Consultation for parents “Children’s fears of 4-5 year olds and ways to deal with them.” Kindergarten teachers, school teachers and educators

Classification of fears in children

As children, most of us experienced fears. Moreover, they were often associated not with real danger, but with our fantasies. Psychologists have identified three main types of fears in preschoolers:

Fears that arise after experiencing stressful situations (for example, after going to the doctor, being stung by a bee, etc.).
Fears arising from fantasy. The imagination of preschoolers is so well developed that they involuntarily transfer the events of fairy tales and cartoons into real life, while adding new details.
Fears arising from suggestion. Sometimes, in an effort to quickly achieve the desired behavior from a child, we intimidate him: “Go to sleep quickly, otherwise a little gray wolf will come and bite you on the side,” “Don’t run far, otherwise someone else’s uncle will take you,” “If you want, stay here, but I'm leaving". Of course, having heard such a warning, the child will most likely comply with your request. However, if we constantly remind a child of the possible danger lurking around every corner, he may develop increased anxiety.

Each age is characterized by certain fears. Babies are afraid of separation from their mother and loud noises. After 7 months, children usually develop a fear of strangers and new surroundings. After 2 years, children may be afraid of doctors, monsters, and loneliness. In preschool age, fears of the dark, punishment, and death may arise. Fears are part of normal child development. There is no need to be afraid or ashamed of this. Our task is to help the child overcome his fear.

Causes of children's fears

Congenital characteristics, temperament, personality traits (increased emotionality, sensitivity, anxiety).
Stress. For example, illness, parental divorce, death of a loved one, injury.
Unfavorable family environment. Parents' scandals, drinking family members, and insufficient attention to the child may be the causes of his anxiety.
Overprotection. Total control over the child and excessive care can lead to the fact that the child begins to be afraid of everything.
Mental disorder. If the child's fears are too strong or do not correspond to his age, the help of a specialist is needed.

Causes of fear:

Neurotic fears

appear against the background of a traumatic event. They can become entrenched in the child’s mind for a long time, adversely affecting his psycho-emotional state and development.

Therefore, the main reason is a traumatic event and the fear that it may happen again.

However, often children are frightened not by the incident itself, but by the excessive reaction to it from loved ones.

More details about the reasons:

A reminder of a possible unpleasant and frightening event for the child.
Seeing or hearing about frightening events.
Intimidation by parents by various non-existent characters.
Features of the child's nervous system.
Fear is the main cause of fear. Causes of fear.
Sudden, loud scream.
Panic, hysteria of one of the parents.
Unexpected bite or attack by an animal.
Accident.
Burial of loved ones.
Strict prohibitions and threats of punishment.
Motor limitations.
Overdeveloped imagination.
Frequent scandals and conflict situations in the family.
Social rejection by peers.
Imitation, when someone close to you is afraid of something and the child adopts this fear.
Excessive anxiety and fears of parents.
Excessive concern.
Single-parent family.

How to help your child overcome fear

As we have already said, fears in childhood are normal. But while they may seem funny and stupid to us, for a child this is a real problem. Let your child feel that you can be trusted, do not laugh at his fears. If you want to help your child overcome fear, do not ignore it, listen to your baby, let him know that he is safe.

Next, we will take a closer look at the most common fears in preschool children and ways to overcome them.

Psychotherapy of children's fears

Overcoming fears is considered one of the most significant challenges that children have ever faced. Courage is a character trait that can be developed through the support of parents. A child’s complaints cannot be ignored. It is important to treat them with understanding, even if you think that the fear he describes is groundless.

If you feel that you cannot help your child or cope with his fear, it is better to consult a psychologist.

Children's fears are often considered a temporary phenomenon that goes away with age. However, suppressed, not accepted and not resolved childhood fear in adulthood can turn into neurosis or psychosomatic diseases!

Of course, the most effective method of dealing with fear is psychotherapy. The main condition for choosing a method is to take into account the child’s wishes and preferences.

Fear of the dark

Most of us are afraid of the dark. In the dark, children feel defenseless and fear of the unknown appears. To reduce your child's anxiety before bed, leave the hallway door open or turn on a night light. Let your child control the lighting in his room. To make your child friends with the dark, go for walks in the dark, discuss what interesting things can be seen in the dark (stars, fireflies, etc.).

Types of fears

The variety of fears in children can be divided into two groups: daytime and nighttime.

