All of us have felt fears at some point in our lives and it happens more frequently during our childhood. Situations of darkness, visits to the dentist or storms, are just some cases that make them tremble.
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Fear is a normal and necessary emotion that taking it properly, makes us focus, because it allows us to be alert to situations of danger, thanks to this emotion is that we do some things, that under normal conditions we would not believe that we would react in that way. However, in the fearful children something different happens, because their nature does not allow them to identify if the danger is real or imaginary, reason why any situation generates agitation.
So what to do when a child manifests with his actions that he is afraid of the dark or monsters? Well basically talking with them about the subject, parents should let their children know that as children they also felt fears, tell their experiences without falling into exaggerations.
The fear of the dark for example represents the fear of abandonment, it is usually normal in children from 3 to 5 years old. The darkness itself is not the cause of fear, but the feeling alone, so that parents should strengthen the safety circle of their children, transmitting serenity. As a strategy, they can play with them during the day leaving the space all dark, but making them feel their company, also walking with their eyes covered for a few seconds and increasing the time little by little. During the nights if the child resists being alone in his room, he can be accompanied with a dim light until he falls asleep, but not that he sleeps with the parents, the goal is to feel accompanied.
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Some tribes perform a ritual when their children pass from childhood to adolescence: the father takes him to the forest and covers his eyes, telling him that he will leave him alone during the night, for his part the young man can not ask for help or tell the experience lived, in order to show that he is becoming a man, however, in the morning when the sun rises and take off the blindfold what he will see is his father, who remained throughout the night accompanying him in silence to protect him.
In short, the fears are normal and more in childhood, our job is to help them to have confidence so that our children are able to face it, give them resources that allow them to go through each stage of their lives without being paralyzed by fear, and without leaving them alone during the process.
Until my next post I remain @usainjames .
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