Conference moira::parenting

    Sigh...

    My wonder-daughter has developed a full-blown raging phobia of
    thunder/lightening.

    This morning, after hearing a weather report calling for "possible
    thunder storms" she got so worried/concerned that she actually became
    sick.  Symptoms:  trouble breathing, hyper ventilating, nausea, etc.

    No school for Hannah, today :-(

    This began last summer, and has steadily gotten worse.  Luckily, thunder
    storms don't happen very often.   In fact I'd completely forgotten
    about last year's troubles.  This morning is the first time she
    actually became sick because of it.

    Hannah is extremely bright, otherwise, and, as far as I can tell, quite
    well-adjusted and mature for her age.

    Our doctor has advised "do nothing - it will pass", as expected - and I
    sure hope he's right.  But I'm, naturally, quite concerned.

    Hannah has announced, for example, that she's won't be joining the
    family this summer for our annual 2-weeks in NH - due to the truly
    awesome thunder storm that happened while we were there last year (when
    this all started).

    I need a hug...

    L.

    I wish I had some answers for you.   My 7 year old daughter is
    terrified of ants.....  (I mean hysterically terrified).. I have tried
    to explain to her that no one really likes ants, but they are not going
    to hurt her.   It doesn't matter, she cant even stay in the room if she
    sees an ant in there.   Phobias are very hard to deal with.  If you
    come up with some ideas on handling phobias, it would be appreciated.
    
    Sarah

   Larry,

   First of all, here's a (((((((hug)))))) for you - I know how frustrating
   it can be when the young ones are upset and there isn't much you can
   seem to do about it......

   Have you been able to talk with Hannah about what scares her about the
   thunderstorms/lightening ??  Maybe a conversation during GOOD weather
   will help you understand what upsets her about them and therefore, give
   you some ideas of what to do to make it better.......

   In the meantime, hang in there.  I sorta understand what you're going
   thru as we have a 3yr old dog who absolutely *freaks* when he starts
   to hear anything that *sounds* like thunder - we're trying different
   things with him to get him to not get so upset, but unfortunately, we
   don't have the added plus of being able to *talk* with him about it :^}.

   Lotsa luck,
   Debbi

    With Brad, it's bugs. He runs around telling me he's got bugs in his
    ears and there are bugs in his room, and he's afraid of them. I've
    tried telling him there are no bugs and that Mommy put all the bugs
    outside, and that helps somewhat, but he's still obsessed/scared when
    it comes to bugs.  I'm hoping he'll grow out of it.
    
    

    Our experience, thus far, is that attempting to rationally address
    weather, her fear of it, etc., is completely ineffective.
    
    L.

    Growing up my mother had a legitimate fear of thunder storms, but we
    never caught on until we were late teens.  She had actually seen
    someone, during her young childhood, electricuted by a lightning bolt. 
    This person was inside of the oldfashion screen doors, the kind with
    the tiny spring on the wooden frame.  Lightning hit the spring, the
    rest became her worst fear.
    
    She mustered all her strength during electric storms, and make a joyful
    game of "oh look the angels are bowling!", then came the lightning and
    "oh look they got a strike!".  I tried it on my son, he is not afraid
    at all of storms.  In fact last weekend we had a minor storm, first
    came the thunder, and I hear him sitting on the couch counting to
    himself "one thousand, two thousand...." I asked what he was doing, he
    replies "I'm counting to see how many minutes til the rain gets here!" 
    He must have covered something like this in his first grade science.
    
    On the other extreme is my 7 year old nephew, he lives in Florida,
    spending the year up here.  He absolutely freaks when any bug flies
    near him, screaming "its a Bee!", usually just a housefly.  I guess
    since my son has no real fears he usually will only get one reaction
    from me which is, "oh c'mon knock it off, it's only a fly!".  I do hope
    that one day he gets over his fears.  Let's face it Florida does have a
    lot of BIG nasty bugs!
    
    

    My brother and I grew up in a 3-story house.  We had a maid named
    Bessie who vigorously cleaned everything.
    
    My brother was phobic about thunderstorms, but we eventually made a
    joke that helped by pointing upstairs and saying, "Bessie is moving the
    furniture."
    
    Laura

    This is a timely subject for me.  Karen 2.9 years developed a fear that
    things will blow away in the wind, after the wind took her balloon away
    at a parade recently.  
    
    If I put clothes on the line, she will fuss and worry until I bring
    them in.  The other morning the first thing she said to me when she
    woke up was "Your clothes are not going to blow away in the wind".  
    
