Scared kid advice

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I hesitate to post this, but I’m curious about reactions and need some third-party feedback.

Bricker Jr is scared of things that I don’t expect a fourth-grader to be scared of. I want to know if my expectations are off-base.

The first set of things are an odd duality: medicine and sickness. He’s extremely intelligent and and inquisitive, but the inquisitiveness goes into overdrive when disease is discussed. He had a flu shot recently and wanted to know in detail how it works and what the chances of dying of flu were. I ended up explaining why antibiotics don’t work on viruses like flu, but are effective against anthrax (there was a “white powder” scare on the news here recently, which is why that topic was on his mind.)

Every time there’s mention on the news of a disease, he wants to know how you get it, if it can kill you… and he worries that he may get it.

Simultaneously, he’s afraid of taking medicine. Merely getting him to swallow pills is an exhausting endeavor that begins with asking, cajoling, and ends up with a crying kid and a harsh order from his mom or me. He can’t stand the usual medicine flavors like grape or orange, and so gags at liquid medicine. He intellectually accepts that medicine will fix disease, but can’t make himself take the leap (and the medicine).

Last week, he got sick at school. The nurse called me to say that he had been in to see her that morning with a headache, and she told him that he could go back to class, but if he got a fever, some children’s Tylenol would help. She sent him back to class, and then got a call from his teacher saying he was crying in class (trying hard to stifle it, but crying). On his return to the nurse, he revealed the reason he was crying was that he knew he had a fever and thus knew he was going to have to take medicine.

There are other fears. We have a finished basement, but he hates to be down there alone. (This one may have a basis in history: my wife and I had a Buffy party a few years ago and “Hush” was on when he came down to see us; he says he always thinks of The Gentlemen when he is in the basement now).

At the movies this weekend, he cuddled up tight next to me when they showed the big notice that says, “In case of fire, walk, do not run, to the nearest exit…” and said that seeing that scares him because he thinks of what would happen if there was a fire.

There are other examples, but hopefully that’s the flavor of the problem. My son is the brightest kid in his class by leaps and bounds. He reads at an eighth grade level.

But I’m thinking he’s a bit more scared than your average bear, and I wonder if something should be done.

2

Sounds like he has lots of imagination. Also, the kinds of things you mention are things which many kids of all age ranges worry about; they do it in different ways, though. In BrickerJr’s case, I think he may have Too Much Information… he’s smart, so you go into all this detail with him, and while he remembers the words he doesn’t quite completely understand them; his emotional reactions are what’s normal for his age.

Makes me think of when I first (quasi)understood about bacteria - I had known about “sick bugs” for years and that their existence was linked to hygiene, but realizing that they were all over me, while not understanding that having them all over me would not make me sick, made me freak out. I was already old enough to be told about them in class, but still young enough to want to take the harshest shower ever now.

Best advice I can think of is, remember than even if he reads at the 8th grade level, he is not an 8th grader. His comprehension depth and his emotional responses are closer to his biological age than to his reading ability. Stop the information flows a bit earlier.

3

Yeah it sounds like he’s made the leap from “flu vaccine can make you sick or even potentially kill” to “all medicine is a crap shoot of russian roulette.”

4

I’m moving this to MPSIMS, which I think would be a good place to get parenting advice.

I’ll add that it does sound like the obsessive musings of a very bright child, burdened with understanding things that he doesn’t yet have the emotional capacity to deal with. My advice is to talk about it with him as much as possible without adding to the scariness. Information, I’ve found, is the best way to combat bright children’s fears.

Ellen

5

To add to what I just said, what about getting some kids’ books on microbiology? Introduce him to the immune system, discuss the body’s defenses and why getting a fever is actually a good thing. Maybe learning about this “unseen world” might help combat his fears about the ghost in the basement, too.

6

My kids are fifth and sixth grade - also pretty darn bright (my daughter more than my son - she’s in fifth grade), and I don’t think your expectations are off base. It sounds like your son can get quite obsessive about the low risk stuff in life (“what if there is a fire”) - and that isn’t normal. And I think its probably worth dealing with now, this is about the time they start introducing topics like the Holocaust into schools - for a kid sensitive to “what happens if” those sorts of topics could create a life impacting level of anxiety.

