Fear: Preschool and School Age Children

Children (and most people) are afraid of things that they cannot understand or control, and strange or new situations or objects. They can be fearful of many things, because so much of the world is new to them. Fears may also be learned. Sometimes they come from a direct experience with something that hurt, eg. being bitten by a dog.

A fear can also be taught by parents, brothers and sisters, playmates, teachers, etc. For example, if the parent always gets afraid when she sees a spider or goes in a lift, the child is likely to be afraid of these things. Fears can also be caused by seeing or hearing about a danger, eg. on TV. Fear of being left alone at night or of the dark is still common among preschool children. Children also have vivid imaginations, and some of the things that they imagine they also believe are real, eg. monsters (especially children under three, who don't yet really know what is real and what is not real).

Young children need to be reassured if something is not real, but it may take them some time to really believe there is nothing to be afraid of. It is important that you don't act as if you believe the fears are real. There can be a fine line between pretending to look for monsters yourself, and showing your child that there are no monsters. Children of school age may be worried about burglars, afraid of having no friends, afraid of bullies, anxious about school work, or starting a new school or starting high school.

Older children often worry that their parents may separate, especially if they see this happening to friends' families, or if there are a lot of family arguments. Many children worry that a parent may die. Anxiety is infectious and can pass easily from one person to another. Worries and fears can pass easily from parent to child, and from child to parent.

In some ways, this passing of anxieties from parent to child can be helpful to keep the child safe, eg. the child learns that it is not safe to go on the road because you show that this is something dangerous. However, if you are too worried about too many things, the children are likely to be more anxious.

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Toddlers

Young children do not have an understanding of size, space and time, so they may, for example, be afraid of going down the plughole (or toilet) with the water, or get upset when you leave because they don't understand what you mean when you say you will be back at 5 o'clock.

You may have to do things like bath your child in a bowl without a plughole for a while. Toddlers, especially 2 to 3 year olds, are often fearful. They have very powerful emotions, which they have not yet learned to control. Something new can be very frightening, even if we think that there is no risk to them.

Some toddlers try very hard to please their parents, and they can be very frightened if something goes wrong. They can also be fearful of other people's powerful emotions. A parent's anger or despair can be very frightening to them. It will help if you can look at what is happening in their lives and their relationships to find what might be making them feel strongly, and help them to talk about it. Let them know that it is OK to feel cross sometimes. Make sure they know that you will not let them hurt others, such as a new baby, or let anyone hurt them.

One of the ways toddlers deal with their fears – eg. at bedtime – is to want to keep the same routine all the time. They may want a drink in the same glass, the same story and the same number of kisses every night. This helps them feel safe.

Fear of strangers

Children form close bonds of love and trust with important people in their lives, particularly their parents or their main caregiver. Many babies develop a fear of strangers, generally sometime between 5 and 12 months of age, and this often lasts until they are up to two years old. They may even seem afraid of people they know fairly well, such as their grandparents. Not all babies are fearful of strangers, but most are for a while. They are more likely to be afraid if they have had little contact with people outside their immediate family.


Ways you can help your baby

It is better not to force your baby to go to a stranger, but allow him to look at the person from the security of your lap. Your baby can pick up your feelings of confidence in others, and learn that they are safe to be with.

You can reassure grandparents and others who love the baby that this will not last; it is part of learning to deal with a big new world. If you plan to leave your baby, it helps if the baby has become used to the child minder before being left.

Start with short separations at first and gradually increase the amount of time. Many children have a special comfort object – a dummy, favorite blanket, piece of cloth, etc. It helps them feel safe, relax and to go to sleep while you are apart. See the topic 'Dummies, thumbs and other comforters'. It is also helpful, if a baby is being left with someone else, to keep routines as much as possible like those at home.

Separation anxiety

At six or seven months of age, babies are usually friendly and smile easily, however they usually have a preference for their parent or main caregiver. By seven to eight months, they start to want to have you in sight at all times and may be upset or cry when they cannot see you.

If they can crawl they will probably follow you – wherever you go.
You are the center of their world, and when you leave they feel 'separation anxiety'. They cannot know where you are and do not understand that you will come back.

When long separations happen – for example through being in hospital, or a parent leaving or being ill - the child can show severe anxiety. Generally the child will cry or protest first, hoping that he can change things and bring his carer back.

If this does not happen, the child may lose interest in people and in playing, or may just play the same thing over and over again. If the main caregiver (eg. parent) leaves or is away for a long time, it is important that other special adults spend as much time as possible caring for the child. It also helps if the usual routine can be followed.