    She fussed so much about the swings on the swing set, my husband had to
    take them down (tools required).  
    
    She tried to talk Nana into putting a rocking chair upstairs, because
    it was near a sliding glass door and the wind might blow it away.
    
    I'm sure this won't last too long, hopefully.
    
    Karen is also afraid of bugs this year, so it must be associated with
    2-3 yr. olds.
    

    Hi Larry!
    
    I have no pearls of wisdom, only empathy, commiseration, and
    understanding.  Ericka, who is 6 1/2, has her own set of irrational
    fears (by that I mean that the fear is very real to her, but not based
    in any rational reason).  What we do is let her know that it's OK to be
    afraid, and that we're here to protect her when she's really in danger. 
    Then we ask her to do whatever it is that her fear was preventing.
    
    Sometimes this helps, sometimes it doesn't.
    
    From what I've heard, read, and learned, I would caution against
    "minimizing" the fear.  As you said, the fear is real to her (as is
    your frustration!).
    
    /bruce

    Chris(9) used to be afraid of thunder/lightning, and it never bothered
    Jason(6).  Sunday we had our first "real" thunderstorm of the season. 
    Chris was trying *DESPARATELY* to open the windows so he could hear the
    thunder better, and wanted to go outside to see the lightning better.
    Jason was obviously scared, but didn't DARE let his brother know. 
    Instead retorted with something like  "FINE! If you won't to go outside
    and be electrocuted go ahead!", and he was yelling at him to leave the
    windows alone.  Jason was *QUITE* relieved when I told Chris to leave
    them alone.  And Chris was very disappointed.
    
    So, I guess they do grow out of it.  It did help to try to talk to him
    about it, and explain exactly what does go on.  Lightning is a little
    more tricky - you can say that Thunder will never hurt you, but there's
    no such reassurance with lightning.
    
    Perhaps it might help to try to talk with her (when there's no storm)
    and have her explain how it makes her feel when there's a thunder
    storm.  It may help get at the root of the fear.  We also have some
    weather books that are written at a child's level, so we can easily
    explain just what's going on.  It has helped my children through their
    various fears, to arm them with knowlege.  Most of their concerns have
    come because they just didn't know enough to be able to be comfortable
    with a situation.  
    
    Chris studied weather a lot in school this year, and he's quite happy
    to point out different clouds, and explain thunder clouds and fair
    weather clouds and the whole bit - I think that's part of why he's able
    to not be so afraid - he's INTERESTED and wants to LEARN more about it,
    so he's set aside some of his fears.
    
    And with my boyfriend's 2-year-old last summer, who would *FLY* to the
    couch or a bed if he ever heard thunder, we used to laugh hysterically.
    It first started that we laughed at Greg, but it turned out that now he
    either ignores, or sometimes laughs at the thunder and the "BIG BOOM"!
    ...power of suggestion, I guess!
    
    I hope you get some relief soon ... and I REALLY hope you don't live in
    New England!
    
    Patty

    I conquer my own fears by comparing the scary thing to something I am
    more comfortable with.  So I try to use the same coping techniques that
    are already successful.
    
    When Ilona was afraid of the first thunder this year, I kept telling
    her that its nothing but a big noise, and asking if a big noise had
    ever hurt her before?  It helps that she likes a lot of noise and
    action.  (Adored the roller coaster.)  She hasn't yet seen lightening
    strike an object, so to her it is just a fascinating flash in the sky. 
    

    My son (3 1/2) isn't afraid of thunder, but does have a fear of
    bees (and to him, houseflys are bees).  He also questions whether
    or not things will blow away in the wind, although I wouldn't call
    it a fear, but rather just wondering about it!  The one that I find
    hard to understand is his fear of dried-up worms!!   I haven't yet
    figured out why these bother him, but he refuses to walk on this
    one sidewalk near our house because he says there are dried-up worms
    there.  About a month ago we were walking down that sidewalk and
    there were alot of dried-up worms(!), and I recall him asking me
    what they were, but I don't remember him acting afraid of them, but
    now he won't walk that way.   Who knows!!  
    
