Scared of everything

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-06-2004
Scared of everything
2
Fri, 05-28-2004 - 5:56pm
My son recenlty has become scared of everything.
He is 5 years old and has never been like this.
He won't leave my side, won't sleep in his own bed.
I think it is due to watching my movie that he was not suppose to. It was jeepers creepers, what a bad movie for him to pick out of all the ones he could have seen.
I just don't know what to do.
Any suggestions?

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Avatar for lisacolette
iVillage Member
Registered: 10-25-2003
Sat, 05-29-2004 - 11:22am
Take your son out for ice cream and use that private time to sit down and discuss his fears. Tell him you've noticed he's been scared lately and ask him to talk with you about it. Remind him that talking with others helps for children and adults with problems. You're probably right about the source of the problem, but just in case, let him tell you about it.

If it was the movie, talk to him about movies and how they're not real. If you have to, get a camcorder and show him how you can create your own movies, with him watching. You can even create a mock "owie" on your arm with ketchup, film it and show how real it looks on film. You can then remind him that while the "owie" on Mom's arm looks real on film, we all know it's fake because movies are not real. Encourage him to make his own movie. Hopefully the lesson on film-making can help lessen the impact of the scary movie he saw. That dose of reality might just be what he needs. My 4 year old loves to have the real explanation of how things work. It gives him the knowledge and the power he needs to overcome his fears when he can explain things away.

If all else fails, take him to a counselor to get him some help.

Good luck and put a lock on those videos (although he probably won't want to go anywhere near them now!). ;)

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-08-2004
Sat, 05-29-2004 - 2:00pm
First let me say that 5 is an age where the reality of the world he see's around him is starting to sink in. He hears bad things on the news, mom and dad talking in whispers about world events, and suddenly a light clicks on that says...ah oh, something bad could happen to me!

Children this age are beginning to realize that they are not immortal. Yes, I am sure the movie probably just added to that, and your right he could not have picked a more horrifying movie to sneak into. Don't blame yourself though you could not have anticipated that. Me and dh have a rule though that might be helpful...for the time being while kids are young we buy no dvd's that are rated r or contain any sexual or to harsh content. We rent them and make sure kids are fast asleep before we watch. Our 7 year old is a movie fanatic and I know he would get up on a saturday morning and just watch whatever he wanted.

My nephew(8) unfortunetly is allowed to watch most of whatever he wants, and one day when he spent the night at my house he cried and refused to watch Harry Potter since it was dark outside. He was just terrified he would have to watch that then go into a dark room. It made me realize all the rules we had for our kids were a good thing. My kids are not allowed to watch most of the cartoons on tv, my 7 year old was not even allowed to watch scooby-doo cartoon until he turned 7. They are only allowed to watch cartoons on pbs and they watch a channel here called "the Tube" and they watch mr ed and green acres, all of the old goodies. Now that ds is 7 he watches movies like "Lord of the Rings" and "Harry Potter" and goes right to sleep, when I was a kid I always had to make sure to check under the bed and close the closet door! I wanted my kids to be free of those fears.

To help your ds I would reccomend maybe watching a dvd where it has the extra footage, like the making of lord of the rings and such, that way he gets to see them put on the make-up and see them talking in their regular voice. Then explain that the movie he saw is the same way, that is just some guy under all of that makeup. If you are a religious person maybe you could explain that God would never allow something so horrible to come into our world. That he does not make things that would scare us like that.

Good luck and try not to feel bad, you could not help it. Sometimes things just happen.

Traci

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