How Do You Handle a Child Who is Afraid of Everything?

Wow, that sounds like a very hard job to do. At the moment I have to go everywhere with Zillah, but she is just a baby barely walking. I can't imagine having to do this for the rest of her life! I have no experience with this sort of thing, but good luck!

Mikki-You're raising an "old soul" there...I love the insight. It makes a lot of sense in light of my own childhood. In fact, I was shocked to learn when I was in college that an argument I used to think about during naptime, when I wasn't even in school yet, was actually a well-known philosophical discussion. LOL...I was a deep thinker early on, and I'm sure Morgan is too.

I wanted to kind of post some new information that I am learning about Morgan's overly extensive phobias about life and death. Morgan is a gifted child and as such simply accepted she was smart and encouraged her to grow in her knowledge, what I have learned over the past few months is this intelligence may be leading to alot of her fears.

She understands what death is, has since she was 5. She understands pain and suffering as if she has lived a life full of it. Her comprehension of the worlds pain is greater than most adults, and she understands what our beliefs of the resurrection are (and as a result fears it in the small chance that some of her family will not want to be resurrected and she will never see them again, or worse that they won't recognize her!)

This worldly and spiritual knowledge is a result of her increased intelligence, unfortunately her intelligence is trapped in the mind and body of a 7 year old little girl. My mom and I always commented on how hard it must be for a person smarter than us grown ups to deal with the childhood maturity, and it seems this may not be too far from right. What I learned is that as adults we learn to comprehend worldly and spiritual lessons, we view them from a big picture perspective and have lived a life that grants us wisdom to know all things are not predictable and there is more beyond this immediate moment. At 7, that big picture view hasn't truly developed, making that knowledge a very scary thing!

Elsie - your story of how your parents helped you seems very vital in this scenario. I want Morgan to trust in her strength and God. I want her to go out into the adult world with an appreciation of her knowledge, not a fear of it.

Thanks for listening everyone, I just wanted to share some new insight that I have found, and am truly grateful to have found it!

Mikki Hogan
Publisher of UniqueParenting.com

Elsie, thank you so much for sharing your story. After reading it I had a totally new perspective of Morgan's fears. I have always known they were real to her and yes, it is painful to see her in this much pain, but it didn't make sense to me or anyone else in the family. I have often harbored the fear that I would cause permanent scars if I ignored her fears. It is hard for us to understand when we haven't gone through it, and it is even harder for Morgan to tell us what it is like.

Your story offers so much in opening a door to seeing inside her scared mind. Your parents were brave and did an excellent job in handling your fears. I will definitely start taking a stand similar to what you encourage in your message about "going down the hall alone." I think it is an excellent way to encourage her to face her fear when she is ready to and not before as well as avoid creating a dependency she can't overcome.

Your comment about realizing she has no control over death really hit home here. Yesterday I was talking with a friend about sanitary precautions with domestic rats, (we all have our own and we bought one for her daughter's birthday, with permission of course, and we were talking about the potential diseases and why the 10 yr old couldn't let the 1 yr old old the new baby and had to wash her hands after holding her for the first few weeks) Unfortunately Morgan heard us talking about the rat possibly having a disease and she came over to tug on my shirt and said, "Mom I don't want to die. I didn't wash my hands after I held angel." Angel is Morgan's rat and cleared for the concerns of disease but she was really upset and I had to stop the conversation with my friend and explain to Morgan she was fine, we have had her rat long enough and know she has no diseases but the new baby has only been here two days and we don't know.

It took her time to cry it out but she kept wanting to know how I could be sure she wouldn't die. Those episodes tear me up to see her tears and it has always been so confusing for me. Your words have been a great comfort and I am grateful to hear that you have learned to be in charge of you fears and look forward to God helping Morgan be in charge of hers.

Mikki Hogan
Publisher of UniqueParenting.com

Danielle & Mikki-To some extent Morgan reminds me of myself as a child. Even now I battle a lot of fears. My biggest fear as a child was spending the night at another person's house. I hated being away from my parents because I was scared they would die and I'd be left all alone. If I got home from school and my mom wasn't home (occasionally she'd get stuck in traffic or at the grocery store and not be home when the bus dropped us off) I would run in a blind panic to the door of our house and scream pounding on the doors until I collapsed in a heap by the back door. I had two younger brothers who stood nearby and watched me melt and couldn't understand why I was crying. I just felt very unsafe stuck outside of the house as a child. I also wouldn't stay home alone without my parents. It became really bad during the 2 years that I was home schooled because I feared everything in the outside world. I'm very pro-homeschool, but it did make me more fearful. I think this was because I heard the news stories about the outside world: drugs, guns, murders, etc. and it made me scared of society (maybe my dad should have turned the news off at dinner). The worst thing was that these fears made me feel like I was weird and alone.

