result of the project was:

1. Increasing children's self-confidence.
2. Reduced anxiety.
3. Reducing the number of fears.
4. Developed ability to control oneself in difficult situations.
5. Knowledge of ways to relieve muscle and emotional tension.

And in conclusion, I would like to talk about further prospects for work in this area.

1. Development of a correctional and developmental program to reduce anxiety and fears in children of senior preschool age.
2. Development, together with children and parents, of a “Book of Fairy Tales” (writing fairy tales) for the development of the emotional sphere of preschool children and the correction of high levels of anxiety and fears.
3. Creation of a “Seclusion Corner” in the psychologist’s office to relieve negative experiences and harmonize the emotional-volitional sphere.
4. Further increasing the professional competence of a teacher-psychologist
5. Dissemination of work experience in various forms.
6. Enriching the subject-developmental environment for correctional and developmental work with kindergarten students.
7. Further correction of increased levels of anxiety and fears in children of older preschool age.
8. Conducting individual consultations for parents of children in order to increase parental competence when working with fears.