The Difference In Approaching Fears As Adults Versus Children
The Difference In Approaching Fears As Adults Versus Children
Approaching Fears. It’s one of our most primal emotions, but thanks to societal conditioning and gender stereotypes, it’s taken on a meaning that’s entirely different from its original intention by nature.
Originating from the almond-shaped amygdala in our brains, fear is a feeling – and subsequent set of emotions – designed to anticipate oncoming events which could harm our safety, if not our lives as a whole. Those emotions, and the associated release of stressors and hormones within our body, lead to what people refer to as the “fight or flight” response, where people either respond to the perceived threat with some form of aggression or retaliation, or by outright avoiding or escaping from the threat.
In today’s world, fears are different than they were from our prehistoric ancestors. There aren’t natural predators roaming around, looking to turn us into dinner. There are laws and systems of governance in place that prevent human beings from inflicting harm upon each other, or penalizing them if they do so.
But even if we as people and/or society as a whole have evolved, this primordial emotion remains with us just the same as it did thousands of years ago. In today’s world, we believe we have better ways of approaching fears, whether it’s through convincing ourselves of its irrationality, learning more about the causes of and resolutions for the stressor, or even seeking professional help (in the most extreme situations).
How to approach fear as an adult?
However, the one main caveat to everything listed above is the fact that we’re discussing fear in the context of being an adult.
As we all know, fear is much more manifested in children, simply because they lack the overall cognitive development and general life experience of adults.
As adults, we understand that there’s nothing actually wrong with the dark, going to the doctor isn’t all that bad, there’s no such thing as monsters or ghosts, and there certainly isn’t one of them living in our closet or under our bed. But if children, by virtue of the fact that their bodies – and brains – are still developing, how as adults are we supposed to communicate logically in response to these very emotional triggers?
Therein lies one of the key challenges of parenting. You can’t approach an illogical behavior by a child the same way as you would with an adult, and you certainly can’t use adult reasoning with a child under duress. Anyone who’s ever tried to talk down a hysterical adolescent who’s had a bad dream, or remembers getting injections the last time they saw their pediatrician, can attest.
Generally speaking, when we see fearful behavior from children, which can manifest as early as in the toddler stages (fear and/or anxiety is a big reason many children compulsively suck their thumb and leads to the associated dangers of thumb sucking), it’s important for us as parents to empathize with the child, see the world from their lenses, and then try to assure them that you recognize their stressor and are there to help them get through it – as opposed to trying to dismiss it outright.