Fears of a two-year-old child

Fear of separation. This is what sometimes happens if a sensitive, dependent child between the ages of 20 and 25 months is unexpectedly separated from the mother. Perhaps the mother had to leave the city for a few weeks. Or decided that it was time to return to work, and found a woman who would look after the child during the day. Usually a child does not make a noise when the mother does not, but when she comes back, he sticks to it like a leech, and does not allow another woman to approach her. When it seems to him that his mother is leaving again, he falls into a panic. Strongest of all is the fear of separation, when you need to go to bed. The child is terrified and desperately resists. If the mother breaks away and leaves, he can cry for hours. If she sits at his crib, he lies quietly. But she should move, as he jumps up instantly.

In some such cases, the child urinates in bed. He starts to say "pee-pee"( or pronounces another conditional word), his mother takes him to the toilet, he releases a few drops and, as soon as she puts him to bed, he again screams "pee-pee."You can say that he simply uses the pretext to keep his mother with him. This is true, but it's not just that. Such children are really afraid to get wet in bed. At night, because of this fear, they can wake up every two hours. At this age, the mother begins to express her disapproval of such accidents. Maybe the child thinks that his mom will stop loving him if he peed himself, and so he will leave. If so, then he has two reasons to be afraid to fall asleep.

At this age, should be avoided for fear. Children who have been among different people since the very beginning of their infancy and who have been allowed to develop independence and sociability, suffer less from such fears.

If your child is about two years old, beware of drastic changes. If you can postpone the trip for six months or wait with going to work, it's best to wait, especially if it's your first child. If you still need to leave, try to have the child in advance get acquainted with the woman who will look after him, and got used to it, whether it's a girlfriend, a relative or a servant.(If a child has to spend some time in someone else's home, it is even more important that he first and gradually become acquainted with new people and a new place.) First, do not leave him for the whole day. Start with half an hour and gradually increase the duration of absences. Do not leave for a month after you moved to another city or some other family member left. A child at this age needs a lot of time to get used to each change separately.

The chapter "Working mother" contains other considerations as to what to do when the mother is going to resume work.

How to help a two-year-old child overcome fear. If a child is afraid to go to bed, it is best to sit quietly with him until he falls asleep. But it is not easy to accomplish this. Do not try to quietly slip away before he falls asleep. This will scare him and will not let him fall asleep. Struggle can last for weeks, but in the end you will win. If he.frightened after your departure, try for many weeks not to leave the city again. If you need to go to work every day, say good-bye to him kindly and cheerfully, but resolutely. If you have pain and uncertainty on your face, the anxiety of the child will only increase.

A little helps if you deprive a child of a day's sleep and it gets tired or if the doctor signs a sedative, but ultimately this alone is not enough. A child in fear can not sleep for hours, even if terribly tired. You need to first calm him down.

If the child is afraid to wet himself, calm him down, say that it does not matter, even if he makes a pee in bed, that you still love him.

Excessive care strengthens the child's fears. A child who is afraid of separation - or anything else - is very sensitive to whether the mother is experiencing the same feelings. If she hesitates or behaves as if she is guilty, every time she leaves, if she rushes to his room at night, her anxiety reinforces his fear of separation.

It may seem that I am contradicting myself: I said that the mother should sit with the child until he falls asleep, and do not leave for several weeks if he is frightened. I want to say that she should pay him special attention, as a patient. But at the same time, it should be cheerful, confident, not afraid of anything. She should watch how the child gets rid of his dependence and fear, encourage, encourage and praise him. This attitude is the most significant factor in overcoming children's fears.

This connection between excessive guardianship of the parents and the fears of the child is common to many other situations, problems of sleep and spoiling in infancy and early childhood.

Aspiration to excessive guardianship is usually experienced by very devoted and tender parents who tend to consider themselves guilty, although their guilt is not. Most important in most cases, the parent's inability to admit to himself that he sometimes gets angry at the child and is indignant.

Parents and children who are afraid to admit that there are natural moments, when they are angry with each other and want something bad to happen to others, imagine instead that all the dangers of the world come from outside and greatly exaggerate them. A child who does not recognize anger in himself and his mother places it in some monster, or in a witch, or in robbers, or in dogs, or in dinosaurs, or in polio, or in lightning, depending on his age and lifeexperience. And clinging to his mother - to get protection himself and make sure that nothing has happened to her. And the mother suppresses her rare evil thoughts and imagines the dangers of kidnapping, or whooping cough, or accidents, or the wrong diet. She tries all the time to be with the child to protect him from danger, and her worried expression convinces the child that his fears are based on reality.