    Lila
    

my six year old son sebastian is still scared of thunder-storms. but the fear 
does seem to pass, at least sebastian's fear of thunder is not as bad as it 
used to be - he used to have the whole family sit together indoors and have 
all lights turned off, just in case the lightning was attracted by the 
electricity in the house!

yes, this fear is irrational and in my experience, it doesn't help trying to 
talk the child out of it or to dismiss the fear as unreasonable - but it does 
seem to help if you identify with the fear and confront it this way in a 
subtle and playful manner.

last year, my children and i were caught by a storm whilst we were outside in 
a large zoo park. we found a reasonable shelter under a large tree where i 
first tried to reassure sebastian that nothing would happen. in vain, he was 
still very scared - so we made a run for a better open shelter close-by. there
where some other people there and a three year old girl. we sat there watching 
the storm and the animals and wondered about whether the animals were scared 
too and got the little girl involved in the conversation. she really didn't 
seem to mind the storm - we first talked about the storm and eventually, when 
sebastian had settled down, turned it into a game, wondering where the 
lightning would strike. so with the attention on the storm from a safe place
and with realising that none of the terrible things were happening, sebastian 
was able to laugh in relief, that he seemed to worry just a bit too much about 
the storm. he saw that nothing of the "expected" was happening and with noone 
else worrying either, it did make him feel alot better.

sebastian seems to be gradually growing out of this fear now. back when we 
were children, my junior brother used to have just the same fear, which he 
has also outgrown. so it is likely, that with your daughter, hannah, this 
will happen too.


regards,
andreas.

    
         My grandson hate fire alarms. Ever since my daughters went off
    accidently he brings it up a lot. He'll talk about how it made him
    scared and angry. He'll immitate the sound and say "That noise makes
    me so mad! I hated it!"
    
         We were at Friendly's Sunday and saw 4 firemen. He was so excited.
    He, of course had to mention the fire alarms and how mad they made him.
    Other than that he was talking about the truck, and dialing 911 for
    help, he was really excited about talking to them.
    
       Whenever he mentions it we just talk to him and reassure him that
    it's okay that he was upset when he heard the fire alarm. I let
    him know that it's okay to talk about how he feels too.
    
        Rose

    re .1
    
    My son also was/sometimes still is afraid of thunder and lightning.
    I never bought the angels bowling routine.  In fact that scared me
    even more for whatever reason.
    
    When there is a thunder storm, I pretend I'm a big, huge, bloated
    cloud full of water.  I pretend that the big thunder bangs are
    just the big, fat water-filled clouds banging into each other because
    being full with water makes them clumsey.
    
    So, my sons and I pretend to be big and clumsey and playfully
    bump into each other saying "uh, excuse me", "oh, I'm sorry",
    "oh, gosh, I'm so big, pardon me" and we sort of play act it
    out so they envision clouds that are just so clumsy that they
    are funny.
    
    This takes the edge off the storms at my house.
    
    NF

    re .14 .... under a tree is one of the worst places to be in a
    lightning storm.  Trees tend to be taller than most other objects and
    some buildings, and they're full of water.  Lightning loves "water" and
    especially loves "tall" things.  You'd have been safer laying flat on
    the ground, away from the trees, if there wasn't any other shelter. 
    Wetter, yes, but ultimately safer.
    
    Patty
    

.17:

>    especially loves "tall" things.  You'd have been safer laying flat on
>    the ground, away from the trees, if there wasn't any other shelter. 
>    Wetter, yes, but ultimately safer.

Actually, I think the best advice is to crouch low, rather than to lie flat.  If
lightning strikes the ground near you, then there's a very high voltage gradient
along the ground surface, and you don't want to be lined up with that.  So,
you're trying to simultaneoulsy minimize both how tall you are, and how much
ground area you're spread out over.  If you can do it, I think you want to squat
as low as possible, with both feet right together.  (I'd last about 30 seconds
in this posture, if I was lucky. :-)

	-Neil

    Okay, I'll buy that .... the "both feet right together" helps the
    electricity not want to travel through you, if I remember correctly?
    
    ...I think I'd flop over laughing if I tried to stay like that for
    long! (-:

    Down south here we have fire ants, which are red and are nasty when
    they bite.  SO, if you your child is afraid of ants, this is one good
    reason why.  He/she may have also seen one of those nature scenes where
    they show insects and bugs up close - they are kinda scary looking!
    
    Our daughter used to be afraid of daddy-long-legs spiders until we got
    her to actually swat one.  They fall pretty easily, after which she got
    up the nerve to pick up the corpse in kleenix and put in the potty.  I
    think it made her feel powerful to flush the evil creature away.
    
    Now crickets, that's another story.  Those critters can really jump!
    
    Kathleen in Georgia
    

    Last year, when my son was just over 3, we took him to the hospital for
    persistent fever. Since he had had pneumonia the previous year with similar
    symptoms (i.e. no explanation for the high fever), we asked for a chest
    x-ray. My wife was pregnant, so she stayed in the waiting area. My son of
    course wanted her to come, so I explained she couldn't come with us because
    of the new baby (which he knew about).

