How fearful were you as a child?

@OmSigDAVID,

David, I have been holding back from requesting that you cease spamming this thread with your gun mania stuff....hoping that if we all continued to ignore it you would get tired of posting to thin air...but now that some people have commented I would wish to request politely that you stop filling this space that is meant for something quite different with this obsession of yours.

1 Reply

@Linkat,

Quote:

Funny the parent fear...I remember a friend of mine from Japan that told me when she was child, they learned there were only two things to be fearful of: earthquakes and your father.

When I was a baby we had quite a big earthquake.

My father used to tell this story about running outside to see what was happening (it was the middle of the night) and meeting the guy from next door out there.

They were talking about the earthquake when the neighbour's little girl came running out crying, ran to her father, threw herself on the ground sobbing, with her arms around her father's legs, and wailed "Daddy, I didn't do it!!! Daddy, I didn't do it!!!"

1 Reply

@dlowan,

I used to run outside after earthquakes (I was a California kid, so little ones weren't all that uncommon) to look for the crack in the ground. I never looked further than my backyard, but I was sure I'd find one.

I also thought the lightning bolt in the pastoral scene painted on our dented mailbox was, like the dent, the result of a lightning strike.

I did not have a firm grasp on how nature worked. It's possible that I have a defective brain.

But that's off-topic chatter...

0 Replies

@boomerang,

boomerang wrote:

Mo worries about everything and I mean everything. His school had a field trip to the art museum yesterday and he worried for a week that the building was going to be "too big". He was vague about why the size of the building made him feel nervous. He will find some little thing to worry about in just about any situation.

For us, preparation is the key to easing the fears. We talk and talk and I try to realistically address all of the things he can think up about what could go wrong.

As a kid I worried a lot, I thought of every possible thing that could go wrong and it bothered me. I still tend to think of things very laterally (everything that could happen good and bad) even though I'm not very anxious and I think I recognize some of that in your descriptions of Mo.

What helped me not worry (as opposed to think about it very laterally) is to realize two things:

1) Worrying is kind of pointless if I can't do anything about it.
2) If I worry very laterally then the overwhelming (and I'm talking over 90%) majority of it won't actually happen

So what changed for me as a kid was not that I stopped thinking all those thoughts, but that I stopped letting them bother me. The lateral thinking actually helps me in some ways (e.g. software development in imagining weird use cases) but it doesn't stress me very much at all.

I didn't actually do this, and just the story alone was what did the trick for me as a kid but I read of a father having his daughter keep a fear diary and then revisiting it with her after some time. Most irrational fears like that seem silly in retrospect, but counting just how many of them are silly (and he sounds like the type that would bat well over 9 out of 10 in the silly department) really hammers home just how much time and happiness was spent on irrational fear.

That anecdote was one of the big turning points in my life of worry and it might work for him. 2 Cents

3 Replies

@dlowan,

Quote:

Re: OmSigDAVID(Post 3404844)
David, I have been holding back from requesting that you cease
spamming this thread with your gun mania stuff....hoping that
if we all continued to ignore it you would get tired of posting to
thin air...but now that some people have commented I would
wish to request politely that you stop filling this space that is
meant for something quite different with this obsession of yours.

OK.
If anyone else raises the subject again,
I will not respond (at least not on this thread, anyway).

David

0 Replies

@Robert Gentel,

Quote:

As a kid I worried a lot, I thought of every possible thing that could go wrong and it bothered me. I still tend to think of things very laterally (everything that could happen good and bad) even though I'm not very anxious and I think I recognize some of that in your descriptions of Mo.

What helped me not worry (as opposed to think about it very laterally) is to realize two things:

1) Worrying is kind of pointless if I can't do anything about it.
2) If I worry very laterally then the overwhelming (and I'm talking over 90%) majority of it won't actually happen

So what changed for me as a kid was not that I stopped thinking all those thoughts, but that I stopped letting them bother me. The lateral thinking actually helps me in some ways (e.g. software development in imagining weird use cases) but it doesn't stress me very much at all.

I didn't actually do this, and just the story alone was what did the trick for me as a kid but I read of a father having his daughter keep a fear diary and then revisiting it with her after some time. Most irrational fears like that seem silly in retrospect, but counting just how many of them are silly (and he sounds like the type that would bat well over 9 out of 10 in the silly department) really hammers home just how much time and happiness was spent on irrational fear.

That anecdote was one of the big turning points in my life of worry and it might work for him.

