Thoughts on Fears and Stresses.

Recently, I've been thinking a lot about fear and stress.  Some of it is my own, some of it is that of others.  What started my thinking about fear and stress were three different conversations that I have had with two of the preschoolers that attend the preschool I work at and a book that I'm currently reading.

During the month of April, two of these talks were with a boy at the preschool and these conversations happened within a week of each other.  The first conversation happened on picture day and he was stressed about having his picture taken because he wasn't sure about which smile he was supposed to use.  The next conversation that he and I had about fear/stress was the next week on Friday.  It was the Friday before Easter, so we the staff had set up an Easter egg hunt for the kids and this particular boy was stressed and afraid because he didn't want the the Easter Bunny to be there because he was afraid of the Easter Bunny.  The third and final conversation of fear and stress that I had with one of the preschoolers occurred last week.  One of the girls, she's three years old, came up to me during afternoon recess and she was in tears.  I asked her what was wrong and she said that she was scared of the big kids (the preschool I work at offers a before/after school program for the elementary school kids at the local elementary school).

Another reason why I have been thinking about stress and fear is because I recently started reading a book called How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character by Paul Tough.  I'm not very far in the book, just the first chapter, but what I have read has been extremely interesting.  Why?  Because in the first part of the book, the author is explaining that the amount of stress a person experiences as a child will affect the person as an adult.  The person could be affected psychologically, mentally, and/or physically.

After my conversations with my preschoolers and after starting this particular book, I've got to thinking.  I've noticed that it's very easy for adults to dismiss the stresses and fears of children, because in our minds, these stresses and fears seem extremely trivial.  The shadows in the closet, the boogey man, the big kids, the Easter bunny.  To adults, these are meaningless fears and stresses, but the child, these are legitimate fears and stresses.

For the child, these are legitimate fears and stresses.

We adults need to start taking the children seriously because one day these children with "trivial" stresses will be adults with "untrivial" problems because their stresses and fears were ignored.  Now, I'm only using very basic examples of the fears and stresses that a child may experience, but the same truth applies.  If we take seriously the fear that the child is afraid of being hurt by family member or a teacher, then we need to take seriously that the child is afraid of the dark or afraid of the Easter Bunny.