Reasoning That Comforts Kids
Some of the coping strategies that help preschoolers can work for older children, too, especially gradual exposure to mild versions of whatever is frightening. But as children get older, they often find that other strategies that worked when they were younger become less effective. They derive less comfort from their favorite stuffed animal, and they become more skeptical about adopting new magical rituals. Also, because older children develop the capacity to process larger amounts of information, it becomes more difficult to distract them from whatever has frightened them. The good news is that with older children you have the option of using verbal strategies. By late elementary school, kids seem to prefer techniques involving words and logical reasoning.
I remember having long talks with my mom when I was probably around eight years old, asking her every possible question with the need to know an exact answer in order to be happy. After watching the movie Halloween with my family, I was astonished to see that the bad guy, Michael Myers, had disappeared. I needed my mom to assure me that he was not coming back to life to hurt anyone else, more specifically -- me. I did not go to bed until all my questions were answered in a way that assured me I would be fine. My mom would tell me that it was impossible that he could come and get me, and that it was just a movie.
When it comes to scary fantasy shows, older children do well when told to focus on the unreality of the situation. As we saw in the previous chapter, the tell-yourself-it's-not-real strategy is a favorite of older elementary-school children. In the Wizard of Oz study, nine- to eleven-year-olds who were told to remember that the witch was not real showed less fear while watching her in a scene, but the same technique did not help preschoolers, who were not fully fluent in the fantasy-reality distinction. Similarly, other researchers have reported that seven- to nine-year-olds had their vampire-movie fears reduced by an explanation of how makeup made the vampires look scary, while five- to six-year-olds were not helped.
Making Verbal Strategies More Effective for Younger Children
Although verbal explanations by themselves tend to be ineffective for preschoolers, there are ways of enhancing their effectiveness. First of all, remember that for preschoolers, seeing is believing. Anything you can do to show them something reassuring rather than telling them about it will increase the chances that your strategy will work. For example, in a study involving The Incredible Hulk, my colleagues and I tried to counteract children's fears by giving them simple explanations of how the Hulk likes to help people while showing them footage of various scenes in which the Hulk rescues people in distress. This illustrated verbal explanation was effective in reducing fear even in preschool children.
At the end of another study, my colleagues and I gave children hands-on experience with the fear-reducing concept we were trying to get across. For that study, in which we used a scene from the sci-fi thriller The Blob, we tried to reassure children by describing the special effects that made the blob look real and letting them create their own "blobs" out of gelatin and food coloring. Talking about and showing how scary makeup is applied or allowing children to try on and play with ugly masks may also help them appreciate the make-believe nature of some of the visual images that scare them.
The Challenge of Downplaying Scary Things That Can Happen
Dealing with shows that are not fantasies, however, is decidedly more challenging because there are no easy reassurances. Although fiction may also be considered "make-believe" or "not real" in some sense, those phrases have a very different meaning when applied to fiction than when applied to fantasy, as I discussed in chapter 5. When it comes to reassuring older children about threats they encounter in the media, what is critical is whether what they are seeing could happen, not whether that specific event actually did happen. Because of this, reducing children's fear in response to fiction is very similar to reassuring them about something that happened in the news or was shown in a documentary.
It is important to keep in mind that the reassuring aspect of fantasy is the fact that the fantastic things we see could never happen to anyone, anywhere. Witches don't exist, and when children understand and truly accept this fact, we can use it to ease their fear. On the other hand, fiction is a form of make-believe that won't necessarily lend itself to the tell-yourself-it's-not-real strategy. Even though we can tell children, for example, that the character played by Macaulay Culkin in My Girl wasn't a real person and he didn't actually die from the bee stings he received in the movie, we can't honestly tell them that no child ever died from a bee sting. Making children understand that the child in that movie did not actually die might ease their sadness about his death, but it is not likely to make them less scared of bees.
It is also a good idea to remember that fantasy programs often contain realistic as well as fantastic elements. Although older children can be reassured that the witch and the flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz will not come after them, many of them are just as frightened by the tornado in that movie, which can't be dismissed so easily.
