Coping with Childhood Fears

I believe it is healthy to have fears to a certain degree about certain things. For example, you want your child to fear fast moving cars so they do not run out in traffic. However, sometimes children experience a high level of fear across many areas of their lives. These children are living in their “911 Brain” or Limbic System more than their “Clear Thinking Brain” or Neo Cortex. Everything seems like a big deal to these children and they need help getting from their “911 Brain” to their “Clear Thinking Brain”. One strategy to help her child make this transition is to help them broaden their emotional vocabulary. Children often get stuck in their “911 Brain” because they cannot verbalize their emotions to alleviate the emotional pressure. Try playing a feelings tic-tac-toe with candy. First, draw a tic-tac-toe board on a piece of paper and write a feeling word along with a feeling face in each square. Next, have two different pieces of candy that represent two teams. Each player takes a turn placing the candy on a square and tells what the feeling word means and gives an example of a time they have experienced that feeling. Lastly, the person who gets a tic-tac-toe win gets to eat a piece of candy.