What were you scared of when you were a kid? Was it clowns, or maybe big dogs, or thunder? When I was younger, I was terrified of aliens. I’d watched one too many alien invasion horror films and became fixated on the idea that aliens would come abduct us. I spent lots of nights worrying over this, but eventually, I just forgot about it. This wasn’t such a bad fear, but there are times that our kid’s fears and anxieties are trying to tell us something more. So when should we pay attention to our children’s fears?
As parents, it’s difficult to always tend to our child’s every need. If your toddler is randomly anxious because his yellow crayon and blue crayon are in the same box, chances are they’re just being a toddler. You can help them out by removing one or both crayons and most of the time, they’ll accept the outcome of your intervention and move on to the next activity, completely unfazed. That's, arguably, one of the great "joys" of toddlerhood; it's difficult, at times, to differentiate between what's more serious, and what's just a toddler being, well, a toddler,
Still, no matter how hard it is to differentiate at times, more pronounced, more frequent fears and anxieties should never go overlooked. They should also never be belittled or ignored, as it might cause the child to pull away from you when they might need you most. If your kid’s fears are causing them any of the following things, you’ll definitely want to pay closer attention.