2023 Author: Jake Johnson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-24 23:11
Childhood fears are one of the problems that many parents have to face with their youngest children. This is a very common problem at an early age and one that we are going to help you deal with as parents.
In Psychology they are called evolutionary fears because they are considered a necessary part of the child's development as a person. They are part of a good emotional development.
According to the experts who have been able to study these childhood fears, the fear of strangers begins as early as 6 months of age, as well as the fear of separation from the father and mother mother. We can consider these fears as the beginning of the development of the most basic survival instincts in babies.
The fear of separation from the father figure as well as the fear of strangers, far from disappearing, gets worse over the years. They can stay up to 6 years old and to these we have to add the fear of noise, something quite common from an early age.
As cognitive development increases and imagination appears, imaginary fears can make an appearance, the typical fear of monsters, the dark, etc.
Between the ages of 6 and 11, fears are something more concrete, with imaginary ones disappearing. Fear of concrete things such as physical harm, entering here the fear ofhospitals, blood tests, etc. Another aspect of the fear that occurs in these ages is that which implies the rejection of the other.
As for the most effective tools to overcome these fears in their different phases, they are toys.
Games help children overcome the different evolutionary processes they must go through to create their personality. It is a way of downplaying what is creating that feeling of fear in the child.
One of the main pieces of advice that we can give to parents when they face these situations of childhood fear on the part of their children is to take it calmly and naturally since in most cases it would be these evolutionary fears that help the child to have a normal emotional development.
We must bear in mind that fear is a sensation that, like others, such as love or pain, must be learned in order to face a he althy and normal life psychologically speaking later.
If everything works within this normality our advice to parents is to face it serenely, naturally and without giving it more importance, which does not mean that we are not attentive How are these fears evolving? If everything goes naturally we will see how each of those fears will pass and what caused great terror to the child eventually becomes totally harmless.
Children should learn to be afraid and parents should not be so protective that they take away their child's opportunityto be able to learn this necessary feeling for its development.