Fears: Young Children

Parents often worry about their children's fears and anxieties. Children's worries and reactions to situations vary enormously. Most children will be worried and fearful from time to time. You can help your children overcome fears and to have the confidence needed to be able to face up to the hard things that will happen in their lives.


What are anxieties, fears and phobias?
Fear is a feeling that triggers a number of changes in the body. When something happens that a person is afraid of, the body prepares to either tackle the situation or to run away. To do this, the heart rate and breathing rate get faster and the person may turn pale, perspire, have an unpleasant feeling in his stomach ('butterflies') or feel shaky.


While fear has a particular cause for example, a person, animal, situation that someone is afraid of, anxiety is a more general unpleasant feeling, where it may not be clear what the person is worried about. A phobia is a really strong fear of something specific. The fear is much stronger than the risk of harm and it interferes with things the person wants to do.

It is normal to feel worried about some situations, and being afraid is the way we can be prepared to meet and deal with danger- it makes us alert and ready to take action.

Young children will be naturally fearful of some things, such as being separated from a parent, and they need to be taught to be fearful of certain other things to keep safe. The dangers of traffic and electricity are too great, and young children cannot understand them, so fear helps them keep safe- parents also need to keep them safe and not rely on fear alone.

When deciding whether your child's fear is a problem, you need to consider:
Is it reasonable for a child to feel this way?
Is the fear interfering with the everyday life of the child or family?

If a child has a lot of fears and worries, it is important to think about what is happening in her life. For example, is there illness in the family, are her parents having lots of arguments, etc? Sometimes phobias begin at a time of trauma or difficulty.

What Are You Afraid Of?

“The only two natural fears that humans have are fear of loud noises and fear of stepping off heights. All the other fears are taught to us as we grow up. All of the feelings of hopelessness, frustration, anger, guilt, bitterness, loneliness, have become assumptions we learned and we now live our lives based on. We are creating realities of fear. These fears come from the conviction that our basic hygienic needs are not being fulfilled: the need for safety, the need to feel worthwhile and valued, the need to feel loved and belonging. To calm the fears, we control, our spouses, our children, and ultimately, ourselves. If we lose control, the fears cause us to panic.

But all of these fears and the threats to our basic*hygienic needs are entirely in our minds; they are produced by the assumptions we hold that we learned as children. To grow to have bliss, we must face each of these assumptions and the fears they produce, one at a time, with the realization that we are eternal spiritual beings, unaffected by anything in the material realm.

Our assumptions that we will be unsafe, are unworthy, and are unloved must be replaced by the assumptions that we will never die and the spiritual beings we are can never be harmed. No tragedy can destroy us. No desire we have is important enough to make us frustrated and unhappy. No threat to our job or our health matters because we are simply having the physical part of an eternal existence, and we will learn from the tragedies as well as the triumphs. We can be blissful in the face of any circumstance in which we find ourselves.”

* Herzberg's Motivation-Hygiene Theory

We have basic needs (hygiene needs) which, when not met, cause us to be dissatisfied. Meeting these needs does not make us satisfied -- it merely prevents us from becoming dissatisfied. The 'hygiene' word is deliberately medical as it is an analogy of the need to do something that is necessary, but which does contribute towards making the patient well (it only stops them getting sick). These are also called these maintenance needs.

There is a separate set of needs which, when resolved, do make us satisfied. These are called motivators. This theory is also called Herzberg's two-factor theory.

Fear and Control

By Kathy Wilson

Fear has many uses. It can be used as a warning to keep you from entering into a situation that might hurt you. It can be used to motivate you away from something, such as a harmful relationship or a dangerous situation. It can also be used by others to control you.

How do people use fear to control others? When you understand what happens physiologically when people experience fear it becomes quite easy, as you'll see.

There is a part of your brain that exists solely for your survival called the "reptilian" brain, which is the original part of your brain. As humans evolved, our brains grew and other parts were added, such as the limbic system which deals with emotions and the cerebral portion which is the thinking part. This reptilian brain is located at the stem of the brain, securely protected by the rest of the brain. When all other parts of the brain are non-functional, this part will still be ticking away, assuring your physical survival.

When you experience the emotion of fear, your reptilian brain goes into action and the rest of your brain shuts down. The function of this part of your brain is to support you either to fight or in flight. When you are in the emotional state of fear, you have two choices and everything you do will be based on one of those choices.

If you're thinking, "Hoo haa- We're too advanced for that", remember the last time you were in a very disagreeable situation. Were you wanting to have a nice cozy, loving chat with the other person? Not likely. Probably you were wanting to get away from them and escape the uncomfortableness. Or maybe you were thinking how satisfying it would be if they got a comeuppance. These are flight and fight reactions.