Daytime Fears

Children have daytime fears:

Natural (based on the instinct of self-preservation): fear of death, darkness, heights, animals, elements, loud sounds, confined spaces, pain.
Social: fear of loneliness, people, punishment, being late, condemnation.
Situational: fear as a consequence of a traumatic situation (a child who almost drowned in a lake is now afraid to swim even in the pool).
Personal: fears are associated with the individual characteristics of the child (shyness, isolation, anxiety).
Imaginary: fear of monsters, Green Hand, Black Mask, etc.
Obsessive fears or phobias: strong and overwhelming fear associated with some event or phenomenon in a person’s life.

Night terrors

Night terrors in children can manifest themselves in the form of nightmares, sleepwalking and sleep talking. Scary dreams can recur and haunt a child almost every night. The process of the appearance of such dreams is associated with the work of the brain, which continues to work at night and processes information received during the day.

Research has shown that approximately 3% of all children on the planet under 14 years of age suffer from night terrors.

Causes of night terrors in children:

sensitivity, anxiety and suspiciousness of children, as well as their parents;
suffered stress;
change of usual environment;
painful condition, fever;
accidents, fear;
unfavorable family situations (quarrels between father and mother, divorce);
emotional alienation of parents;
increased demands on the child, frequent physical punishment.

Most often, nightmares haunt children from 5 to 12 years old.

The child begins to be afraid to fall asleep alone and asks to leave the light on or lie down with one of the parents. He sleeps restlessly, tosses and turns, and sometimes even screams. In the morning he feels lethargic, overwhelmed, depressed, and begins to be capricious. Parents also begin to get nervous, irritated, and take it out on the child. In the evening, everything repeats all over again - restlessness, growing anxiety, the child’s reluctance to go to sleep.

To prevent the situation from becoming critical and the child’s night fears from developing into pathology, the help of a neurologist or psychotherapist is needed. Parents should follow the recommendations that will be discussed later.

Fear of monsters

To make it clear to a child that monsters do not exist, you should not try to explain it logically. For a child, his fantasies seem much more real than your arguments. Before going to bed, look with your child under the bed and in all other places where, in your child’s opinion, a monster might be hiding. A fun ritual that drives away monsters can help a child get rid of fear. You can also try to describe the monster so that it seems funny and absurd to the child. Funny can't be scary.

Nightmares

Children often don't want to go to bed because they're afraid they'll have a nightmare. Psychologists believe that dreams are in many ways a reflection of our lives. The cause of nightmares may be the child’s negative emotional state. Try to protect your child from an overabundance of information and impressions, from swearing and scandals, praise the child more. To make your baby fall asleep easier, spend more time outdoors. Stay next to him until he falls asleep, put his favorite toy next to him. If your child has nightmares too often, you should seek help from a specialist. To deal with this problem, you can attend individual sessions with a psychologist in children's. Sand therapy will also help relieve anxiety and overcome a child’s fears.

According to research, the most common characters in nightmares among preschool children are the Wolf and Baba Yaga. These characters are the personification of evil, strict, irritable adults whom the child is afraid of in real life.

Diagnostics

Identifying children's fears at a young age usually takes 1 session with a psychologist. The older the child, the more difficult the diagnosis, as secrecy, mistrust and other age-related behavior patterns appear.

A wide variety of methods are used for diagnosis in preschool and primary school age.

"Houses"

The most common and accurate method for identifying children's fears, compiled by M. A. Panfilova and A. I. Zakharov based on research by M. Kuzmina. Her table “Children's fears by age (normal)” was presented above. The child is given two sheets of paper with houses drawn on them. One is black, gloomy, terrifying. The other is colorful, bright, cheerful, beautiful. The teacher-psychologist lists the fears from the table, and the baby “settles” them among these two houses. Before this, he needs to explain: what goes into black is what is scary, and what goes into multi-colored is what is not scary. Next, the number of phobias in the first house is calculated. If it exceeds the norm, the child is sent for correction.

"Silhouette of a Man"

Author - L. Lebedeva. The technique determines the emotional state by color choice, according to Luscher. The child is asked to draw and color a person (or is given a ready-made outline). The presence of fears is indicated by the predominance of black, gray and brown.

"Drawing of a family"

Authors: G. T. Khomentauskas and V. K. Loseva. The technique allows you to track panic experiences generated by the situation in the family. The location of the child in the picture, the presence of other relatives, whether they are close or far from him, whether they are holding his hand or not, the color of his clothes and much more are assessed. Diagnostics is most often used by family psychotherapists.

