GRAND Vol VI, Ed III

Grandparenting
Helping Kids Face Their Fears
Every child passes through that
stage of being afraid of monsters—under
the bed, in dark
corners, down in the basement—it
seems to be a universal childhood fear.
This fear can take root before a child
is at an age when a parent can even
reason with them and provide logical
explanations, and even then, that
assurance rarely seems to allay such
deep-seated phobias. And some children’s
fairy tales only serve to fan the
fire—the witch in Hansel and Gretel
who cooks children, the giant in Jack
and Beanstalk who will “grind Jack’s
bones to make his bread” or the big,
bad wolf in The Three Little Pigs who is
out to devour some piggies.
I’ve had these experiences with
my own sons, and now predictably,
my young grandson seems to be going
through the same phase. This was
made clear to me on a recent trip to
the public library. Whenever we visit
the library, I turn my grandson lose in
the children’s section where he will
often tuck himself away with a book
that catches his interest. On this particular
visit, I didn’t notice he had his
nose in a book about monsters until
he asked me to put it back because it
was scaring him. As we walked home
afterwards, I noticed he wouldn’t hold
my hand. Any time I extended my
hand to him, he shied away from me to
the other side of the sidewalk. When I
asked him what was wrong, he said he
didn’t want to hold my hand because
he was afraid I was going to turn into
a monster. So I asked him: “You’ve
known me seven years now, have I ever
turned into a monster?” His answer? “I
don’t think so, but sometimes you look
pretty scary.”
Well…I asked.
How best to handle this touchy subject
of childhood fears and phobias?
In my own childhood, the prevailing
approach by many parents at that time
was a no-nonsense one—there are no
such thing as monsters. Period. Simple
as that. It was as if a child’s fears were
not be “indulged.” I was raised with
this approach and can attest that it did
nothing other than cause me to feel
ashamed and somehow inadequate. Although
on one level, I trusted the word
of my parents (that they wouldn’t lie
to me), but their logic simply could not
quell my fears. I still took the basement
steps two at a time and insisted
on my bedroom door being left open
with the hall light on. My fear of the
dark was so innate and so irrational
that it overruled all common sense until
I was well into my teens.
As a result, my approach with my
own children was very different. Having
been a victim of my own fears, I
didn’t want to make my children feel
bad about experiencing their own. So
I listened, hugged and validated their
concerns. I actually found it helpful
to confess my own childhood fears
to them as a way of illustrating that
at some point, these anxieties which
seem so overwhelming when we’re
young, gradually lessen or fall away
as we grow into adulthood. And yet, I
also readily admitted to them that even
in adulthood, I still have some fears I
continue to grapple with.
4 GRAND grandmag.ca