    Well, we got into the x-ray room and the tech handed me a little lead apron
    to put around his waist, and he just went nuts, screaming, "No! No! I a
    baby, I a baby!!" He thought babies weren't supposed to have this, and here
    we were going to do it to him! He was absolutely terrified as he fought to
    get the apron away from him. You can imagine how awful I felt. It was the
    most heart-rending thing I ever saw. He thought we were trying to do
    something terrible to him. I finally managed to calm him down a little by
    putting an apron on myself and hugging him, but he still fussed and squirmed
    the whole time, not quite believing he was safe. They had a setup with a
    little bike-style saddle and molded plexiglass to restrain him, so we
    managed to get useable pictures. He was quite happy to get out of there and
    back to mommy who wasn't going to try and barbecue him with the big bad
    machine.

    
    I guess my first response is .... why does he HAVE to go in the water??
    Chris used to be petrified of the water at about that age, and now I
    can't get him out, no matter how blue he turns, shivering.  
    
    I think if you "force" him, you may just deepen his fear.  We went to
    Ossippee Lake the summer that Chris' fear was at the worst.  He stayed
    on the beach, and sometimes would sit down and just let the water touch
    his toes, but that was as much as he would think about going in.  He
    enjoyed throwing rocks in, and tossing his boats in and making Mom or
    Dad go get them, but that was it.  The following summer he was the same
    way, but maybe not QUITE so bad.  He was really afraid of drowning.  I
    got him an inflatable tube, and showed him that it would even hold ME
    up, and that helped some, but he would still only go up to his stomach,
    lift up his feet for a spilt second to float, then stand up again.  
    
    He didn't seem to mind being "hot" so much, and sometimes would take a
    bucket of water (which he dared to get himself usually), and pour it
    over himself.  We just let him sweat it out.  
    
    I would plan on not going with the swimming lessons, and if he's
    encouraged by the other kids doing it, okay, but otherwise it's
    probably best to just leave him be, and let him get over it on his own
    pretty much.  There are many adults who don't enjoy the water too -
    nothing says you have to like it.
    
    Good luck, and try to have a relaxing summer - this is probably more
    upsetting to you that he won't swim, than it is to him.

I had the same reaction as Patty.

While 3 may seem "old" or at least "old enough" to you, there's plenty of 
time left in his life to learn to swim.  That time may not come, for example, 
until he's big enough to stand up in the shallow end of a pool.

My take on "swimming lessons" at three is that most kids don't really learn 
how to *swim*; at best they get drown-proofed, and learn, for example to hold 
on to the side of the pool, and at least they get used to feeling comfortable 
in the water.  In yous son's case, it doesn't sound like any of these 
objectives will be met.

I'd say make sure that he has plenty of opportunity and encouragement to get 
in the water, but, as you already say, that he isn't *forced* to get in the 
water or made to feel bad (and this includes the pre-school) if he chooses 
not to get in.  On your vacation, I'd also suggest plenty of activities that 
don't involve getting in the water, and that someone watch him carefully when 
he's near the water. The *worst* thing that can happen is that he has a scary 
experience.


Clay 

    Will you be at a beach in Maine?  Many times at low tide you
    can find tidal pools.  These are usually quite shallow (and
    warm) so he can get used to being in/near the water on a 
    smaller scale without the big waves.
    
    Conni

    Phobias are definitely interesting and who knows where they come
    from...  I've stopped trying to guess.
    
    My 4 year old seems to have an unusual number of phobias but "unusual"
    is only based on what my 6 year old had - which was none.  Actually my
    six year old's ONLY phobia (or more a "worry than a phobia) is that
    someone is going to come in the house in the middle of the night and
    "take all her things".  Now she's not worried about anyone harming her
    or us, but she's definitely worried about losing her "things".  I still
    can't figure out what she thinks is so important that anyone else would
    want, but that's not really for me to figure out.
    
    My 4 year old has phobias of elevators.  She'll get on them, but she
    still tenses incredibly and won't talk while she's on one.  She also
    won't get into the bathtub until the water is turned off.  She thinks
    the water is going to fill up so high as to get in her face.  Now,
    we've showed her (or tried to explain to her) that it will run out of
    the tub before it will get in her face, but it doesn't matter.  That's
    a fear of her's and we just make it a point to respect their fears and
    figure that eventually they will go away.  I can't imagine her being 15
    years old and being afraid of running bath water and elevators - but I
    guess we'll see.
    
    All children are different and fears/phobias are real to them - no
    matter how silly/unsubstantiated they may be to us as parents...