Diagnostic questionnaires are also used:

P. Baker and M. Alvord;
G. P. Lavrentieva and T. M. Titarenko.

I. V. Samoilenko suggests using fairy tale therapy for diagnosis. A fairy tale with a problematic ending is read out, which the child must figure out. If everything ends well for him, it is unlikely that he has problems with phobias.

In addition to all these methods, parents and educators are asked to observe the child for 3-5 days. If he suffers from phobias, certain markers will indicate this:

frequent mood changes;
muscle tension, muscle convulsions in the face and neck;
excessive excitability, nervousness;
tearfulness, moodiness;
lack of appetite;
sleep disorders;
difficulty concentrating.

Polysomnography is used to diagnose nightmares. Using computer programs, the child is monitored while he sleeps. The result is a hypnogram containing information about the quality and structure of sleep, the quantity and duration of stages and phases. Based on this, a conclusion is made about the presence or absence of pathology and treatment is prescribed.

Fear of separation from a significant adult

Parents (or people replacing them) are the closest and dearest people to a child. When a parent leaves somewhere, the baby fears that mom or dad may not return to him. This situation often arises when a child just starts going to kindergarten and goes through a period of adaptation. To help your child cope with separation anxiety, when you go somewhere, be sure to say goodbye to him, explain where you are going and when you will return, otherwise the baby may think that he was abandoned. If you keep your promises and come on time, the child will understand that his loved one always returns to him, and will no longer be afraid of your leaving.

Fear of loneliness

Some babies get used to being inseparable from their mother and are afraid to be left alone even for a short time. To help your child overcome fear, start teaching him to be alone (in the good sense of the word). When your child learns to play alone, gradually move away from him. First it may be the other end of the room, then the next room. Leave for a short time so that the baby does not have time to get scared. Over time, your child will get used to your temporary absence.

You can help your child get rid of fears only if you understand how serious this problem is for the child. Remember that your baby expects acceptance and support from you.

Fear of animals

Children, like adults, can be afraid of animals. This fear is completely justified, because we don’t know what to expect from other people’s pets. You should not ignore such fears and laugh at your child if he is afraid of any animal. Try to support him. Show your child an example of interacting with animals. But don't expect quick results. The child will get rid of fear if for some time he sees you calmly petting your neighbor’s dog. Tell us what you can and cannot treat our little brothers.

Recommendations for parents

Helping a child cope with his fears means understanding his feelings, hearing his own “I” and strengthening self-confidence.

Joint activities of the child with adults and peers help to cope with children's fears: walks, games, visiting a puppet theater, circus, sporting events. The more interests children have and the more varied their lives, the less they will be fixated on their fears, concerns and anxieties.
Take an active part in your child's life, but don't try to control everything. The child must trust you and share his secrets with you.
Create a comfortable, calm atmosphere at home in which the child feels loved and protected.
In no case should you frighten your child with fairy-tale characters for the purpose of discipline (“If you behave badly, Baba Yaga will take you away, the dragon will drag you away”, etc.).
Do not discuss disasters, accidents, stories about ghosts and the other world in front of your child. Children are impressionable, and such conversations remain in the memory for a long time. Many, even when they become adults, still remember what scared them in childhood and what scary stories adults told.
Teach your child to a clear daily routine and follow it even on weekends and holidays.
Reduce the amount of time your child spends on gadgets.
Do not make fun of the child’s fear, do not try to explain to him that there is nothing to be afraid of. It’s better to say, “I’m with you, I understand that you’re scared.”
Be patient. Most fears go away on their own with age. The main thing is to prevent them from poisoning the child’s life and developing into pathology.
The psychology of children's fears is such that most of them are born in the family. Pay attention to your own psychological well-being. If you yourself are naturally anxious and restless, try not to pass these feelings on to your child.
Don't ignore your child's fears. If you don’t know what to do or how to help your child, seek advice from a psychologist.

Treat children's fears as an inevitable phenomenon of a child's growing up, without unnecessary worry, condemnation, and even more so, ridicule. If a child feels the love and care of adults, and is sure that he will be supported and protected in any situation, then he will be able to independently win the fight against his fears.

