My daughter is in Grade One. On the way to pick her up from school yesterday afternoon, she mysteriously pulled me aside and said:

"Mom, a terrible thing happened in our school this afternoon. On the fifth floor of our teaching building, there is a female ghost with long red hair and a knife in her hand. It's terrible. "

I asked her why she was afraid of ghosts, and my daughter replied: Because she eats people!

Sure enough, just like when we were young, no child was afraid of ghosts and night, but this fear of darkness and death will generally be gradually overcome with the growth of children's age.

However, in children's minds, there may be some fears from family or society, which are revealed in their daily words and deeds. However, it is often difficult for careless parents to accurately identify them, and children themselves cannot overcome them, causing unspeakable troubles to their hearts and even leaving a shadow on their adult life.

Is there any practical way to help parents receive and recognize the "warning signals" from their children's fears?

The book Psychology of Children's Fear gives parents a trick: read children's fears from graffiti.

This book was written by two authors. Evie Crotti is a psychologist and educator. He started a school of graphology in Milan and often published articles on the relationship between handwriting and psychology in newspapers and magazines. Alberto Mani is a surgeon and psychotherapist. These two co-authored works include graphology, handwriting and health, the interpretation of graffiti and the psychology of children's fear.

In this book, from the perspective of pedagogy and psychology, they analyzed in detail the performance of 34 common fears of children in graffiti and painting from birth to 12 years old, and gave some suggestions to help parents guide their children to overcome timid fears and become confident, brave and happy children.

1. What are the fears of children of different ages?

There are about 30 kinds of common fears among children, among which the fear caused by the influence of family environment easily makes children more vulnerable.

In 0- 18 months of infancy, fear has nothing to do with experience, but the nervous system instinctively forms fear of external stimuli, such as thunder and noise.

18 months-3 years old, at this time, children began to feel "self" and began to explore abroad, but in addition to thunder and noise, there are things related to the big darkness, such as big trucks and burly people.

At the age of 3 -6, children in this period begin to be aggressive and will also start to resist their parents. However, when they start to enter kindergarten, the fear of being separated from their families always leads them to worry that their parents don't love him or don't want him, and they are afraid of losing their loved ones and lack security.

6 -8 years old, children at this stage are generally afraid of darkness and open or closed spaces, but also afraid of monsters, ghosts, monsters and other aggressive fierce beasts. However, more fear comes from parents' excessive persuasion and punishment.

At the age of 8-12, children's emotional world tends to be stable at this stage, and their fears are mostly related to school, such as fear of exams, fear of teachers and fear of backwardness, which are almost related to growth and will gradually disappear with age. And some children will be afraid of poverty, war, disaster and so on. But they are more afraid of being separated from their parents.

Second, what are the "points" to understand children's fears from graffiti?

Language can't express everything, especially for children, graffiti and painting are sometimes more tools to express their inner needs and inner world. Therefore, don't simply think that children are doing meaningless smearing, which is actually the key to opening their inner world.

By analyzing children's paintings and graffiti, we can help us understand the degree of children's fear and choose the right time to intervene.

So, what do we need to observe about children doodling?

Generally speaking, children's pen holding posture, painting space, painting starting point, painting lines, painting strength, painting modeling, color selection, erasure and alteration can convey their inner state.

For example, children who have enough sense of security in their hearts and can properly express their fears are often free and relaxed when holding pens. When children can't express their fears through words, the posture of holding the pen will lead to muscle contraction because of tension.

For another example, the lines in painting are delicate, implicit and hesitant, and children may be more sentimental. The most common fears of such children are fear of being attacked, being dirty, being afraid of physical contact and being afraid of sharp objects.

For this kind of children, the practical advice given by the author is to avoid the tough attitude of preaching, but to enhance children's self-esteem and relax the requirements for children, because such children are already very strict with themselves.

Third, to help children overcome their fears, "love" is the warmest key.

1. Parents should first manage their emotions and avoid negative emotional projection.

Children are the shadows of their parents. Many times, children will unconsciously be forced to get along with the fears projected by their parents, which will also have a negative impact on children over time.

Therefore, in order to help children overcome their fears, parents should first look at themselves. Parents should learn to manage their emotions in order to have a positive influence on their children.

2, don't always preach, do more positive encouragement.

Evie Crotti once saw a father and son on the beach. The father hopes that his 4-year-old son can learn to swim and become a perfect swimmer in the future. But his son was afraid of water and began to struggle as soon as he got into the water.

Ivy Crotti walked up to the father and son, smiled and said to the child, "You swim so well that I can't even surface."

The little boy was very excited when he heard this sentence. Soon he overcame his fear of water and learned to swim.

Love can dispel most fears.

I was particularly moved when I saw a video. During the Syrian war, bomb air strikes rumbled everywhere. A 3-year-old girl asked her father curiously what the noise was. In order not to let the war leave a shadow on the children's hearts, her father said that these rumbling sounds were the joyful sounds of fireworks and toy guns, and she would laugh when she heard them. Then, every time I heard the rumble, both the child and the father laughed. ......

War is ruthless, but love is precious. If the father tells the child the truth behind this rumble, the child will soon face endless fear. However, my father wisely put this terrible scene.

Conclusion:

Although fear makes people feel uncomfortable, not all fears are negative. Sometimes, it will become an "antibody" in the process of children's growth, inspiring children to make some reactions to protect themselves from potential dangers from the outside world.

Therefore, parents need not be too nervous. The book "Psychology of Children's Fear" not only gives concrete suggestions to improve children's every fear, but also gives some practical suggestions to parents in the fifth chapter.

As parents, don't underestimate the negative impact of fear on children, but don't worry too much about fear, otherwise it will aggravate parents' negative emotions and help children to do emotional guidance.