Additionally, when you are experiencing fear, your entire body goes into fight or flight mode. All your blood is redirected to the parts that are needed for fight or flight - your heart, lungs, muscles, and your reptilian brain. The rest of your brain is left with only enough blood to keep it on idle, which means that you have no capability for rational or creative thought. It's all black or white, yes or no, good or evil. In this state you do not have the ability to think of alternative solutions to the situation. Only run or fight.

How ideal for the military! If they keep masses of people in fear and educate them in the many ways to kill other humans, they have a ready, willing, able, and non-thinking military force. This falls right into alignment with the basic premise of the military: follow orders without question (or without thinking). Whoever came up with the idea of using fear like this was a real genius. Just look at what they've created.

The polarity thinking that is created by fear can also be used very easily and effectively on the general populace by our politicians and other powers. Look at how our own country is divided right now by the fear that has been promoted by the current administration. They are continually coming up with new ways of keeping the citizens of the U.S. in a state of fear. The "security alert" with it's color coding is perfect. All they have to do is change the color of it to turn the level of fear in this country up or down, just like controlling the flow of water in a faucet.

What's the answer? First, get yourself out of the state of fear. In order to be able to think you need to be able to use the other parts of your brain. If you are having difficulty getting out of fear, here are a few things you can do:

TURN OFF YOUR TELEVISION- Especially the news. Have you ever felt wonderful, or even good, after you watched the news? Even the commercials are designed to make you feel sick and fearful.

Get in touch with the earth. Go for a walk without your cell phone or CD player and truly pay attention to the beauty that surrounds you. Notice all the things that are there to support you - trees for shade, all vegetation for oxygen, ants to clean up the minutest messes, birds to spread seed for more plants to grow.

Show appreciation to your body by giving it something nice - a massage, a cup of herbal tea, organic food, pure water. It will thank you by feeling more energized.

Don't hang around negative people or people who are being negative at the time. You don't need to absorb their fear any more than you need to absorb the fear from the news on TV.

As you begin to emerge from the state of fear and can once again think rationally and creatively, look at how you can create unity in your life instead of the polarity caused by fear. The world will thank you.

This Kid Can Play

Scientists Study the ABCs of Fear

There’s a trick to panic attacks,” said David Carbonell, a Chicago psychologist specializing in treating anxiety disorders. “You’re experiencing this powerful discomfort but you’re getting tricked into treating it like danger.”

According to the WASHINGTON (AP): Science is getting a grip on people's fears.

As Americans revel in all things scary on Halloween, scientists say they now know better what's going on inside our brains when a spook jumps out and scares us. Knowing how fear rules the brain should lead to treatments for a major medical problem: When irrational fears go haywire.

"We're making a lot of progress," said University of Michigan psychology professor Stephen Maren. "We're taking all of what we learned from the basic studies of animals and bringing that into the clinical practices that help people. Things are starting to come together in a very important way."

About 40 million Americans suffer from anxiety disorders, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. A Harvard Medical School study estimated the annual cost to the U.S. economy in 1999 at roughly $42 billion.

Fear is a basic primal emotion that is key to evolutionary survival. It's one we share with animals. Genetics plays a big role in the development of overwhelming -- and needless -- fear, psychologists say. But so do traumatic events.

"Fear is a funny thing," said Ted Abel, a fear researcher at the University of Pennsylvania. "One needs enough of it, but not too much of it."


Armi Rowe, a Connecticut freelance writer and mother, said she used to be "one of those rational types who are usually calm under pressure." She was someone who would downhill ski the treacherous black diamond trails of snowy mountains. Then one day, in the midst of coping with a couple of serious illnesses in her family, she felt fear closing in on her while driving alone. The crushing pain on her chest felt like a heart attack. She called 911.

"I was literally frozen with fear," she said. It was an anxiety attack. The first of many.

The first sign she would get would be sweaty palms and then a numbness in the pit of the stomach and queasiness. Eventually it escalated until she felt as if she was being attacked by a wild animal.

"There's a trick to panic attack," said David Carbonell, a Chicago psychologist specializing in treating anxiety disorders. "You're experiencing this powerful discomfort but you're getting tricked into treating it like danger."

These days, thanks to counseling, self-study, calming exercises and introspection, Rowe knows how to stop or at least minimize those attacks early on.
Scientists figure they can improve that fear-dampening process by learning how fear runs through the brain and body.
The fear hot spot is the amygdala, an almond-shaped part of the deep brain.

The amygdala isn't responsible for all of people's fear response, but it's like the burglar alarm that connects to everything else, said New York University psychology and neural science professor Elizabeth Phelps.