Fear of death

Preschool age is the time when a child begins to become aware of things related to death. Children may spot a dead animal on the street, accidentally hear about someone's death in an adult conversation, or experience the death of a loved one. Realizing that all living things eventually die, a child can experience extreme stress. If the child himself talks about the fact that he is upset by someone’s death, you have a great chance to help the child deal with his fear. Don’t hide from the answer, explain to your child that death is something that happens to everyone and there is no need to be afraid of it. If a stressful event related to death has occurred in a child’s life, but the child does not talk about his experiences, encourage him to express his feelings through creativity (art therapy, sand therapy, skozkotherapy) and play. The fear of death in a preschool child may not appear immediately after a traumatic event. Be attentive to your child, show delicacy.

Children's fears from 5 to 7 years

Authors : Zakharov A. I.

One of the characteristic features of senior preschool age, as already noted, is the intensive development of abstract thinking, the ability to generalize, classify, understand the categories of time and space, and search for answers to the questions: “Where did everything come from?”, “Why do people live?” At this age, the experience of interpersonal relationships is formed, based on the child’s ability to accept and play roles, anticipate and plan the actions of another, understand his feelings and intentions. Relationships with people become more flexible, versatile and at the same time purposeful. A system of values (value orientations), a sense of home, kinship, and an understanding of the importance of family for procreation are formed.

Until the age of 5, boys can solemnly declare to their mother their desire to marry her when they grow up, and girls can marry their father. From 5 to 8 years old, they “get married” or “get married” mainly to peers, thus reproducing in a play situation the form of adult relationships. In general, children of senior preschool age are characterized by sociability and the need for friendship. There is a noticeable predominance in the kindergarten group of communication with peers of the same sex, acceptance among whom is essential for self-affirmation and adequate self-esteem. 6-year-old children have already developed an understanding that in addition to good, kind and sympathetic parents, there are also bad ones. The bad ones are not only those who treat the child unfairly, but also those who quarrel and cannot find agreement among themselves. We find reflection in the typical age-related fears of devils as violators of social rules and established foundations, and at the same time as representatives of the other world.

Obedient children who have experienced the age-specific feeling of guilt when violating rules and regulations in relation to authority figures that are significant to them are more susceptible to the fear of devils. At the age of 5, transient obsessive repetitions of “indecent” words are characteristic; at the age of 6, children are overcome by anxiety and doubts about their future: “What if I won’t be beautiful?”, “What if no one will marry me?”, in a 7-year-old - there is suspiciousness: “Won’t we be late?”, “Will we go?”, “Will you buy it?”

Age-related manifestations of obsession, anxiety and suspiciousness themselves go away in children if parents are cheerful, calm, self-confident, and also if they take into account the individual and gender characteristics of their child.

Punishment for inappropriate language should be avoided by patiently explaining its inappropriateness and at the same time providing additional opportunities to relieve nervous tension in the game. Establishing friendly relations with children of the opposite sex also helps, and this cannot be done without the help of parents. Children's anxious expectations are dispelled by calm analysis, authoritative explanation and persuasion. With regard to suspiciousness, the best thing is not to reinforce it, to switch the child’s attention, to run with him, to play, to cause physical fatigue, and to constantly express firm confidence in the certainty of the events taking place.

As already mentioned, the parent of the same sex enjoys exceptional authority among older preschoolers. He is imitated in everything, including habits, behavior and style of relationship with a parent of the opposite sex, who is still loved. In a similar way, a model of family relationships is established. Note that emotionally warm relationships with both parents are possible only in the absence of conflict between adults, since at this age children, especially girls, are very sensitive to relationships in the family (as well as to the attitude of other people significant to them).

The authority of the parent of the same sex is reduced due to behavior that is emotionally unacceptable for the child and the inability to stabilize the situation in the family. Then, in the imaginary game “Family,” children, especially girls, are less likely to choose the role of a parent of the same sex; there is no desire to do everything like “dad” or “mom.” They try to be only themselves or choose the role of a parent of the other sex, which in both cases is atypical in older preschool age. If, for various reasons, in childhood there are problems, friction, and conflicts in relationships with a parent of the same sex, then this contributes to the emergence of problems, friction, and conflicts in raising one’s own children. So, if a girl experienced the authoritarian influence of her mother in childhood, then, having become a mother herself, she will be emphatically strict and principled with the child in some way, which will cause him to have a reaction of protest or neurotic disorders.

A boy who was not the Son of the Father in childhood, deprived of his positive influence, may not become the Father of the Son and pass on to him his adequate experience of gender-role behavior and protection from everyday dangers and fears. In addition, parental divorce in children of older preschool age has a greater adverse effect on boys than on girls. The lack of influence of the father in the family or his absence can most complicate in boys the formation of gender-appropriate communication skills with peers, cause self-doubt, a feeling of powerlessness and doom in the face of, albeit imaginary, danger that fills the consciousness.