"Sufficient unto the day
is the evil thereof." Jesus

0 Replies

@Robert Gentel,

Bomer...Rob is describing a cognitive technique to assist kids with global anxiety......there are heaps of good resources for kids with this kind of pattern.

I am happy to give some info if you are interested....here or in email.

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

Wow, Robert. A fear diary makes so much sense! Writing down what he's worried about and revisiting the list would go a long way in pointing out that his worries are unfounded. I see how this would be so useful to him.

We could even incorporate the diary into this secret agent game we play where I assign him a "mission" when he has to go some place or do something new.

Thanks so much for the idea!

0 Replies

@dlowan,

I would love more information, dlowan!

Post it here if it is of general interest and might help other people. If it's more specific to Moishness send it by email!

Much appreciated.

0 Replies

I was fearful/anxious about so many things both real and imagined I couldn't begin to count.

My parents had no idea, because on the occassion when I talked of my fears I was ridiculed.

So, I kept it to myself.

Today I realize my parents were not at all parent material, and they had no idea they were supposed to comfort and support their children.

Today the only fears I have are reasonable one about things that have a possibility of happening, and I have ideas of what to do if those events occur.

1 Reply

@dlowan,

Total irrational fear of Spiders... arachniphobe of the highest proportion!

Dr. Who - behind the sofa... Planet of the Spiders.... jumps on back, takes over body - ugh, chuck... sick... faint.

Recurring nightmare of wax lady coming from the tin mine on the moor - parents owned an "old folks home" so heard lotsa ugh noises at nite - old folk crying out - til I went to boarding school. Anyhooo - wax lady coming to get me up the big long drive - she was NASTY NASTY.... used to dream it all the time as a kid... not in the last few years tho.

JAWS (Spy Who Loved Me film) being in the wardrobe - always had to have wardrobe doors closed... still do!

I was an athlete and gymnast - used to "fear" not being able to perform but would never show it - never had a problem tho...

Other than that - had very happy and fulfilled childhood - loved school - great times. Nothing bad really at all.

Little fella - fears many, many things - always fears the worst. The end of the world is nigh - he is getting less fearful tho in the last year or so. (Results of home life methinks)

BigBoy - huge anxieties - will not get on a plane - he will be blown up in the air, will not go to London, he will be blown up by a bomb, will not swim in sea - sharks will eat him, (he will do these things tho he says he won't), has a ghost that follows him wherever he goes that wishes to send him to the next world - everything and anything. YET - in his behaviour - he is fearless. Amazing athlete, wicked sense of humour, quick witted, completely obtuse and off the wall in his thinking - you would think he feared nothing.

0 Replies

I saw this thread yesterday and just haven't been able to come up with anything. I wouldn't say I was fearless though. I just can't remember specifics.

None of what's listed so far resonates -- I loved spiders and bugs and crawly things, didn't mind the dark, didn't believe in boogiemen. There was some social stuff, even early. I remember agonizing about what to do when I realized that I just didn't really like the girl who had been my "best friend" for a couple of years, in third grade. She had become manipulative and "mean girl"-ish, quite absorbed with being alpha. It wasn't easy to just stop being friends with her. I pulled off this definitive, in-your-face thing -- it had to do with who was in which tent for a camping trip, as harmless as that sounds -- and I remember a lot of fear around that (though it came off well).

Hmm, that's too specific, isn't it? Circumstance-based.

I became a major worrier when my daughter was born but tended towards Panglossian before then.

I DID have irrational worries as a kid though, I'm just not putting my finger on 'em. (Generally have a bad memory for childhood it seems.)

Sozlet has an enduring fear of coyotes. She claims to hear them howl now and then, which I thought unlikely when it first came up but since then I've found that coyotes HAVE been sighted in our (urban!) area! She had dinosaur dreams for a long time, after a too-early (age-wise) viewing of "Walking with the Dinosaurs." A full moon freaks her out too -- not so much the moon itself (she loves to look at it) as the shadows it casts in her room. Too much light --> harder to sleep --> half-asleep longer --> freaked out more easily.

0 Replies

@chai2,

chai2 wrote:

I was fearful/anxious about so many things both real and imagined I couldn't begin to count.

My parents had no idea because. . . .

I didn't have a lot of fears, but the ones I had were paralyzing and incapacitating. If my parents knew they gave no indication that they cared. Terrified of thunderstorms? Go back to bed. Afraid that airplane would fall on me? Don't be silly. So yes, you stop telling them and cope with fears in silence.

