Your Kiddo Can Be Anxious About Things Now

Your child is now exploring various new environments, be it at school, in the playground or at extracurricular activity classes. There are more changes and challenges to which he has to adapt. It is quite natural that he may develop some sort of anxiety or fear during this process. This fear may result in him avoiding accepting/adapting to the change.

What you need to know 
For instance, suddenly he may show a tendency to avoid going to school. Actual reasons can be a fight with a friend, having lunch alone or unable to make new friends, which he may not share with you. Here it’s important that you are sympathetic and talk to your child. Get him to trust you so that he shares his concerns with you. Once you know the reason, provide a solution, and if required, inform his teacher so that both of you help him overcome his anxiety.

Children at this age usually have common fears like fear of the dark, shots at the doctor’s office, fear of flying after hearing about an airplane crash in the news, a fire drill at school. They may also display certain phobias such as fear of spiders, heights, water, dogs or germs. For instance, your child wants to learn swimming but he is afraid of water. Denying this fear would be very unrealistic. Expose your child to the source of his anxiety in small and unthreatening doses. As a parent give him the required assurance that under your and the coach’s supervision, he will learn swimming gradually. Comfort him and slowly he will become less sensitive to the source of his fear each time he faces it. Ultimately, he will not avoid going for swimming and will look forward to doing the activity.