So, a 6-year-old boy from a single-parent family (his father left after a divorce) was terrified of the Serpent Gorynych. “He breathes - that’s all,” - this is how he explained his fear. By “everything” he meant death. No one knows when the Serpent Gorynych may arrive, rising from the depths of his subconscious, but it is clear that he can suddenly capture the imagination of a boy defenseless in front of him and paralyze his will to resist. The presence of a constant imaginary threat indicates a lack of psychological defense, not formed due to the lack of adequate influence from the father. The boy does not have a defender who could kill the Serpent Gorynych, and from whom he could take an example, like the fabulous Ilya of Muromets.

Or let us cite the case of a 5-year-old boy who was afraid of “everything in the world”, was helpless and at the same time declared: “I am like a man.” He owed his infantility to his anxious and overprotective mother, who wanted to have a girl and did not take into account his desire for independence in the first years of his life. The boy was drawn to his father and strived to be like him in everything. But the father was removed from upbringing by an overbearing mother, who blocked all his attempts to exert any influence on her son. The inability to identify with the role of a squeezed and unauthoritative father in the presence of a restless and overprotective mother is a family situation that contributes to the destruction of activity and self-confidence in boys.

One day we noticed a confused, shy and timid 7-year-old boy who could not draw a whole family, despite our request. He drew either himself or his father separately, not realizing that both his mother and his older sister should be in the picture. He also could not choose the role of father or mother in the game and become himself in it. The impossibility of identification with the father and his low authority were caused by the fact that the father constantly came home drunk and immediately went to bed. He was one of the men who “lived behind the closet”—inconspicuous, quiet, disconnected from family problems and not involved in raising children. The boy could not be himself, since his domineering mother, having suffered defeat with his father leaving her influence, tried to take revenge in the fight for her son, who, according to her, was in every way like her despised husband and was just as harmful , lazy, stubborn. It must be said that the son was unwanted, and this constantly affected the mother’s attitude towards him, who was strict towards the emotionally sensitive boy, endlessly reprimanding and punishing him. In addition, she overprotected her son, kept him under constant control and stopped any manifestations of independence. It is not surprising that he soon became “harmful” in his mother’s mind, because he was trying to somehow express himself, and to her this reminded her of his father’s previous activity. This is precisely what frightened the mother, who does not tolerate any disagreement, seeking to impose her will and subjugate everyone. She, like the Snow Queen, sat on a throne of principles, commanding, pointing, emotionally unavailable and cold, not understanding the spiritual needs of her son and treating him like a servant. The husband started drinking at one time as a sign of protest, defending himself from his wife with “alcoholic non-existence.” In a conversation with the boy, we discovered not only age-related fears, but also many fears coming from previous age, including punishment from the mother, darkness, loneliness and confined space. The fear of loneliness was most pronounced, and this is understandable. He has no friend or protector in his family; he is an emotional orphan with living parents.

Unjustified severity, cruelty of the father in relations with children, physical punishment, ignoring spiritual needs and self-esteem also lead to fears. As we have seen, forced or conscious substitution of the male role in the family by a mother who is domineering in nature not only does not contribute to the development of self-confidence in boys, but also leads to the emergence of lack of independence, dependence, and helplessness, which are fertile ground for the proliferation of fears, inhibiting activity and interfering with self-affirmation . If such a boy, growing up, marries and becomes a father, then he often does not experience paternal feelings for his son, does not understand his boyish needs, does not actively participate in the life of the family (similar to how the father behaved in his time) and often passes on your unresolved fears for the child.

In the absence of identification with the mother, girls may also lose self-confidence. But unlike boys, they become more anxious than fearful. If, moreover, a girl cannot express love for her father, then cheerfulness decreases, and anxiety is supplemented by suspiciousness, which leads in adolescence to a depressive shade of mood, a feeling of worthlessness, uncertainty of feelings and desires.

Children aged 5-7 are often afraid of terrible dreams and death in their sleep. Moreover, the very fact of awareness of death as an irreparable misfortune, the cessation of life, occurs most often in a dream: “I was walking in the zoo, approached a lion’s cage, and the cage was open, the lion rushed at me and ate me” (reflection associated with the fear of death, fears attacks and animals in a 6-year-old girl), “I was swallowed by a crocodile” (6-year-old boy). The symbol of death is the omnipresent Baba Yaga, who in a dream chases children, catches them and throws them into the stove (in which the fear of fire, associated with the fear of death, is refracted). Often in a dream, children of this age may dream of separation from their parents, due to the fear of their disappearance and loss. Such a dream precedes the fear of the death of parents at primary school age.