People told my parents to force me to spend the night at people's houses because it wasn't normal for me to be so scared (I heard the conversations), but they never pushed. They didn't indulge my fears, but they didn't throw me into them either. They just put up with them. For instance, if Morgan wants to go someplace, but she's scared because it's dark, my parents wouldn't have stopped what they were doing to walk me down the hall. They'd have asked me to wait until they were ready to go down the hall. If I chose to face my fear instead of waiting for them, fine. If not, that was fine too. As I grew older and had more control over my own life--like when I was able to drive--I began to feel safer. I think it's scary depending on someone else for everything when you're smart enough to realize that life isn't permanent and that all of that could be taken away. Even now I hate when my husband flies for business, and if he doesn't call me at an expected time I begin panicking and thinking that something must have happened to him. I've called my mom in tears convinced that I was a widow :Smiley. Silly, I know, but fear can really be a huge beast to conquer. The more my husband flies, the less I worry. It has been 5 years now since his first business trip and he's had many of them over the years. I always know when he takes off and when he lands, but other than praying for him to have safe travels I don't spend the whole time he's gone in knots.

I think the biggest thing that got me over my fears was facing them. I don't think there is anything you can do to get her over her fears or even help her through them. As much as it kills you to stand by and watch her go through this, this is between her and God and she is facing her own spiritual battle. The only thing you can DO is pray that God will help Morgan to deal with her fear (I know you have been, but keep up the good work!). I wish I could tell you ways to help her, but as someone who was and still has many moments of fearfulness, I can only tell you that it is something that God will have to help her through. He will. He doesn't want her to be fearful either. Through my son's recent death a lot of my fears have been taken away. It has made me realize that I will never have control over my life. For instance, I could worry about that lamp over the table falling on my head, and then I could die from a car accident. My son's death was so random, I took prenatals and did everything right, but then he died because of an infection--something I couldn't prevent. Most of my fear comes from thinking that if I do something, I will cause my own death. So maybe she thinks that if she avoids walking down dark halls alone she won't die. It's her way of getting control over something that she ultimately has no control over. When Chase's death was caused by something I couldn't control I came to the realization that there is nothing I can do to influence the outcome. The Bible tells us that everything has already been planned for us, from the day we were conceived. Psalm 139:16--"All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be." (All of Psalm 139 has been encouraging to me)There is nothing I can do, or not do to change the outcome. When I die, it won't be something I could have avoided, God has every single day planned for us. If it's my day to go, it's my day. There is nothing I can do to avoid it. Knowing that helps me deal with my fears...and I've found that life's a lot more fun if I'm not always worried about what's going to hurt me next. I hope some of this can give you some insight into what may drive Morgan's fears (realizing she has no control over death and no idea when it may happen--she probably hates to be surprised by someone jumping out of a closet). And I hope it gives you hope for her because my fears really got better as I got older and had more control over my life. The ability to drive was the first big step for me. I'll be praying for her too.

~Elsie

Debra thank you for your reply. We do actively teach her to trust in God for protection. She often says, "I kept praying and asking God to make me brave." I can say that she is asking God for His strength more often. Her creativity is almost funny. I have to share that we were in an auto accident on 2006 which required some therapy for all the kids for a while. Part of the therapy involved the kids relaxing on a roller table. The therapist would have to reserve a special table for Morgan because there was only one that didn't have a light fixture above it and Morgan feared they may fall. Shocked

The therapist was great, I was amazed and we all have had some fun times on top of the tiring ones. As I look back I can say that two years ago I would pray aloud with her and ask God to give her strength and take away her fear. She always said it doesn't work mom. But now she prays on her own. Guess she realized God was listening Wink
I appreciate the encouragement as we embark on this journey of fear.

I love the suggestion for encouraging creativity in writing. That could really prove to be an excellent outlet for her ideas and adventures. Thanks

Mikki Hogan
Publisher of UniqueParenting.com

Hey ladies.

I have worked with small children for years and I have never heard of such fear. I once had a 4 year old child in my Sunday School class tell his mom he wanted to die so that he could go to heaven, after a lesson on the beauty of heaven.

If your little Morgan is mature enough to talk about death at the age of 3 then, I assume that she has an ability to understand supernatural or spiritual matters. I would start out by using a veggietale movie "God is Bigger than the Boogie Man." Then continue by teaching her about God's protection (Angels, parents, good Samaritans). Remember that fear is a spiritual matter and it needs to be handled that way. Continue to be patient with her. Acknowledge the fears but don't overindulge her.

Also, she must be very creative to make up some of those scenarios in her mind. Encourage her to use her creativity to write stories or to make up games.

Hope that helps!

Debra

Mikki Hogan Publisher of UniqueParenting.com