On the other side of the coin, I tried to help my kids understand and deal with their fears and did not belittle them. Not sure they were any less fearful, however, and no clue whether they thought it actually helped. Reason and logic is generally not all that helpful in the face of irrational fears.

1 Reply

@Foxfyre,

I don 't remember ever complaining of fears to my parents.
Indeed, I was not afraid of anything,
except for a few weeks while I was home alone in Arizona, at age 8,
but that fear ended abruptly upon the occurrence of a certain event
that I am not allowed to mention any more, and which shall therefore remain anonymous.

David

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

Hmm ... saw this thread and have mulled a bit. Like chai2 my parents were not very good at being parental. Most of my fears came out of things they made me afraid of, I suppose. I won't get into my childhood "discipline" as this isn't the place for it, but they put me (and my siblings in turn) in a dark room in the cellar which I am positive gave me a horrible fear of the dark throughout childhood. I also remember fearing "bad people" but probably because my parents were! Go figure. Can't think of anything else just now other than being generally 'fearful' growing up in that household. I really don't have any fears or phobias now.
My oldest (daughter) seems to have grown up pretty fearless, thank goodness. My second & youngest (son) has had an irrational fear of bees for some reason. He does tend to be more sensitive like me though.
Interesting topic!

2 Replies

@devriesj,

I'm afraid of bees (though I've been working my way out of it, more or less) but with good reason. My mother was stung by a hornet and went into anaphylactic shock as we were driving between somewhere in east Indiana to Chicago. Got her to a hospital in time. I've learned to steel myself re bees, not knowing if I'm allergic, but also being mildly interested in them. Never ever would I strive to become a beekeeper. But.. that is reality based fear, so nemmind.

I'm wondering, musing, about books for kids. I only remember my mother telling me made up stories, like the tiger with the kittens in the woods..
and no mother goose, aesops fables, etc., no witches - learned about them from other children some time later. I did read mother goose in a bored way when I could read. But mostly once I could read, I read the 'funny pages' and whatever magazines were lying around the house.

I got books for my birthday, but tended to find them boring, and at the same time be sentimentally attached, as they were gifts from my parents. So.. Heidi, and something about an irish setter, and ... by far the best, Black Beauty. That did get to me. Then on to Nancy Drew.

So I had a sort of monster/witch/ghost/whatever free early childhood. And didn't worry about closets.

1 Reply

@ossobuco,

Lots of fears are normal...I am finding it fascinating to hear from folk who didn't have any!

Ages Common fears

Infants and toddlers - loud noises
- separation, strangers

Preschoolers - animals " especially dogs
- the dark
- ghosts and monsters

School age - snakes and spiders
- fear of failure and rejection
- the news and TV shows
- blood, injury, and sickness
- being home alone
- death

I have started looking for stuff available online for Boomer...I'll deposoit them here.

http://www.ces.purdue.edu/providerparent/Child%20Growth-Development/Ways_Help_Cope_Fears.htm

http://www.ces.purdue.edu/providerparent/Child%20Growth-Development/Books_onfears_Children.htm

http://www.parenting-ed.org/handout3/Specific%20Concerns%20and%20Problems/general%20fears.htm

Here are some books I have bought:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591473144

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0767914929

http://www.amazon.com/Worried-No-More-Anxious-Children/dp/0967734738/ref=sr_11_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1221874178&sr=11-1

I damn well WROTE a little book for kids and parents, and we had it printed.....it was very simple but quite helpful...but I never thought to keep any copies when I changed jobs. I could have sent it to you, Boomer!

I'll be back with more stuff.

2 Replies

@dlowan,

Something to help you know when to worry about children's worry:

http://www.chw.edu.au/prof/services/psychmed/healthykids/media/english/anxiety_in_children.pdf

This is big and academic....but interesting as an overview of anxiety on kids:

http://auseinet.flinders.edu.au/files/resources/auseinet/anxiety.pdf

0 Replies

@dlowan,

A resource leading to lots of other resources:

http://www.healthinsite.gov.au/topics/Anxiety_in_Children

Nice one for kids from that source:

http://www.cyh.com/HealthTopics/HealthTopicDetailsKids.aspx?p=335&np=287&id=2224

2 Replies

@dlowan,

Fascinating, Deb! What is your field of expertise if I might ask?

1 Reply

How fearful were you as a child?

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know