Thus, at 5-7 years old, dreams reproduce present, past (Baba Yaga) and future fears. Indirectly, this indicates that older preschool age children are most saturated with fears. Scary dreams also reflect the nature of the attitude of parents and adults towards children: “I go up the stairs, stumble, start falling down the steps and just can’t stop, and my grandmother, as luck would have it, takes out the newspapers and can’t do anything,” says the girl 7 years old, given to the care of a restless and sick grandmother.

A 6-year-old boy, who has a strict father who prepares him for school, told us his dream: “I’m walking down the street and I see Koschey the Immortal coming towards me, he takes me to school and asks the problem: “What is 2+2? » Well, of course, I immediately woke up and asked my mother how much 2+2 would be, fell asleep again and answered Koshchei that it would be 4″. The fear of making a mistake haunts the child even in his sleep, and he seeks support from his mother.

The leading fear of older preschool age is the fear of death. Its occurrence means awareness of the irreversibility in space and time of age-related changes. The child begins to understand that growing up at some stage marks death, the inevitability of which causes anxiety as an emotional rejection of the rational need to die. One way or another, for the first time the child feels that death is an inevitable fact of his biography. As a rule, children themselves cope with such experiences, but only if there is a cheerful atmosphere in the family, if parents do not talk endlessly about illnesses, about the fact that someone has died and something can happen to him (the child) too . If the child is already restless, then worries of this kind will only increase the age-related fear of death.

Fear of death is a kind of moral and ethical category, indicating a certain maturity of feelings, their depth, and therefore is most pronounced in emotionally sensitive and impressionable children, who also have the ability for abstract, abstract thinking. The fear of death is relatively more common in girls, which is associated with a more pronounced instinct of self-preservation in them, compared to boys. But in boys, there is a more tangible connection between the fear of death of themselves and subsequently of their parents with the fears of strangers, unfamiliar faces, starting from 8 months of life, that is, a boy who is afraid of other people will be more susceptible to the fear of death than a girl who does not have such a sharp oppositions. According to correlation analysis, fear of death is closely related to fears of attack, darkness, fairy-tale characters (more active at 3-5 years old), illness and death of parents (older age), creepy dreams, animals, elements, fire, fire and war .

The last 6 fears are most typical for older preschool age. They, like those previously listed, are motivated by a threat to life, directly or indirectly. An attack by someone (including animals), as well as illness, can result in irreparable misfortune, injury, or death. The same applies to storm, hurricane, flood, earthquake, fire, fire and war as immediate threats to life. This justifies our definition of fear as an affectively sharpened instinct of self-preservation.

Under unfavorable life circumstances, the fear of death contributes to the intensification of many associated fears. Thus, a 7-year-old girl, after the death of her beloved hamster, became whiny, touchy, stopped laughing, could not watch or listen to fairy tales, because she cried bitterly out of pity for the characters and could not calm down for a long time. The main thing was that she was terrified of dying in her sleep, like a hamster, so she could not fall asleep alone, experiencing spasms in her throat from excitement, attacks of suffocation and frequent urges to go to the toilet. Remembering how her mother once said in her hearts: “It would be better for me to die,” the girl began to fear for her life, as a result of which the mother was forced to sleep with her daughter.

As we see, the incident with the hamster occurred precisely at the age maximum of the fear of death, actualized it and led to an exorbitant growth in the impressionable girl’s imagination.

At one of the receptions we observed a capricious and stubborn, according to his mother, a 6-year-old boy who would not be left alone, could not stand darkness and heights, was afraid of being attacked, of being kidnapped, of getting lost in the crowd. He was afraid of bears and wolves even in pictures and because of this he could not watch children's programs. We received complete information about his fears from conversations and games with the boy himself, since for his mother he was just a stubborn child who did not obey her orders - to sleep, not to whine and to control himself. By analyzing his fears, we wanted to understand what motivated them. They did not specifically ask about the fear of death, so as not to draw unnecessary attention to it, but this fear could be unmistakably “calculated” from the complex of associated fears of darkness, closed space, heights and animals.