Dealing with children's exposure to realistic threats and dangers, whether they arise in news reports or in fiction, is a difficult task for parents. These threats arise from sources other than exposure to the mass media, and even adults are not immune to them. One strategy for reducing fears about realistic threats is to provide an explanation that makes the danger seem more remote or less likely to occur. But that technique is difficult to apply successfully. We attempted to do this in the snake study reported in chapter 7. Telling children that most snakes are not poisonous had only a slight tendency to help second and third graders, and the technique backfired completely for children in kindergarten and first grade, making them think more about the poison in snakes than they would have without the explanation.
In the study involving The Blob that I referred to earlier in this chapter, we explained to a group of five- to eight-year-olds that a frightening event in a movie could never happen anywhere. We told others that the event was very unlikely to occur in the area where they lived, hoping that what was unlikely to occur would also seem nonthreatening. We told a third group that the event was highly likely to occur where they lived. We found, unfortunately, that the children didn't differentiate very well between things that were likely and unlikely to occur. Any possibility that the scary outcome would happen made it equally scary. The only thing that reduced their fear was telling them that it was absolutely impossible.
This finding is consistent with research my colleagues and I have done on children's understanding of concepts related to probability and likelihood. For example, although children in first grade had already grasped the meaning of definitely, as in "this will definitely not happen," even many third graders did not understand the difference between an event that would probably occur and one that could possibly occur. So it's not that reassuring to tell an elementary-school child that the frightening thing they just witnessed is a rare event.
Children older than third grade should become more adept at using information about the small chance of bad things happening. However, research indicates that older children and even adults also overestimate the likelihood of outcomes that are intensely threatening, even when the chances of their happening are infinitesimal. If the possible outcome is catastrophic enough, the thought of any likelihood at all of the event is unacceptable. For this reason, focusing on a frightening event's low likelihood seems to be one of the least effective strategies for reducing the fears of children of any age.
The Calm, Unequivocal, Limited Truth
If minimizing the threat is not helpful, what option do you have? Saying that something that is real is totally impossible is not a good idea because your white lie may come back to haunt you when your child learns the truth elsewhere. If you lose your credibility in this area, your child may stop turning to you for reassurance and lose one of her most powerful resources for coping with fear. On the other hand, if you are not careful, the truth may be interpreted as scarier than it really is. My advice is, don't lie when talking about realistic dangers, but don't tell your child any more than necessary about the truth. And be sure to phrase your explanation in as calming and unemotional terms as possible.
Returning to the example from the movie My Girl, in which a character dies after being attacked by bees, telling your child that very few people die from bee stings is not likely to be very helpful. It would be more effective to say something definite and positive like the following (unless you know it to be false): "You are not allergic to bees, so this can't happen to you."
Let me give you another example of what I mean by saying something definite, reassuring, and positive, using something that happened in my own home. A few years ago, when looking for another program, my son and I accidentally stumbled across a documentary on tornado safety. Unfortunately, as has become increasingly typical, the show was more about the dangers of tornadoes than about how to protect yourself from harm, and it included one especially frightening series of footage taken with a home video recorder during a tornado. The camera was aimed out the window of the house, while several people were heard screaming, "It's here!" "Get down!" and "Where is everybody?" Along with these screams, the camera showed the window being shattered by the high winds. I tried to change the channel, but my son was intent on seeing the program to the end. We watched it together and discussed it afterward.
The first thing Alex asked after the program was over was "Do we have tornadoes in Madison?" Based on my earlier research finding that a local danger will be scary, even if it's very unlikely, I immediately replied, "No," not remembering any that had actually touched down in the city (and, frankly, not wanting to). But my husband corrected me, reminding me of the one that had torn the roof off a car dealership a few years earlier. My next response was to say, truthfully (as far as I know), that we'd never had any tornadoes in Monona, the small suburb of Madison where we actually live. This information was extremely reassuring to Alex, and he went happily off to bed shortly thereafter. I'm sure that that explanation is what made him feel better because for a week or two after that incident, he woke up every morning saying, ''I'm so glad we live in Monona." Although I did not say we could never have a tornado here, the fact that I could be so absolute about the past was very reassuring.
