Your Role in Your Child’s Fight Against Phobia
Posted by Reinecke Jesslyn on November 26th, 2009 filed in Goal SettingEverybody is capable of feeling uneasy sometimes, regardless what gender and age, and no matter what social status; we all just become restless about different things in life. Being afraid is not the same as being immobilized and disabled by your fears, and oftentimes it’s during one’s childhood that the line between the two is uncleared. According to theories on humanistic therapy, people should understand that fear for itself is not dreadful, as long as it is controllable and providing the effect it has on a person does not prevent that person from functioning like a normal individual. Sand Tray Therapy can help people reconnect to who they really are.
A certain amount of fear can be considered healthy because it tells you that there are limits to what you can do; much like the natural instinct for self-preservation. Children do experience different phases of fear that parents may find distressing nevertheless are really just things that some children go through and outgrow eventually. What parents should be concerned about is if their child is unable to get past their fears as they grow older; for instance, some children are so afraid of thunder, and this is normal at a particular age, but when they should be able to get past this fear once they grow older.
The inability to get past certain fears makes it inappropriate for your child’s age, and puts him or her at risk of developing fears that are unhealthy and would result to real phobia. Many parents need help in determining authentic phobia from simple childhood fears; visiting therapists can help them make sense out of the apparent senselessness of such fears. The fear of strangers, such as, is normal among very young children, but when the child moves past that age group and advances puberty while still struggling with that phobia, it can greatly stunt his or her social and emotional development.
If you are a parent of small children who appear to have progressed real phobia, consider taking your child to play therapy. The achievement of play therapy lies in the understanding of children’s non-verbal communication, and of communicating back to children in ways that they can be familiar with. Children will also be able to deal with their fear in their own terms and, without somebody forcing them brutally into it, they can face their fears and make sense out of it.
What’s also good about play therapy is that parents are encouraged by the therapists to play a part in the lessons and play with their children so that they will realize what kind of activities will be helpful of their children’s developments. Use helpful, encouraging language in helping your child slowly get out of his or her comfort zone, but put importance on advancing instead of stagnating and refusing to move forward. Trivializing your child’s feelings will bring about nothing more than produce your child the feeling that you don’t care about what they think or feel, and that you will not accept them if they are fearful of something.
Like any other type of fear, the only way to help your child beat phobia is to help him or her handle it inch by inch until he or she knows that there’s nothing to fear from it. You can’t just ignore the phobia until it disappears because it most probably wouldn’t, and you can’t just shift things around in your life to accommodate the phobia either because this would be dysfunctional.

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