In the dark, as in a crowd, you can disappear, dissolve, disappear; height implies the danger of falling; a wolf can bite, and a bear can crush. Consequently, all these fears meant a concrete threat to life, irreversible loss and disappearance of oneself. Why was the boy so afraid to disappear? Firstly, the father left the family a year ago, disappearing, in the child’s mind, forever, since the mother did not allow him to meet. But something similar happened before, when a mother with an anxious and suspicious character overprotected her son and tried in every possible way to prevent the influence of a decisive father on him. However, after the divorce, the child became more unstable in behavior and capricious, at times hyperexcitable “for no reason,” was afraid of being attacked, and stopped being left alone. Soon other fears began to sound in full force. Secondly, he has already “disappeared” as a boy, turned into a defenseless and timid creature without gender. His mother had, in her own words, boyish behavior as a child, and even now she considered her being female to be an annoying misunderstanding. Like most such women, she passionately wanted to have a daughter, rejecting her son's boyish character traits and not accepting him as a boy. She expressed her credo once and for all like this: “I don’t like boys at all!” In general, this means that she does not like all male representatives, since she considers herself a “man”, and also earns more than her ex-husband. Immediately after marriage, she, as an “emancipated” woman, launched an irreconcilable struggle for her “feminine dignity” and for the right to have sole control over the family. But the husband also claimed a similar role in the family, so a struggle began between the spouses. When the father saw the futility of his attempts to influence his son, he left the family. It was when the boy developed the need to identify with the male role. The role of the father began to be played by the mother, but since she was anxious and suspicious and raised her son as a girl, the result of this was only an increase in fears in the “feminized” boy. No wonder he was afraid that it would be stolen. He has already been “robbed” of his activity, independence and boyish self. The boy's neurotic, painful state seemed to tell his mother that she needed to rebuild herself, but she stubbornly did not consider it necessary to do this, continuing to accuse her son of being stubborn. Ten years later, she came to us again, complaining about her son’s refusal to attend school. This was a consequence of the inflexibility of her behavior and her son’s inability to communicate with peers at school.

In other cases, we are faced with a child’s fear of being late - for a visit, to kindergarten, etc. The fear of being late, of not being on time, is based on an uncertain and anxious expectation of some kind of misfortune. Sometimes such fear takes on an obsessive, neurotic connotation when children torment their parents with endless questions and doubts like: “Won’t we be late?”, “Will we be on time?”, “Will you come?” Expectation intolerance manifests itself in the fact that the child “emotionally burns out” before the onset of some specific, pre-planned event, for example, the arrival of guests, a visit to the cinema, etc.

Most often, the obsessive fear of being late is characteristic of boys with a high level of intellectual development, but with insufficiently expressed emotionality and spontaneity. They are looked after a lot, controlled, regulated every step by not very young and anxiously suspicious parents. In addition, mothers would prefer to see them as girls, and they treat boys’ willfulness with emphasized adherence to principles, intolerance and intransigence.

Both parents are characterized by a heightened sense of duty, the difficulty of compromise, combined with impatience and poor tolerance of expectation, maximalism and inflexibility of “all or nothing” thinking. Like fathers, boys are not confident in themselves and are afraid of not meeting the inflated demands of their parents. Figuratively speaking, boys, with an obsessive fear of being late, are afraid of not being able to catch their boyish train of life, rushing non-stop from the past to the future, bypassing the stop of the present. The obsessive fear of being late is a symptom of a painfully acute and fatally insoluble internal anxiety, that is, neurotic anxiety, when the past frightens, the future worries, and the present excites and puzzles.

A neurotic form of expression of fear of death is the obsessive fear of infection. Usually this is an adult-instilled fear of diseases from which, according to them, you can die. Such fears fall on the fertile soil of increased age-related sensitivity to fears of death and blossom into the magnificent flower of neurotic fears.

This is what happened to a 6-year-old girl living with her suspicious grandmother. One day she read (she already knew how to read) in a pharmacy that she should not eat food that a fly would land on. Shocked by such a categorical ban, the girl began to feel guilty and worried about his repeated “violations.” She was afraid to leave food, it seemed to her that there were some dots on its surface, etc. Overwhelmed by the fear of getting infected and dying from it, she endlessly washed her hands and, despite thirst and hunger, refused to drink or eat at a party. Tension, stiffness and “reverse confidence” appeared - obsessive thoughts about impending death from accidentally eating contaminated food. Moreover, the threat of death was perceived literally, as something probable, as punishment, punishment for violating the ban. To become infected with such fears, you need to be psychologically unprotected by your parents and already have a high level of anxiety, reinforced by a restless and protective grandmother in everything.

