GRAND Vol VI, Ed III
GRAND honours and supports grandparents by providing information on resources and businesses for families and a forum for the exchange of ideas and opinions: Relearning History: A Tour to Kiixin • Summertime Is Grandparent Time • Helping Kids Face Their Fears
GRAND honours and supports grandparents by providing information on resources and businesses for families and a forum for the exchange of ideas and opinions: Relearning History: A Tour to Kiixin • Summertime Is Grandparent Time • Helping Kids Face Their Fears
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Grandparenting<br />
Helping Kids Face Their Fears<br />
Every child passes through that<br />
stage of being afraid of monsters—under<br />
the bed, in dark<br />
corners, down in the basement—it<br />
seems to be a universal childhood fear.<br />
This fear can take root before a child<br />
is at an age when a parent can even<br />
reason with them and provide logical<br />
explanations, and even then, that<br />
assurance rarely seems to allay such<br />
deep-seated phobias. And some children’s<br />
fairy tales only serve to fan the<br />
fire—the witch in Hansel and Gretel<br />
who cooks children, the giant in Jack<br />
and Beanstalk who will “grind Jack’s<br />
bones to make his bread” or the big,<br />
bad wolf in The Three Little Pigs who is<br />
out to devour some piggies.<br />
I’ve had these experiences with<br />
my own sons, and now predictably,<br />
my young grandson seems to be going<br />
through the same phase. This was<br />
made clear to me on a recent trip to<br />
the public library. Whenever we visit<br />
the library, I turn my grandson lose in<br />
the children’s section where he will<br />
often tuck himself away with a book<br />
that catches his interest. On this particular<br />
visit, I didn’t notice he had his<br />
nose in a book about monsters until<br />
he asked me to put it back because it<br />
was scaring him. As we walked home<br />
afterwards, I noticed he wouldn’t hold<br />
my hand. Any time I extended my<br />
hand to him, he shied away from me to<br />
the other side of the sidewalk. When I<br />
asked him what was wrong, he said he<br />
didn’t want to hold my hand because<br />
he was afraid I was going to turn into<br />
a monster. So I asked him: “You’ve<br />
known me seven years now, have I ever<br />
turned into a monster?” His answer? “I<br />
don’t think so, but sometimes you look<br />
pretty scary.”<br />
Well…I asked.<br />
How best to handle this touchy subject<br />
of childhood fears and phobias?<br />
In my own childhood, the prevailing<br />
approach by many parents at that time<br />
was a no-nonsense one—there are no<br />
such thing as monsters. Period. Simple<br />
as that. It was as if a child’s fears were<br />
not be “indulged.” I was raised with<br />
this approach and can attest that it did<br />
nothing other than cause me to feel<br />
ashamed and somehow inadequate. Although<br />
on one level, I trusted the word<br />
of my parents (that they wouldn’t lie<br />
to me), but their logic simply could not<br />
quell my fears. I still took the basement<br />
steps two at a time and insisted<br />
on my bedroom door being left open<br />
with the hall light on. My fear of the<br />
dark was so innate and so irrational<br />
that it overruled all common sense until<br />
I was well into my teens.<br />
As a result, my approach with my<br />
own children was very different. Having<br />
been a victim of my own fears, I<br />
didn’t want to make my children feel<br />
bad about experiencing their own. So<br />
I listened, hugged and validated their<br />
concerns. I actually found it helpful<br />
to confess my own childhood fears<br />
to them as a way of illustrating that<br />
at some point, these anxieties which<br />
seem so overwhelming when we’re<br />
young, gradually lessen or fall away<br />
as we grow into adulthood. And yet, I<br />
also readily admitted to them that even<br />
in adulthood, I still have some fears I<br />
continue to grapple with.<br />
4 <strong>GRAND</strong> grandmag.ca