(My kids also aren’t fond of the basement alone - ours is unfinished - but with area rugs on the floor and its a newer house - it isn’t the creepy basement feel - its also a walkout with big windows and a big sliding glass door. Though honestly, I’m not fond of the basement alone - there just isn’t that much to do down there).

Our school has a social worker and a child psychologist available that might be the first stop for us. Basically he seems to need a risk analysis toolkit and some techniques to deal with anxiety. As a grown up, I had a period of irrational and life impacting anxiety about stupid stuff that I knew was unlikely - and I have done risk analysis for a living - I KNEW I was obsessing about low risk events that I couldn’t do anything about anyway. As a grownup, I got medicated out of it, but I don’t think that should be a first step for anyone, and particularly not a kid.

(I was so proud of my daughter last year who doesn’t like heights (neither do I) and who conquered her fear to go zip lining).

7

I’m going to concur that the issue is he’s bright enough to absorb more information than he’s emotionally able to handle. A friend of mine has a similar issue with her son and she’s found an amazing counsellor who works specifically with gifted kids. H. is still scared by things but he’s got some coping tools now. It’s really cute listening to him talk to himself when he’s in a situation where he used to freak out.

8

… care to share any of those coping tools with a bunch of anonymous strangers?

9

For what it’s worth, I was at least as scared of things as Bricker, Jr. when I was his age - more so, actually. I hated to be alone, and was so frightened that I was driven to tears when my parents insisted I take a walk around the block by myself. Was horrible about both fear of disease and taking medicines as well.

I got better, though - just grew out of it.

10

Just to muddy the waters a bit, I was an anxious and rather morbid child and I was actually quite reassured when my parents would (kindly) snort at my fears, tell me they weren’t going to happen and then leave it at that. So in other words, less info, not more. For the fire thing, for instance - I think I’d have been less assured by hearing all about the many safety features (or whatever) and more by my dad just giving a snort and saying “Tell ya what - if there’s a fire, I’ll give you £50. Now let’s watch Bambi, huh?”

Otherwise, to my child brain, I think him taking me seriously would be to take my fears seriously. Which would mean I might be right! Rather like when you hear some totally wackadoodle subject argued about on the news. Just by dint of hearing the subject discussed at length seems to somehow grant credence. Faulty thinking of course, but one that can lend weight to all kinds of crackpot nonsense.

FWIW, I fully accept that were children are concerned there’s never going to be a one size fits all approach but I’m throwing my own child experiences out there. I hope he grows past this stage soon, poor mite :frowning:

11

I used to be pretty similar in fourth grade. I liked to read and had an over-active imagination. I’d worry about nuclear war (this was in the late 80’s), constantly diagnose myself with diseases (my parents were both doctors so medical talk dominated dinner table conversation), I was scared of the dark, I hated going on elevators because I was afraid they’d fall while I was in them and would climb up ten flights of stairs to avoid them.

I used to be scared of riding in planes, and when my mother tried to reassure me by telling me that flying was statistically safer then driving, I became scared of flying and riding in the car.

Eventually I basically just got over it. Partially this was because to hang out with my friends in jr high and not come off as a weirdo, I had to basically just suffer through some of the stuff I was scared of in silence, and eventually I wasn’t scared of it anymore. Partially it was because I just got smarter and better able to asses risk realistically. I don’t think there’s much you can do to help your son with the former process, but you can help him with the latter by just walking him through why the stuff he’s worried about is pretty unlikely to befall him, and point out that if he does get hit by some statistically unlikely tragedy (like a heart attack in fourth grade), there’s not really anything he can do about it so worrying isn’t really going to help him.

Oddly now I’m really laid back. Even things that normal people spend time worrying about or are freaked out about doesn’t phase me very much. Not sure if its coincidence or because I just got good at dealing with fear back in fourth grade.