If we do not take such clinical cases, then the fear of death, as already noted, does not sound, but dissolves into the usual fears for a given age. However, it is better not to subject the psyche of emotionally sensitive, impressionable, nervously and somatically weakened children to additional tests such as surgery to remove the adenoids (there are conservative treatment methods), painful medical procedures without special need, separation from their parents and placement for several months in a “health center.” » sanatorium, etc. But this does not mean isolating children at home, creating for them an artificial environment that eliminates any difficulties and levels out their own experience of failures and achievements.

Encyclopedia of practical psychology "Psychologos"

published 01/23/2014 11:59 updated 01/23/2014 – Pedagogy and psychology

conclusions

So, we have listed for you the fears that are most often found in preschool children. Some of them may seem insignificant and even funny. But believe me, this is a serious experience for a child. In a calm environment, talk to your baby about what is bothering him. Try to make him feel safe. Playing out stressful situations, drawing your fears, fairytale therapy and sand therapy will help you get rid of your fears.

Fears caused by the family environment, society and society.

These are social fears that can affect a child’s perception of himself in the context of family, kindergarten, school and other public institutions.

This is the sphere of influence on the child by parents, educators, teachers and other adults significant to the child. It is from them that the baby reads information about what he is like, whether he should be afraid of someone or something or not.

For example, a 3-year-old boy is happily climbing a high hill: he is ready to fearlessly slide down it! But now he looks at his worried mother and the confidence is gone. Later, in a similar situation, he simply refuses to climb the bar. The association worked: slide = mother's anxiety = fear of heights.
One day an ambulance came to a sick, frightened child and gave him an injection. From that moment on, he hated everyone in a white coat, and at the sight of a needle he screamed in fear. Association: white coat = pain. And since each time the pain was terrible (which is not surprising, since it is difficult to give a soft injection to a resisting child), he decided that he would always fight.
In one family, a 4-year-old girl loved to perform in front of her family and sing songs. But as soon as she left the house, she became timid. Mom was very worried about this, and she tried in every possible way to teach her daughter not to be afraid to say hello to her friends, to smile at them, to answer the simplest questions, such as “What is your name?” At home, the daughter agreed, but on the street she hid behind her mother’s back. When asked by her interlocutors why such a cute little girl was hiding, my mother answered embarrassedly: “ Oh, you know, she’s a savage, she’s shy around everyone. I just can’t imagine what comes over her!” And the girl believed in her shyness. Later this developed into a fear of answering in class while standing or at the blackboard. She was afraid to start contact with peers. The previously open and cheerful girl turned into a withdrawn teenager with many phobias.

How to deal with such fears?

First of all, parents need to learn to control their emotions and speech . Children of early and middle preschool age do not have access to complex logical operations; they see themselves as their parents see them: timid, afraid, unable to do anything, not knowing. But the child has already mastered a lot! But for some reason this is not recognized, it is questioned - this is how fears are born.

Fear of doctors and injections has several reasons. Most often this is elementary illiteracy and amazing myopia of parents.

Look at the replicas, what actually sounds there.

Threat: “Come on, go to bed! Otherwise, your aunt will come and give you such a big injection!” (as an option “he will take you to the hospital if you don’t listen”). “I have no strength! (grabs his heart) I’ll go to the hospital, then you’ll know how to anger your mother...”

Deception: “Don’t be afraid, a mosquito will sting you, it won’t hurt at all!” (but in reality - pain, fear and a bitter thought: “oh... how can you trust your mother after this?”).

Neglect of a child’s feelings: “Oh, you crybaby! What a man you are! Whine right away...!” (but the child wants to share his pain and fear with him: since from his little life experience he has already been convinced that it is not possible to attract the attention of his parents in any way other than whining).

Fear of doctors and procedures can be relieved through play situations with teddy bears, bunny dolls and cars. Buy your child a “doctor’s suitcase” set, tell him what a doctor does, why he needs certain instruments, and offer to play the role of doctor and patient. Switch roles. Select appropriate children's literature (poems, fairy tales, stories, songs) about doctors and how important it is to help him and save his life.

When unpleasant procedures are coming up, the child will feel better if you tell him about them, honestly warn him “it will be a little unpleasant, just be patient a little, I’ll be there, I’ll blow on you, I’ll hold you in my arms,” etc. Cheating is unacceptable.