How To Help Your Child Overcome Their Fears
A guide to Exposure Therapy
In this newsletter, we provide you with notes on When do you push your kids toward the thing they are afraid of? A guide to Exposure Therapy, an episode of Flusterclux With Lynn Lyons for Parents who Worry.
Lynn Lyons, therapist, author, and speaker is one of the world's experts on helping parents, kids, and teens manage anxiety. She talks with co-host and sister-in-law Robin Hutson.
Save time and read our notes on when to push kids toward their fears and how to help them.
Topics Covered in this Summary
What is Exposure Therapy?
When Is Exposure Therapy Used?
How To Help Children Overcome Their Fears Using Exposure Therapy
What is Exposure Therapy?
Exposure Therapy is a technique used by therapists to helps us face fears. This can include fears of objects, activities, or even situations.
Avoiding an object, activity or situation that causes anxiety or fear teaches our brains that we are only safe because we stay out of harm’s way. On the other hand, exposure to that which creates the anxiety or fear helps us overcome the feeling by showing us that what we are anxious about or scared of is not actually dangerous.
In this therapy, psychologists "expose" patients to what they fear to help them overcome it.
When Is Exposure Therapy Used?
Anxiety becomes a problem when it interferes with daily life. When this happens, fear becomes a disorder, and an anxious child or teen may do poorly in school or become depressed. This can be treated by Exposure Therapy.
As you are aware, many things frighten children. However, one common thing children fear is going upstairs alone, and they won't go unless someone is with them. As parents, this is challenging because we don’t want to push our kids to do things that make them uncomfortable.
How To Help Children Overcome Their Fears Using Exposure Therapy
Parents can take various steps towards helping their children, some suggestions include:
Having a conversation with them about their fear. What do they fear the most and why.
Make a list of situations, places, or objects that they fear, from the least scary to the scariest. Provide exposure to these fears by starting with the least scary and repeatedly engaging in that activity until the child starts to feel less anxious or fearful about it.
Create an activity or make a game to help them overcome their fears. For example, if they're terrified to go upstairs, don't push them to do it. Instead, you can tell them there's a cookie box upstairs, and they can have it if they get it. This will help the kids reset their brains and not think about their fear first.
It’s not easy facing fears so a reward could be appropriate.
In addition, parents can help their children through this process in several ways:
Sharing your anxieties with your children.
Explain the difference between avoidance and exposure to your kids before exposing them. This will help them understand the process gradually, so they get more comfortable with the situation and eventually learn that what they fear is not dangerous.
Be present to support and encourage your child. This will help decrease their stress level.
Lynn Lyons says that exposure therapy with kids is usually harder because the kids often feel uncomfortable, which makes the parent feel anxious.
It is very important for parents to be involved in Exposure Therapy because this can be distressing for kids. Helping, supporting, encouraging, and being there for your child during exposure can lower their stress and assist them in overcoming their fears.
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