CHILDREN'S FEARS by Mary Wood Allen

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, Cal. · Nov 12, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 45.

CHILDREN'S FEARS.

By Mary Wood Allen

THE best child in the world is liable to be full of fears, and needs wise, firm, careful, and tender handling. A child's fears are no sign of weakness. They are worthy of respect, and should not be ridiculed, nor dealt with severely. Fear is not to be confounded with cowardice. Fear recognizes danger, cowardice refuses to brave it. Fear is a moral attribute, cowardice is a moral lack. A child ought to know what fear is, so also ought the bravest man. Let him who has no fears have a care lest he fail from his lack of fears.

A child has fears—reasonable, unreasoning, and wholly imaginary. All children have more or less of every kind, but in each child one kind predominates. Fear of fire after being burned is a reasonable fear. Fear of strange persons or noises is an unreasoning, or instinctive, fear. Fear of darkness, "ghosts," "goblins," etc., is an imaginary fear. It would be absurd to deal in the same way with these different kinds of fear. One child is too cautious, another too venturesome. Fears within the realm of reason, and which ought to be lessened or removed, should be removed by a process of reasoning. A child should not be beaten, or threatened, or ridiculed into overcoming his fears. Usually he can not be, even if it were right. He should be encouraged and kindly cheered. He should be shown that there is no cause for alarm, and that it is worthy of a child to overcome unreasoning or imaginary fear. And he should be sympathized with in his efforts to overcome. Tenderness is wiser and better than severity or ridicule.

Instinctive fear is a wise precaution of nature. It should not be entirely removed were it possible, but wisely subdued when unnecessary or unreasonable. If the child shows fear at the moaning of the wind and the rattling of the shutters, do not say: "O, nonsense! What are you afraid of? That's nothing but the wind." Rather say: "Does that sound trouble you? Let me tell you how it comes." Then show how the wind is doing God's work, and is the friend of man in keeping the air pure and driving away causes of sickness.

The hardest fears to control are those of the imagination. It is the more sensitive children, those of the finest grain, of the most delicate nervous organization, who are most liable to the sway of these fears. They should be treated more tenderly than others. We are inclined to deal with such fears more harshly, or with greater ridicule, than others. The reverse treatment is the kind required. These fears, not being of the reason, can not be removed by reason. Because they are of the imagination, the imagination must be called into use in removing them. They are not always outgrown in manhood or womanhood. A clergyman once said that he could never come up the cellar stairs by himself late at night without the irrational fear that some one would clutch him by the feet out of the darkness below. What folly to blame a child of high imagination for similar fears! The help of helps to a child in meeting fears of the imagination is found in bringing to his mind a sense of the constant presence of a Divine Protector to cheer him when his fears are at their highest.

A little child once wakened in the middle of the night, and called to her parents in another room. When her father was at her bedside, she told him she was afraid to be alone. Instead of rebuking her, he said: "There is a little verse in the Bible, my darling, that is meant for you at a time like this; and I want you to have that in your mind whenever you waken in this way. It is a verse out of one of David's psalms; and it is what he said to the Lord, his Shepherd: 'What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee!' That is the verse. Now, whenever you are afraid, you can think of that verse, and say it over as a loving prayer, and the Good Shepherd will hear you, and will keep you from all harm."

The child repeated the verse after her father, and she saw its peculiar fitness to her case. As her father then prayed to the God of David in loving confidence, she realized more fully than before how near God was to her in the time of her greatest fears. And from that time on that little child was comforted through faith when her imagination pressed her with its terrors. She never forgot that verse; and it still is a help to her in her fears by day and by night.

Never tell ghost or witch stories to children. Never suggest fear of the dark. Guard sacredly the imagination. Be sympathetic and tender. Treat a child's sensitiveness considerately and tenderly.—Mary Wood Allen.