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Dealing with a child’s fear can be difficult for parents.
Rarely does a parent really know the right thing to say or
do to alleviate those fears, so books like Listening to
Fear: Helping Kids Cope from Nightmares to the Nightly News
are a necessity for helping us help our children. Steven
Marans, Ph.D., Harris Associate Professor of Child
Psychoanalysis and associate professor of child psychiatry
at Yale School of Medicine, presents parents and caregivers
with a wonderfully empowering and informative guidebook for
properly responding to the fears of children of all ages.
Drawing on over twenty-five years of clinical experience,
the author takes us through the stages of fear that
correspond with a child’s age. He also teaches concepts and
techniques for talking to children about what they may be
feeling and experiencing, and how to get through to them
when they refuse to communicate. Each age group presents
different challenges, from the nightmares of small children
to the more peer-based fears of adolescents, to the worries
of teenagers struggling to become independent of their
parents. And each age group poses numerous challenges for
parents who want to stay close to their kids and be able to
best respond during times of trauma, stress, fear and high
anxiety.
What the author suggests is that we first must understand
the inner landscape of childhood fears and then learn to
decode our child’s behavior, because rarely does a child
come right out and say what he or she is afraid of. Once we
have this basic understanding, we can move forward to
utilize the author’s suggestions of what to say and do to
help a child move beyond these fears. In fact, the whole
point is to really help the child learn to cope on their own
without our help, but our job is to first teach them the
skills and show that they work.
One special issue the author focuses on is how parents must
first learn to cope with their own fears in order to really
help their children. This is something many of us parents
forget as we spend our days anxious over the nightly news or
upset about financial or relationship issues. Our children
are always watching us and absorbing our emotions and
responses. The author also empasizes the importance of not
letting our adult interpretations of our child’s response
get in the way of the reality the child is trying to convey.
This is challenging stuff, but critical to parents who love
and care about their kids and want to see them grow into
capable adults.
Listening to Fear is all about the power of really listening
to our kids, and helping them to open up and communicate. It
is also about coming to terms with some of our own fears,
past and present, and how they affect our children. I highly
recommend this book for all parents, teachers and caregivers
with kids under the age of eighteen. It is a “must-have” on
any bookshelf in today’s fear-based, anxiety-provoking
times.
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Listening to Fear: Helping Kids Cope, from Nightmares to the Nightly News by Steven Marans