Childhood fears and phobias are very common and always have been. Yet, we are seeing a link between childhood trauma and phobias, fears, and even OCD. What is there was a way to prevent this? Keep reading for a simple tip to help your child move on from a phobia or new fear.

How do I know if my child has a phobia?:

Is your child suddenly afraid of the dark? Is your child suddenly nervous around other kids in social settings? Is your child suddenly afraid of animals?

Are you starting to get worried that your child will develop a phobia or even Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)? Is your child acting extra worried about something in particular or you are noticing a new behavior that seems like a red flag for you? This post is to help the parents that are worried that something they are doing in their parenting is going to cause or has caused a phobia for their child.

Have you ever had a moment where your child had an experience and they wanted to tell you about it, again and again? They wanted to reexplain and then tell you a few more times. The next day, they want to tell you the same story… you guessed it! AGAIN! You may start to become annoyed at this point, why is my child telling me this same story? It was not that big of a deal! But chances are, whatever story your child is telling you was either very important to them OR traumatic for them. Just like adults, children need time to process out loud. If your child does not get adequate time and space to speak about an incident or experience and retell it again and again, they cannot make sense of it in their minds, which could result in a phobia.

For example, my daughter who was about a year at the time, went to a family friends birthday party. She went downstairs with my to my friends apartment and she found a ball in my friends child’s room. She brought it back to the party, and of course all other tots came running for her and this big new shiny ball she found. She was excited at first to play along with the other kids. The kids would throw the ball and grab it from her hands, she was confused but just stood there waiting her turn. Finally, someone threw the ball to her she picked it up and BAM! She was shoved to the ground as hard as possible by a friends toddler who was a few months older than her. I saw true fear for the first time across my toddlers face. I went over to her and picked her up, but she was balling her eyes out. My daughter does not cry unless she is afraid, sick, actually hurt, or extremely tired. She cried and cried.

I knew in that moment that I would need to talk it out with her in the presence of the incident in order for her to feel safe. I showed her how everyone is passing the ball and he pushed her because he wanted the ball. I explained to her how we do not push each other and he should not have pushed you. The sweet little boy came over and felt awful trying to give her the ball and play again, having no idea or understanding of the situation. We ended up leaving shortly after. The whole way home, to my surprise, she was still crying for the ball. In my toddlers mind, that was her ball, she found it, it was hers. She had no understanding that it was actually the little boy who pushed her ball from his room.

We decided to get her a ball since we were at a loss. But…for the next three months, my daughter became fearful any time a child her age would get even a tiny bit close to her. She would get those big fearful eyes as if she was about to get really hurt. I just could not figure out why she was afraid of kids. After reading many books and learning more about the psychology of trauma, I learned that the incident with the ball and being shoved to the ground was immensely traumatic to her. I knew it would take a lot of out loud processing, facing the fear together, and practicing new ways of responding for her to not develop an intense phobia of social settings with other children. As I slowly did this, I saw her become fearless again and her behaviors shifted in social settings. If I had not taken the time to learn why she was having a new anxiety or phobia of other children coming close to her, I would have probably just written it off as separation anxiety. But now my daughter is thriving in her social settings.

Here is what I did:

Revisit out loud and through play the situation that occurred:

-Did your child get pushed?

-Did a dog bite them and it scared them?

-Did they lose you in a supermarket?

-Did they get yelled at for something they did not do?

Etc.

It may take some time to identify the situation that caused trauma. But once you determine it the best thing to do is talk about it with them, let THEM do the talking, ask them to tell you the story, what happened, how were you feeling, did you get hurt, were you afraid, etc. They will stop talking about it and the new behavior will subside with time. But you must, must allow they efficient time to process out loud what happened.

Processing is the most important part of moving forward from trauma. Phobia occur when a situation that was traumatic for someone was not processed but was pushed down and ignored and is now coming out through a behavior instead of a thought and emotion.

My last tip, you do not get to determine what is traumatic for someone. A child dropping an ice cream cone may have traumatized them, it sounds silly, but they are the makers of their stories. They may have dropped an ice cream cone in front of a group of people and felt ashamed or embarrassed. If they get the time to process their feelings and emotions about it, then they are more likely to understand that it was just an accident and everyone around them would think so too, but it does not matter what they think because they know it was an accident. If a child does not process the incident they will begin to become afraid of doing embarrassing things or they may develop a phobia of eating in public around other people.

Human connection is a biological need, and processing our lives, experiences, and traumas is also a part of that connection. If you are worried about your child having phobias, the best thing you can do for them is give them a space to process things out loud in a judgement free zone, with you.

If your child is still showing phobia of a particular thing with behaviors that are new and no methods are helping, it is best to seek professional help. Traumatic incidents can turn into OCD, and if too much time has passed between the traumatic incident and getting the opportunity to process it OR they do not feel comfortable talking to their parent about it, then seek professional help. They have other tools and methods that can help. BUT, when it comes to OCD you want to take care of it early on or the behaviors will get more intense and the the compulsions become more and more illogical. The reasoning for compulsions is to stay safe, so if your child’s behaviors about the phobia are the issue, then you must take action and see a counselor to help your child reprocess or they will carry this phobia their entire lives. No facing the fear is not enough and can actually make them more terrified and also push you away at the same time. They have to hear that their fear is validated by their loved one and that you are going to help them process, face it together, and get through it.