, Of course, the solution is not that parents suppress all their angry feelings toward the child or, on the contrary, show them to the fullest. Neither one nor the other does not help. But parents will certainly help if they recognize the inevitability of temporary discontent with the child and experienced occasionally evil feelings towards him and joke with each other about it. Helps to clear the atmosphere if the parent sometimes tells the child how angry he is, especially if anger is justified. If this is done wisely, it does not interfere with normal discipline. It's not bad sometimes to tell a child: "I know how angry you are when I do this to you."

..When it comes to the need to overcome the fears of the child, very much depends on how quickly it needs to be done. If the child is afraid, there is no need to force him to immediately make friends with the dogs, or go deeper into the lake, or ride alone on the bus. He himself will want to do all this as soon as he becomes bold. But if a child is afraid to go to a kindergarten, it is better to insist that he go there, unless he is very scared. At night, he should not be allowed to approach the parents' bed: he must learn to stay in his bed. A child of school age, afraid of school, sooner or later will still have to go into it;The longer it is delayed, the more difficult it will be for him. The mother needs to understand the various fears of the child and think about which of them is to blame for her excessive care. Both these steps are difficult to accomplish alone, so the mother needs the help of a specialist.

Some difficulty laying down to sleep. I do not want to say what is necessary, putting every two-year-old child to bed, to sit with him, waiting until he falls asleep. Not at all. Strong fear of parting with parents is not common, but light fears are quite common. They exist in two variants. The first is that the child tries to keep his mother in the room. He insistently says: "pi-pi", although just that my mother took him to the toilet. Mother is in a difficult situation. She understands that this is an excuse, but on the other hand, she wants to encourage his desire to use a pot. So she says, "Well, well, one more time."But as soon as they return, the child lies down, and she is about to leave, he asks: "I want to drink!" And looks at it as if dying of thirst. If the mother agrees, he will repeat these two demands all evening. I think such a child only slightly is afraid to stay alone. Usually the best way for a mother is to say in a friendly way, but firmly that he just drank and was in the toilet, and then wish good night and without hesitation to leave the room. If she starts to hesitate or looks alarmed, she will confirm that: "Yes, there may indeed be something to worry about".Even if a child sobs or cries for a few minutes, I think it is wiser not to return to him. It is much easier for him to immediately learn the lesson and suffer a little, than to lead a hard struggle for many weeks.

Another kind of mild anxiety before going to bed is when the child appears a few minutes after lying down, appears near the parents. He is smart enough to look charming and touching at these moments. He will gladly chat or give himself a hug - in the afternoon he did not have time for it. Parents in this case it is very difficult to show firmness. But they must show it, and immediately. Otherwise, such uprising will become a habit and turn into nightly hourly fights.

When parents can not cope with a two-year-old child, they sometimes ask if it's possible to close his door. I do not like the idea of ​​a child crying, shut up in his room. It seems to me that the net stretched over the bed meets less objections. You can buy a net for badminton in the sports goods store. It is too long and narrow, but cut it in half and sew two halves. Then you need to tie it to a strong rope to the railing of the bed, which face the wall, as well as the head and legs. The front part of the grid can be lifted so that the child can lie down. Then it must also be tied with several ropes under the bed so that you can not reach it.

I'm not sure that such a grid is harmless psychologically. But, it seems, it's better than the nightly angry scenes. However, you can not turn a grid into a punishment or a threat. Mom can vividly say that it will be a cozy little house for the baby, in which he can sleep, and ask the child to test this house. For most children at the age of two, this idea seems interesting, and they happily climb under the net, check several times whether it is possible to get out of it, and then fall asleep. If the child is frightened, I would not keep it under the net and would not use it with three-year olds, who may develop claustrophobia.

It seems to me that a two-year-old child needs to be left in his crib until he learns to get out of it, even if he has to buy a new one for the baby. I was told many times about two-year-old children, who began to wander in the evenings, as soon as they were moved to a bigger bed. By the time they know how to get out of bed, it does not matter.

Sometimes, if the child is afraid to go to bed, the problem can be solved by putting in his room a senior or younger brother or sister.