The story does not end here, however. As you might imagine, things got more complicated the next time we heard the tornado sirens. As I talked about going down to the basement, Alex said, "But we don't have to go down there since we don't have tornadoes here." Thinking quickly, I replied that although we had never had a tornado, we did sometimes get strong, damaging winds, and that it was important to protect ourselves from them as well. This explanation was enough to get him to follow me into the basement without causing him too much anxiety. "Strong damaging winds" got the point across without producing the intense emotional reaction that the idea of a tornado in our town would have produced.
The basic idea, as I see it, in reassuring children about real threats is to provide a truthful explanation that avoids emotional words and that communicates just as much as a child needs to know, but no more. Be ready to answer further questions, but don't go into more details than your child is interested in.
The problem of horrible, real threats that have a small chance of happening seems most acute when dealing with highly publicized cases of child molestation and murder, which are sensationalized on television with increasing frequency. It's bad enough that we as parents are confronted with these awful possibilities, but we also have to deal with the fears these stories produce in our children. When your child asks you how Megan Kanka or Polly Klaas (or the next highly publicized child victim) was killed, what's the best thing to say? My advice is to be truthful, yet as inexplicit as you can be. You can say, for example, that the child in question was killed by a very sick man, but spare them any of the details that they do not already know. The concept of child victimization is frightening enough that the real details -- especially the part about molestation -- will only make things immeasurably worse.
What If the Threat Can't Be Minimized?
If you're not successful in convincing your child that what she's concerned about won't happen, the best approach is to provide her with the information and tools that will help her prevent it from happening or at least that will make her feel more in control of the situation or its outcome. In the study I reported in chapter 1, in which we showed the schoolhouse burn down in Little House on the Prairie, we ended the session by giving children basic fire-safety guidelines that they could use in their own lives. These guidelines were taught with illustrations involving popular cartoon characters. Children were told, for example, to make sure their home had smoke alarms and to check to see that the batteries were fresh. They were also encouraged to have a family escape plan and to practice family fire drills. Activities such as these, carried out in the home, should be helpful in calming your child's fears of fire if they have already been aroused by a TV show or movie.
For other threats, similar simple protective strategies might be developed. If the fear is of natural disasters, you could review your plans for tornado safety, for example. If the offending movie is about burglars entering the home, you might do a tour of the home, showing how all the doors and windows are securely locked and how the particular technique that the burglar in the TV program used wouldn't work at your house. (Be sure you know this to be true in advance, or avoid the issue.) If the fear is of kidnapping, use the film as an excuse to go over your rules for dealing with strangers. It will help if the child is given an active role in the safety lessons. Going through the motions and role-playing not only the actions but the feeling of being in control of the problem should help.
During my younger years (age eight) I was frightened by daily news reports regarding a kidnapper with a white van that was stalking kids in my town. My parents would sit me down and explain to me that I was smart and that I knew not to talk to strangers and that I knew that if I saw a white van, that I should run away. These talks helped me to cope with the problem because I knew that I wouldn't be taken by surprise -- I knew what to do to protect myself.
Sometimes when we try to teach self-protective behaviors to children who are unaware of specific threats, we end up scaring them more than we teach them. But when the mass media thrust these frightening possibilities on our children, we can often turn this unfortunate incident into what educators call a "teachable moment," and make the best of a bad situation.
Of course, not all accidents and disasters are preventable even with protective action, and the older your children become, the better they will understand this. How do you reassure children that nothing like the Oklahoma City bombing will ever happen again? Or that there will never be another midair explosion like the one that downed TWA800? Or that they could protect themselves in either of these situations? You really can't provide them guarantees, but as they get older, you can stress the protections that have come out of these disasters. We now have better security at federal buildings and in airports, and planes are being redesigned to eliminate the specific causes of well-known crashes. These explanations can only go so far, of course, but your reassurances that we are learning from past mistakes may provide some help.
If All Else Fails, Just Be There and Listen
Simply talking to older children about their fears can also have a tremendously therapeutic effect. Whether the specific content of the discussion helps or not, it seems clear that parental attention, or the calming supportive presence of another thoughtful human being, is helpful. Make sure your child knows you are there to listen to her fright stories, even if you wish she had not seen the program that scared her.
