How to Help Children With Fear

Video Transcript

"Hi my name is Dr. Laura Grashow, and I am a child psychologist in private practice here in south Florida. Let's talk about how to help children with fear. Generally speaking when children get very fearful their parents can get fearful also, and feel stuck, and like they don't want to push the child into whatever it is that is making them frightened, because they don't want to do any damage. So sometimes consulting with a professional really is an important thing to do. But generally speaking if you avoid whatever is triggering the fear it likely will become worse. It won't just fade away. If a child is frightened of dogs that might not interfere with their life as much as say if they are frightened of socializing or frightened of going to school. What you really want to do is be supportive, and patient, but keep putting the child in situations where they are going to have a chance to master whatever it is that is making them frightened. It is also important to lower the bar. So if a child is frightened of socializing for example, don't overwhelm him maybe by putting him on the playground with lots of kids. Maybe you want to have one child who is very familiar come over. And then it is important to do a lot of praising when you see your child getting past that fear, and you can raise the bar little by little."