Imagination Helps Tame Young Kids' Fears
Researchers Have Tips for Easing Your Child's Fear of Monsters
By
Kathleen Doheny
WebMD Health News
Reviewed By
Louise Chang, MD
Nov. 13, 2009 -- Your preschooler wakes up in the middle of the night,
screaming there's a monster in the room. If you're like most parents trying to
calm their children's fears, your first instinct is to say: "Monsters aren't
real" and try to get your kid grounded in reality and back to sleep.
But if your child is 4 or younger, a better strategy may be to stay in your
child's fantasy world, according to the results of a new study, and help him or
her cope within it. Instead of injecting reality, you may, for instance,
encourage your child to aim a spray bottle of water at the creature, explaining
that it's anti-monster spray, or you may suggest the monster is actually a
friendly monster.
"Stay in their imaginary world and make them more powerful, or change it to
make the imaginary world more positive," says researcher Liat Sayfan, PhD, a
post-doctoral research fellow at the University of California, Davis.
That works better, she says, because younger children -- while they know
deep down the monster isn't real -- have a harder time than older children
shifting out of that imaginary world and dealing with reality to cope. Her
study is published in the journal Child Development.
Coping With Fears
For the study, 48 children -- nearly evenly divided among 4-, 5-, and
7-year-olds -- listened to scenarios depicting a child alone or accompanied by
another person, including a mother, father, and a same-gender friend. In each
scenario, the child encounters something that looks like a real or imaginary
fear-inducing creature.
After each scenario, the kids predicted and explained each protagonist's
fear intensity and suggested ways to cope.
When the situations were judged as real, the kids would either say, "Let's
tackle this monster," or "Let's run away," Sayfan tells WebMD. It wasn't
age-dependent, but more gender dependent. The boys tended to want to fight
back, the girls opted for avoidance.
Sayfan also found interesting predictions of how scared the people with the
children would be, with the kids generally thinking their moms would be more
fearful than their dads.
But in the imaginary situations, she found differences in responses based on
age. "Usually in the imaginary situation what the younger kids suggest is,
'Let's pretend the monster is really nice or friendly' or 'Let's take a sword
and attack a monster.'"
The older kids, especially those who were 7, were much more likely to do a
reality check. "They would say, 'Let's remind ourselves that monsters are not
real,"' Sayfan tells WebMD. Or: "This dragon can't be there, there are no
dragons in the world."
The 4-year-olds who turned to fantasy to cope actually knew the monster
wasn't real, too, Sayfan says. But staying in the imaginary world to cope is
easier for them, she says, "because it's harder for them to shift their
attention. Their attention is in the imaginary world and they are absorbed in
it. With older kids, we know they are better at shifting attention and
inhibiting bad thoughts.
The take-home point is clear, say Sayfan and her co-researcher, Kristin
Hansen Lagattuta, PhD, an associate professor of psychology at University of
California, Davis. "Stay within that pretense [of the imaginary world],
and make it where the child feels more powerful," Lagattuta says.
"Look at their understanding of how they make themselves feel less afraid,"
Lagattuta says.
You can always talk about reality in the morning, Sayfan says. In the midst
of the monster experience, Sayfan says, you might say to your child: "Let's
build a wall around us and pretend the monster can't get to us."
In the morning, she says, when the child's attention has shifted out of the
imaginary world, you can remind him or her: "You know monsters don't really
exist."
Second Opinion
Two other child development experts who reviewed the study for WebMD say the
findings and advice make sense. "I like the conclusion," says Marjorie Taylor,
PhD, professor of psychology at the University of Oregon, Eugene, and author of
Imaginary Companions and the Children Who Create Them.
"For the child, the fear is there and it's hard to deal with it once it is
there," she says. Staying in the imaginary world "helps them with the
situation," she finds. "When [fear] has gotten out of hand and is bothering
them and scaring them, I stick with them," she says. For instance, she says,
she will ask: "Is the monster scaring you? Maybe he is a baby monster and
scared of the dark."
Staying in the fantasy world also helps when parents are dealing with
imaginary friends, she finds. "Rather than focus on the fictional status of the
imaginary friend, it's helpful to work within the context of the fantasy, she
says. For instance, a child with an imaginary friend may tell his mother he
doesn't want to leave home because the imaginary friend is sick.
Rather than saying, "Your friend isn't real," the parent might invent
another imaginary friend who is willing to stay home with the sick one, she
says.
Staying in the fantasy world of young children rather than focusing just on
reality is a good idea, agrees Nathalie Carrick PhD, an assistant professor of
child and adolescent studies at California State University, Fullerton, who has
researched children's fear and other emotions.
"By saying 'It's not real', it's a little dismissive," she says.
SOURCES: Kristin Hansen Lagattuta, PhD, associate professor of psychology, University of California, Davis.
Sayfan, L. Child Development, November/December 2009; vol 80.
Nathalie Carrick PhD, assistant professor of child and adolescent studies, California State University, Fullerton.
Marjorie Taylor, PhD, professor of psychology, University of Oregon, Eugene; author, Imaginary Companions and the Children Who Create Them.
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