Emory University psychiatry and psychology professor Michael Davis found that a certain chemical reaction in the amygdala is crucial in the way mice and people learn to overcome fear. When that reaction is deactivated in mice, they never learn to counter their fears.

Scientists found D-cycloserine, a drug already used to fight hard-to-treat tuberculosis, strengthens that good chemical reaction in mice. Working in combination with therapy, it seems to do the same in people. It was first shown effective with people who have a fear of heights. It also worked in tests with other types of fear, and it's now being studied in survivors of the World Trade Center attacks and the Iraq war.

The work is promising, but Michigan's Maren cautions that therapy will still be needed: "You're not going to be able to take a pill and make these things go away."

When it comes to ruling the brain, fear often is king, scientists say.
"Fear is the most powerful emotion," said University of California Los Angeles psychology professor Michael Fanselow.

People recognize fear in other humans faster than other emotions, according to a new study being published next month. Research appearing in the journal Emotion involved volunteers who were bombarded with pictures of faces showing fear, happiness and no expression. They quickly recognized and reacted to the faces of fear- even when it was turned upside down.

"We think we have some built-in shortcuts of the brain that serve the role that helps us detect anything that could be threatening," said study author Vanderbilt University psychology professor David Zald.

Other studies have shown that just by being very afraid, other bodily functions change. One study found that very frightened people can withstand more pain than those not experiencing fear. Another found that experiencing fear or merely perceiving it in others improved people's attention and brain skills.

To help overcome overwhelming fear, psychologist Carbonell, author of the "Panic Attacks Workbook," has his patients distinguish between a real threat and merely a perceived one. They practice fear attacks and their response to them. He even has them fill out questionnaires in the middle of a fear attack, which changes their thinking and causes reduces their anxiety.

That's important because the normal response for dealing with a real threat is either flee or fight, Carbonell said. But if the threat is not real, the best way to deal with fear is just the opposite: "Wait it out and chill."

Want more info?

Check out this Harvard Med publication that pretty much sums up our lives, if your not consciously living.

Fear. . .or Fear Not

A Brief History of OCD

What Is OCD?

OCD or Obsessive Compulsive Disorder as it is clinically known as is an anxiety disorder. It is characterized by obsessive thoughts and inability to restrain these thoughts. In order to counterbalance these thoughts, OCD sufferers often execute certain compulsive actions that become incorporated as a significant part of their daily lives. The compulsions are an attempt to ease the pain of the recurring thoughts.

The Origin Of OCD

OCD as a disorder has been affecting lives for very many years. However, it has only been in recently that OCD has been given the due attention it requires. Newer methods of therapy and medicinal treatments are being researched and implemented to help people with OCD lead healthier and more prouctive lives. Alternative methods of treatment are being explored and all these developments are helping mankind progress. However, to truly find a solution to a problem we also need to learn about its origins. To move forward in a field we first need to trace its roots. Therefore, we go back to the beginning of the disease’s origin.

300 Years Ago

A medical condition akin to OCD has been recognized for almost 300 years. It has been widely accepted that each stage in the history of OCD has been influenced by the cerebral, scientific and artistic changes of that age. At the beginning of the malady’s analysis a lot of significance was attributed to supernatural factors. People ascribed the cause of illnesses to distorted religious faith and blasphemous thoughts. Such occurrences were considered to be the work of Satan. Even in today’s day and age, despite all the scientific development taking place, there are many people who tend to believe in supernatural forces. Such beliefs have no basis in science yet there are still firm believers. Superstitious ideas such as these often make people do drastic and useless things such as consulting “magic men” and exorcists.

Psychoanalysis Becomes More Acceptable

In 19^th century France, a fundamental position was accorded to distrust and vacillation. It was assumed that disorders were born out of flaws in the individual’s character such as lack of courage of conviction which gave rise to varying instabilities. With the dawn of the 20^th century greater importance started being given to psychoanalysis of OCD. According to such theories, OCD arose out of a person’s inability to adapt to certain conflicts in the earlier stages of their lives. Freud was of the opinion that underlying psychological conflicts between the id ego’s need for immediate gratification, mostly in sexual spheres, and a person’s moral conscience and a need for reality. The basic underlying assumption of this theory is that when a person has to fight with his internal self, in order to control certain unacceptable urges and behave in a socially appropriate manner, these conflicts give rise to a number of mental stresses and burdens. Hence, out of these complexities, the disorder is born.

Even though psychoanalysis was a popular theory it was confronted with strong opposition in the late 20^th century. The theory was criticized for not being able to explain the role of the brain in the arena of psychological imbalances. Even though the part of the mind has been clarified in great detail, there have been no concrete studies or researches explaining the working of the brain in such contexts.