Hey there! You’re listening to the Mighty Mommy with some quick and dirty tips for practical parenting.

This week we had a water pipe burst in our front yard. This has caused a strange bubbling in the toilet in our bathroom. It’s similar to a water bottle bubbling when someone fills their cup. For some reason my daughter is scared of the bubbling. Similarly odd is that my daughter’s best friend becomes terrified when my daughter wears plastic vampire teeth in her mouth. Both of these children, however, are completely fearless when it comes to wandering around a busy parking lot. Why is that? What makes kids worry about the things we deem normal, while ignoring our pleas to be safe in dangerous environments?

I don’t know what causes children to choose their fears, but I’d like to think I can help my kids overcome them or at least deal with them in a rational manner. This is coming from a mom who has an irrational fear of turtles. Hey, we all have our secrets. Don’t tell anyone, OK?

I think it’s important to know that we don’t necessarily have to understand or agree with a fear in order to help our child deal with it. Sometimes it does help, but not always. If my daughter expresses that she’s afraid of the dark, I don’t necessarily want to discuss it with her. I guess I feel that if she’s in the dark and talking about what is scaring her in there, it’s just going to remind her to think about it. I think it’s better to solve the simple problems. If she doesn’t like it dark, I respect that fear and turn on a night-light or the hall light. It’s much more important to respect her feelings than it is to understand them when it comes to fears.

I received one great tip from a good friend of mine, Jason Tucker. He has a daughter close in age to my son so I’ve used his suggestion many times with great success. The tip is to turn something scary into something funny. When something is unexpectedly scary for your child, try to catch yourself and laugh. You may need to overdo it a bit, but the idea is for your child to see the humor and have it overpower the fear. A great example for me is the costumed characters you find at fairs or in some restaurants. My daughter has always been frightened by these people in oversized puppy or bird costumes. We started laughing and saying, “Look at his floppy ears,” or “Those big feet are really silly!” My daughter would become distracted and start laughing with us. This helped her get over her fear. Of course, when she runs into a life size Darth Vader and doesn’t want to shake his hand, I’m not going to force her. My son will be more than happy to get a hug from the big guy, though.

It’s interesting how certain things will scare one child and not the other. It’s all part of being an individual. There are, however, ways as a parent we can cause our children to fear things unnecessarily. While I may have an irrational fear of turtles, I try not to run screaming whenever I see one. I figure that if my kids see me freaking out about the perfectly harmless, so I’m told, turtles they might think they should be scared as well. I don’t want my children to feel this way about turtles so I try to keep my cool and be positive about them. Sometimes it isn’t easy to feign composure, but try to set the best example you can.

That’s it for now. Thank you for listening.

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Please do not send turtles.

This is your friend the Mighty Mommy wishing you happy and fun parenting!