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A Ten Year Old Daughter Afraid of Storms an email question and response The email: "I was thinking about purchasing "a tool to aid with panic and fear" for my 10 year old daughter who has moderate to severe panic attacks when the weather gets bad -- dark, forboding sky, thunder. She gets stomach aches, headache, breaks out in a sweat, and has a real feelings that something bad with happen (tornado, etc). It is to the point that she will not participate in outdoor activities when there is even the slightest chance that the weather may be bad. Since we are in the summer this could be every day! Are these tapes too "advanced" for her?" The answer: Ten years old is possibly a bit young for "a tool to aid with panic and fear.", but if your daughter has a reasonably good vocabulary and approaches using a hypnosis tape as something that might be fun (not something that is going to result in her being pushed out into thunder storms against her will), you might find some success with "two voices to imagine" and possibly "healing tree 2." The "voices" recording is designed for kids and adults and focuses on giving the listener a greater ability to moderate reactivity, reactions, attitudes, perspective and attention. The "healing" recording is designed for adolescents and adults but if your daughter's vocabulary is pretty good, she might be able to benefit from it. The "healing" recording focuses on better handling challenges and building a sense of resiliency and ability to weather the storms of life, even the ones that are frightening at first. Hypnosis can possibly help with increased self control over reactions, a general reduction in fearfulness, an increase in confidence or a sense of resiliency. Alarms The issue is the way your daughter's mind has set up alarms that trigger anxiousness when she hears of the possiblity of a storm. The alarms get set up by obsessing a lot about a danger plus feeling relief in hiding away from the storms plus any number of kid-thinking thoughts that get thought in her thinking. These alarms are natural and common parts of human learning. They are more or less automatically set up through the process of experiencing or reacting to the frightening or potentially hurtful things in life. For most of us, most alarms are very helpful, protective and promotive of better, safer living. For most of us, once or twice or more times in our lives our automatic mechanisms for setting up anxious reactions go a bit overboard and make things very stressful. This is what has basically happened in most situations where we have more fear about something than seems logical or practical. The complexity of reactions to pushing. The problem you face is that a child may not be likely to want to listen to a hypnosis program that will result in less worry about storms if, in her mind it seems at all possible that she will be turning off the alarms in her mind and thus making herself likely to get herself in danger because she is not paying enough attention. Imagine what it would be like for you as an adult, for example, if you heard that there are lions on the loose in your neighborhood and that several people had already been eaten -- and when you acted anxious about going outside, your mother tells you that she wants you to listen to a hypnosis tape so you won't worry about the lions when you go outside. I bet it wouldn't sound like a good idea to you at all. It would sound dangerous. You would be sure your mother had no clue about what she was talking about. This is how a lot of people -- whatever their age -- would feel about the idea of learning how to relax with hypnosis when they are pretty much used to hyperventilating, getting a lot of attention and reassurances from others and generally running and hiding. IF If your daughter has been saying that she wants to be able to be less afraid of storms, and if she has been begging you to help her find some way to not be so anxious in storms, several of the tapes might help. The 30-day return policy allows you to give them a try and return them for a refund if they don't seem to help. Recognize that this is complicated. It isn't as easy as just saying, "Your fears are excessive, lighten up and you will be fine." It is all the more complex because we want kids to learn to think for themselves and we also tend to teach them that they have cause to be anxious about what parents push them into. Over the first years of a child's life there are all sorts of incidents when the child gets forced to do something he or she doesn't feel right about doing without ever feeling right about doing it.. ("There are no sharks in the swimming pool, you have to get in there and just relax." "I want you to eat those beans and I am sure you won't throw up even if you think you might." "I know you don't like that baby-sitter -- and I am sure she is not going to totally ignore you or kill you -- and we are going out and you are going to be watched by her and that is that.") a possible plan: 1. A possibly positive, practical strategy might be to (#1) take an attitude that conveys to her less concern about the panic attacks and more faith that this fear of storms stuff is just a little phase -- that it is normal for everybody to have to figure out again and again in life just how scared to be about things, and sometimes we aren't scared enough and sometimes too scared and it is just a bit of growing up that needs to be done and that eventually she will find an optimal amount of anxiousness to live with about storms and that will happen naturally. This essentially plants the suggestion that you trust she will be okay, that the panic is just a phase that will wear away more or less by itself without having to be forced. 