12

When I was that age I don’t think I was scared of taking medications, but I found it extremely unpleasant. I couldn’t swallow a pill to save my life, and sometimes it was a real challenge for my parents.

I got over the liquid medicine thing when I was out of school with pneumonia for two weeks. I ended up hating the strawberry-tasting stuff (to this day I can’t drink a strawberry shake), but I developed a fondness for the mediciny-tasting stuff. Having to take medice twice a day for a couple of weeks got me over that fear fast.

13

He sounds like a sensitive kid but not an abnormal one. Nine is still pretty little. Make sure you’ve got a reassuringly dismissive tone in your voice when he asks you about scary stuff…

14

I agree with the active imagination and too much info. You can try to diffuse some of it by saying, " Yes, these things do happen but they’re not likely to happen to you. Still it’s good to be prepared so you don’t have to worry anymore."

Also many adults are scared of being in the basement alone so that’s not really a strange fear. I told my kids that the fear of the basement is some leftover fear from our primitive days meant to protect us from dangerous caves and animal dens, not an actual fear of modern basements.

I think a lot of kids are afraid of everything for a while just most are too embarrassed to talk about it much.

15

Aw, poor you! I’m going off the experiences with my two sons; the older one developed a fear of tornadoes, though we don’t have them often where I live. (But they DO happen, so I was a little worried about telling him we’d never have one.) Nevertheless, I told them they were rare, we’d get plenty of warning so we’d be safe if we had one, moved his bed away from the window … and got him a book about tornadoes, which we read several times. I think he mostly outgrew it.

My younger son developed a horror of spiders. We have been reading about them for the last several months, and although he still isn’t interested in touching them or going particularly near them, he avidly looks for them and points them out everywhere, and calls them his buddies. He’s 6.

16

The first is understanding risk. i.e. there isn’t a very high risk I’m actually going to get a brain tumor.

The second is controlling for the risks. What’s the worst thing that can happen? What can I do to prevent it from happening or cope with its outcome (get regular medical checkups, carry health and life insurance).

Another is to practice whatever sort of feedback works for you - meditation, afirmation, biofeedback -so that when you get anxious, you teach yourself to “talk yourself down.”

And after that its medication if the anxiety is really life impacting and behavioral therapy doesn’t work.

17

Sounds like he is afraid of being afraid, this can lead to panic attacks later on.

Once again I strongly recommend you by the book Stop Running Scared by Herbert Fensterheim

It’s out of print but the link gives you Amazon used copies. It is a great book. When I first got panic attacks I used it to beat the attacks without meds.

It shows you how people conditon themeselves to be afraid and how to recondition yourself to be calm instead of afraid.

The book is likely to be too advanced for him but you certainly will benefit from it.

The key to fighting fear is knowlege. The more he knows the less likely he is to be afraid of it.

18

I wouldn’t worry about it. His behavior is a bit quirky, but every kid has strange quirks, and they’re all over the map – bizarre interests, strange aversions, weird mistaken notions. When you have more than one kid, or if you spend a lot of time around kids (as a teacher, let’s say), this phenomenon jumps out at you a lot more. In your case, if your kid seems, in other respects, healthy and well adapted, I wouldn’t sweat too much about the odd piece of behavior that doesn’t fit the norm.

19

I would say that the intelligence of understanding the dangers of the world has outpaced the maturity to put it into context. I think reassuring without allowing it to effect his daily activities is the correct path. Perhaps even use his intelligence to out into context - learning to understand risk. He may not get rid of all the fears but as he gets older they’ll be held in context.

20

I agree with this.

I also agree with this. :smiley:

Every [del] kid [/del] person is different, and finds different levels of information reassuring. You’ve got to do some experimenting to find out what level of information is right for him.

Worst mistake I made with my son was over sharing. It just made him anxious to hear things that could go wrong, even if they were quickly addressed with a plan to handle them. Worst mistake I’ve made with my daughter is under sharing. It makes her anxious to think she’s the only one thinking of Bad Stuff, and once she knows Mom’s thought of it too, and has a plan of attack, she can relax.