The experience of actually watching a scary movie was not that uncomfortable for me. It was only when I thought about the films later in the day or before going to bed that I became frightened. After spending some time thinking about the scary images and themes of the films, I would be unable to sleep. Typically, I went back downstairs and found my father watching television. He and I discussed what had scared me and I felt much better.
As children get older and realize that there are no guarantees of safety, the act of talking fears over with someone who takes them seriously may be more beneficial than the actual content of the conversation. I remember a very intense emotional reaction I once had and how the right kind of sympathetic ear was the only thing that helped. I was already an adult and my exposure to what frightened me was probably inevitable, although the timing could not have been worse. As I was entering my senior year in college, there was a terrible national news story about eight student nurses who were murdered by a man named Richard Speck. This man somehow managed to get himself invited into the students' apartment, where he brutally killed each of them, one by one. I think one of them survived, actually, and lived to provide the world with the horrible details. The thought that eight women were no match for one killer was terrifying to me, but the story really hit home not only because I was moving into my first apartment (after three years in the security of the dorms) but because of the similarity of my new apartment to the one the nurses had lived in -- both were garden apartments with ground-floor entrances at the front and the back.
The thought of what had happened to these nurses made me feel so vulnerable in my new apartment that I literally could not sleep for what seemed like a week or more. Any sound that I heard in the night, including that of my roommate rolling over in her bed, made me jump or cry out. My reaction was way out of proportion, and I simply couldn't calm myself down. But I had been looking forward to living in an apartment for a long time, and I was embarrassed to tell people about my newfound anxiety.
Fortunately, I soon talked about my problem to a friend who was very sympathetic. He said that if this news story was causing me so much anxiety, I should talk to a therapist about it. In those days, going to a therapist was not as common as it is today, but I thought I'd be willing to do almost anything if it would relieve me of my anxiety.
The interesting thing about this conversation is that after I had decided I would go to see a therapist, I started rehearsing in my mind what I would say to him and what he might say to me, and I suddenly felt in control of the problem. My anxiety immediately started to wane, and it eased so much that I was able to sleep. In fact, I never did make that appointment with the therapist because I had gotten the benefit of having my fears taken seriously by someone who cared. I had discovered that what I was experiencing might be considered reasonable or at least understandable under the circumstances and that there were professionals who helped people in my situation. This discovery was enough to give me back my sense of control.
Of course, solutions are not always that simple. I was lucky. But I'm also confident that a good therapist would have helped me in that situation if I had needed one to get over this trauma.
It is important that you as a parent be ready and willing to discuss your child's fears, even if you can't give her an absolute guarantee of safety. Tell your child that you understand why she's so frightened, even though you don't believe she's in danger. Tell her about this book (if she's old enough, let her read it), and about how frequently the mass media stir up people's fears to levels that are extremely hard to manage. It might help to identify the reasons why this particular program, movie, or event was so terrifying by discussing either how the events were portrayed or how they relate to her current situation. It might also be helpful to tell her about some of your own media traumas and how you succeeded in getting over them. Misery really loves company, particularly company that has been in the same place but has since moved on. And finally, there is the option of seeking professional help if the fear remains overpowering and out of control.
Balancing Fear with Vigilance
It is true, of course, that this world can be a dangerous place, and children need to be aware of certain threats so that they can protect themselves. A certain amount of fear is necessary for survival. Children need to avoid drowning, for example, without developing a phobia of the water, and they need to protect themselves from child abuse or kidnapping without becoming socially withdrawn. One of the greatest challenges facing parents and other caregivers today lies in striking a balance between a healthy amount of fear and a level that is damaging, while allowing your child to maintain a positive outlook on life.
Of course, after your child's crisis of media-produced fear is over, if it was caused by a fictional program or movie that might have been avoided, it will be a good time to talk about being more careful about programming that makes your child particularly anxious. If your children are in the habit of seeking out the most sensational news stories or the most thrilling movies, they may benefit from your advice that they moderate or curtail their habit.