Mummy I’m scared

Irrational fears and phobias in children are more common than parents realise. Just as they can dream up superheroes, they can also dream up super monsters. Child psychologist Dr John Irvine explains.

Can you remember back to when you were a kid - an age when the same Santa could be in every store, reindeers could fly down chimneys that didn’t exist, tooth fairies paid us for our baby teeth and .... there were real monsters under our beds and in every shadow! If it’s one thing every healthy kid possesses it’s a mind boggling, fact defying imagination.

I often find that the more intelligent and capable the kid, the more their imagination can create horrors that defy all logic and reason. In my practice, over 70% of the cases I deal with have something to do with fear.

From my survey of parents of the under six’s, the following were listed as the most common fears:

• going to the doctor
• death
• arguments between parents
• scary things and people
• monsters and ghosts
• losing mummy or daddy or favourite toy
• the new or unknown
• strange shadows and noises
• being the centre of attention
• embarrassment
• bullies
• sickness and high temperature
• sight of their own blood
• being alone
• dogs

Many of these fears have a basis in reality and it’s important to find out whether the fear is fact or fantasy because part of the part of the process of growing up is coming to terms with the difference. Remember the golden rule about kids’ imaginary problems: Just as their imagination has created the problem so it can solve it. Don’t try to reason with them or give them logical answers; the problem is not reasonable!

In the case of imaginary monsters, here are some monster-munching tactics for all the monsters that appear at bedtime, in the dark or in the shadows.

• Try a dim night light – sometimes that’s all you will need.
• Cut out rich food at the evening meal, shift their shower to just before bed, try burning lavender oil in the room and cut out all scary TV shows, videos and video games – in other words, remove all external stimulus.
• As their minds have made the monsters then sit with them and work out some fun ways to can beat the monster when it next visits. Instead of saying there are no monsters, join in the imagination and shoo them out the window.
• Let them choose a crystal from a shop and give it special monster munching powers. If you do, make sure you’ve helped them visualise how it will work (eg emits a magic shield that monsters can’t crack, has monster disabling properties, acts like kryptonite on monsters).

It may be they are using their fear as a way to keep your attention. If so, treat it as manipulation and use some brew like a pleasant room deodoriser that chases away all monsters.

This should fix 99% of monster problems. Most young kids will have monster trouble and the trick is not to overreact but to give it time to settle, but if you’re still worried then consult a child psychologist. There may be other issues such as underlying family fears and anxieties that they are picking up on.

Fears in pyjamas

Katrina’s cosy room became bedevilled with burglars and night nasties just with the creaking of shrinking boards. Each night she would wake up, convert the dark to demonic forces then scream her way down the passage, wake everyone on the way and hurl herself between mum and dad in bed. Her parents were angry and exhausted.
Everything else in her little life checked out OK, so the job was to harness this imagination for fun not fear.

Katrina turned out to be a great fan of Bananas in Pyjamas, so we practised imagining that the creaking boards were actually B1, B2, Morgan, Rat in a Hat and crew playing hide and seek. I told her not to go to sleep that night but to stay awake (just a bit of reverse psychology) and work out who was seeking who and where they were moving. If she was still awake when their game stopped, she could wander quietly down to her parents’ room and into a sleeping bag by their bed. She was asleep within five minutes!

Real monster munching stories

• We drew the worst monster face we could and stuck it on the bedroom window facing out to frighten all the intruding monsters away.
• Josh was afraid of monsters so I bought him a magic (electric) blanket. Every night for 4 weeks I turned it to 3 before bed and the monsters went away. To make sure they stayed away, the blanket was left on one.
• I shadow boxed my son’s bedroom monster and won! But ten minutes later as I was dozing off, I heard an almighty shriek. I raced in and there he was sitting up quite petrified. ‘You know that monster you killed dad, well his big brother’s back and he’s worser!’
• My daughter is a fairy lover and has lots of fairy posters in her room. We tell her that the fairies come at night and sprinkle fairy dust over her so monsters can’t get through and that the fairies use the magical fairy wands to fight off bad monsters.
• Our son Josh, is a very excitable 5-year-old and his sleep was bedevilled with bad dreams. We tried lots of things to no effect till my mum said to let him get up, go to the toilet and wee it out of his system. It worked.
• My son had problems with tigers coming into his room when he was almost 3. Nothing seemed to work until we gave him a baseball bat to fight the tiger. He became the boss of the situation and the tiger was too scared to come back after only a few nights.

Dr John’s childhood phobias!

Agoraphobia - fear of open spaces like tidy bedrooms
Ailurophobia - fear of cats …outside the house
Arachnophobia - fear of spiders …but only after lights out
Anthropophobia - fear of people, particularly at bathtime
Aquaphobia - fear of water …bath water
Brontophobia - fear of thunder, except their own
Claustrophobia - fear of being closed in, by seat belts
Cynophobia - fear of dogs...so they feed them their meal
Menophobia - fear of being alone, like at 5 am
Numerophobia - fear of numbers, like mum counting to 3
Nyctophobia - fear of darkness, but not at nanna's
Trychophobia - fear of hair, especially when being brushed
Xenophobia - fear of strangers, except gift bearing ones
Zoophobia - fear of animals hence all the stuffed effigies

Fear or Phobia?

It is very important to distinguish between an anxiety disorder and full-blown phobia. Fear becomes a phobia when the fear is totally out of proportion to the reality, there is no ability to control it, there is no obvious reason for the fear, and person avoids some thing, person or behaviour, and, most importantly, it interferes with normal living.

Source: Fear-free Children by Dr Janet Hall

Books to read

Fear-free Children by Dr Janet Hall, 2001, Finch Publishing.

A practical text with two parts – one for parents and the other for children – it includes recognising children’s fear symptoms, ideas for overcoming fears and anxieties, confidence building games, and real-life case studies.

Tom’s Afraid of the Dark by Beth Robbins, 2001, Dorling Kindersley.

When the lights go out, Tom’s imagination takes over. Is there a monster in his room? Tom trembles with rear. But he soon discovers that there is nothing to be afraid of, and that the dark is not spooky or scary at all.

Really Brave Tim by John Prater, 2001, Random House Australia.

Tim’s friends get together and boast about how brave they are, but Tim keeps really quiet – he’s scared of everything. Then he thinks of a hairy, scary way to prove he’s the bravest of them all.

Monsters Inc. Disney Pixar

Sully, Mike and Randall live in the city of ‘Monstropolis’, a town powered by frightened kids' screams instead of electricity. Blue furry monster-man Sully is about to beat the all time ‘scare record’ at his place of employ, the ‘scream factory. But when a little girl accidentally gets trapped in their world, the monsters realise their fears are imaginary.

By Dr John Irvine

Dr John Irvine is an educational psychologist, a consultant psychologist, a counsellor and a widely recognised specialist on children’s behaviour. He is the author of significant books for parents such as A Handbook for Happy Families and Who’d Be a Parent? His relaxed and warm advice deals with the practicalities of managing real families in everyday life.

This article was first published in Austraian Family Magazine, May 2002. Updated July 2009.