2. Add to this a watchfulness for stories, books, movies and such appropriate for kids that also have themes of being scared and then getting past it. The ones that are actually about fearing storms will be most resisted but if they are good they can still work to help plant ideas about dealing with fears -- perspectives, attitudes, strategies. Harry and the Haunted House, for example, is a great little story of kids scaring themselves but being brave in trying to find their ball in a "haunted house." Mrs. Piggle Wiggle's Farm has some great stories (as do the other Mrs. Piggle Wiggle books, too) for reading to or with a 10 year old child -- including one to cure fearfulness. There are also many books with strong little girl characters. Many movies, too -- Matilda and the Secret Garden, for example. You don't want stories of girls that are not afraid -- you want stories of girls who are afraid but conquer their fears in appropriate ways. 3. Watch out for and avoid stories, books and such that are very scary or convey helplessness and hopelessness. Sometimes these are where you might least expect them. I thought the Disney movie, "The Little Mermaid," for example, was an awful story of a little girl who almost loses everything and is saved only by a clumsy seagull having an accident (and it also suggests that love should be based on the simplest superficial attributes, kids should lie to parents and have friends lie to their parents, it is okay to be irresponsible and risk many other people's lives if you are in love with a boy you've never even met, etc.) I was aghast at the millions of little girls that were glued to that movie for months and years after it came out in video. 4. Watch for opportunities to help her define bravery as being able to be afraid and do what is important, in spite of the fear -- not that bravery is being totally unafraid. Also watch for opportunities to help her understand that fear of storms is not completely bad -- just like being fearful of being hit in the street by a car -- that the issue is how much fear and whether you get so afraid you can't think. Also it is very helpful to foster a sense of faith in life and possibly a higher power that doesn't necessarily keep you from being hurt or afraid but that watches over you to make sure you're okay in the long run. 5. Try a hypnosis tape or CD -- or two. They should be presented as something fun that might make the listener feel stronger, more confident, braver and smarter. The recording "healing tree 2." is for older adolescents and adults and can be very helpful in fostering in the listener a greater feeling of faith in self and in life working out even if on is frightened. The recording, "two voices to imagine", is intended for kids and adults who want more control over reactions or thoughts. This is also true of "a tool to aid with panic and fear", which is for older adolescents and adults and is intended to assist in developing a powerful ability to make one's self relax. The recording, "nightmares to nice dreams", is intended for kids and adults who want more to feel more confident, hopeful, positive and resilient (it is not about nightmares). The recording "relax...relax..." is intended to foster relaxation skills in individuals who are anxious about relaxing. 6. The "healing tree 2" tape would be a good tape for you to listen to. It is, as I mentioned, about having faith in yourself and finding out that even though you get stressed and afraid, things can turn out okay. It might help you, too. It is very tough on parents when kids are scared. 7. If this doesn't help and things are seeming like she is losing self esteem, get some professional help from a doctor that can work with you and your daughter closely and regularly for a while -- a pediatrician or psychologist. (See Finding a Psychotherapist, Counselor, "Shrink".) things going well, things going poorly, things getting better If you believe you might need to seek out help from a doctor, do that now. (See Finding a Psychotherapist, Counselor, "Shrink".) It is much better to be safe than sorry. If your daughter's fears get worse, see a doctor. Symptoms of worsening would include any of the following happening more than rarely or more than they might be happening now: nightmares, bedwetting, wetting herself during the day, behavior problems, nail biting, hair pulling, sleeplessness, avoidance of going outside, not eating.
I hope all this helps. With regard to the hypnosis tapes and CDs, nothing in life is one-size-fits-all. If you and she like mine, then good. If you don't, there are many other people making such tapes and everyone does them differently. So if mine don't click with you, someone elses might, so if mine don't work for you it doesn't mean someone else's won't work, too. (If mine don't work, send them back and I will refund your money.) Dr. J |
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