# What do children fear?



## Vanda

When we were children - my generation and 2 or 3 generations ahead of me - we used to fear ghosts, phantoms, darkness, witches and the like. 
Today, our television ran an interview with children varying from 6 to 8 years old (around that) asking them what they fear. Children from smaller places said they fear darkness, ghosts, etc, but big cities' children have modern fears. Most of them fear:
- kidnapping
- shooting
- having mother and father killed 
- parents losing their lives in car accident

We can read an ugly reality in today's fears: our insecurity and social condition mainly. What do children fear in your country nowadays and why? Does it have to do with their socio-economic status, neighborhood, race, religious upbringing? How much does it have to do with culture? Or do children still have those old "good" fears?


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## TrentinaNE

I grew up fearing a nuclear attack by the USSR that would end the world.  What was that about old "good" fears?   

Elisabetta


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## Hakro

TrentinaNE said:


> I grew up fearing a nuclear attack by the USSR that would end the world. What was that about old "good" fears?
> 
> Elisabetta


And the Russian girls grew up fearing a nuclear attack by the US. That was the truth about "good old fears".


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## GenJen54

Moderator Note: Wow, only three posts in and we're already starting to finger point.  It would be nice if we could turn this into more of a "discussion."

Forera response:  While I believe much based on a sad reality,  I also think the media (and yes, government) is a great propgator of fear.   I only have to look at current politicos and the  mass of "fear-based" advertising they are sending out over the airwaves, trying to convince us that if we don't vote for "their side,"  Bin Laden will rear his ugly head again. 

I would also agree that children growing up in large cities face many greater challenges, or at least more "opportunities" to meet dangerous situations than many children in the country. 

My friends and I talk about this alot, often dreaming of a world where we could all collectively buy a large parcel of land and make up our own "neighborhood," where our children could grow and play and not worry about having to deal with the many issues facing society today.

It's sad when children can't step outside their own house for fear of being kidnapped or molested. 

I think these types of things are very rational and unfortunately, very real.


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## don maico

In a word - ghosts


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## Tsoman

I was afraid of monsters


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## Hakro

GenJen54 said:


> Moderator Note: Wow, only three posts in and we're already starting to finger point.


Sorry, Moderator. I wasn't meaning to finger point. I tried to say that there were exactly the same fears on both sides. We Finnish kids had a reason to fear both of them.


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## Hakro

Tsoman said:


> I was afraid of monsters


Yeah, I've seen those terrible cars in TV. I'm afraid of them, too.


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## la reine victoria

> *GenJen*
> It's sad when children can't step outside their own house for fear of being kidnapped or molested


 


I agree with you wholeheartedly, Jen.  And I love your dream about having somewhere where children could play in complete safety.

Another major fear (usually unvoiced) is that the parents will separate or divorce.  Children like to know that Mummy and Daddy love each other and will always stay together.  Children of divorced parents often think that they (the children) are to blame in some way.  Such feelings can persist for years afterwards.




LRV


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## TrentinaNE

GenJen54 said:


> My friends and I talk about this alot, often dreaming of a world where we could all collectively buy a large parcel of land and make up our own "neighborhood," where our children could grow and play and not worry about having to deal with the many issues facing society today.


Who's to say that one of these children won't turn out to be a sociopath that lures other kids into the tree house for advanced games of "doctor" or worse? I think that when we focus too much on eradicating certain perceived dangers in kids' lives, that we may set up circumstances for other dangers. The NY Times had an article a few weeks ago about the high rate of alcoholism among young teens and pre-teens in rural areas of certain "red states" -- places where the parents probably think their kids are "safe" from lots of big city dangers, but the kids are so bored out of their minds and directionless that they turn to drink.

But I fear (no pun intended) that I may be getting off-track. The question is what kids fear today and whether those fears differ across cultures. I suspect that a lot depends on their circumstances. If many of their friends' parents are divorced and they see those friends suffering as a consequence, then they may fear that their own parents' marriage will break up. If they've heard stories or seen TV shows about kidnapers or molesters, they're probably more likely to fear that kind of thing might happen to them -- but on the other hand, they may be more prepared to deal with the threat if it ever occurs, or to avoid the ploys used by those perpetrators. I wonder if any sociologists have studied this question!

Elisabetta


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## serg79

When I was a child, one of my biggest fears was of being ostracized from my peer group for being "different". I think that these days there is probably even more pressure on kids to always conform.


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## Tsoman

When I was a kid, I was always looking for dangerous activities, playing with venomous snakes for example. It's normal and healthy. But I guess in some places, it's too dangerous to go out and find dangerous activites, which is a shame.


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## Victoria32

Vanda said:


> When we were children - my generation and 2 or 3 generations ahead of me - we used to fear ghosts, phantoms, darkness, witches and the like.
> Today, our television ran an interview with children varying from 6 to 8 years old (around that) asking them what they fear. Children from smaller places said they fear darkness, ghosts, etc, but big cities' children have modern fears. Most of them fear:
> - kidnapping
> - shooting
> - having mother and father killed
> - parents losing their lives in car accident
> 
> We can read an ugly reality in today's fears: our insecurity and social condition mainly. What do children fear in your country nowadays and why? Does it have to do with their socio-economic status, neighborhood, race, religious upbringing? How much does it have to do with culture? Or do children still have those old "good" fears?


In my experience, the overall thing children fear most, has not changed from when I was a child. My main fear was losing my family, especially my parents, and that has always been the main fear of my children!

In NZ, I would say few or no children fear kidnapping or shooting, which shows how lucky and sheltered we are! 

My son confessed to me recently that when he was little a serious fear of his was being abducted by aliens! (We have always been a science fiction-loving family, but still, that's just weird!  )


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## ozon

After read this Thread and do some research about Halloween, (Becouse is why today we are talking about this topic isn't it?) some cuestions appear in my mind:

-whas the fear a tool used by the adults to control the children during the midle age? On that time, the inocence or ignorance of the children (and adults?) was fertile grund where cultivate fears.
-where are now all these mythologyes and legends? becouse today the children is not controled using fear any more isn't it? How fast it have been reduced to an inoffensive jocke or offensive comercial opportunity?
-Is this strategy (fear) used now a days by addults to control adults/society?


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## mytwolangs

I was always afraid the USSR would drop a bomb on us. 
Didnt help that I grew up in one of their prime targets. 

And that clown off Poltergueist, I hated that thing like nothing.


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## maxiogee

Victoria32 said:


> My son confessed to me recently that when he was little a serious fear of his was being abducted by aliens! (We have always been a science fiction-loving family, but still, that's just weird!  )



la plus ca change, and all that!

When I was young children 'knew' that they could be abducted by gypsies.
I don't think my parents ever directly cautioned me against going somewhere or doing something which might cause this to come about, but I don't think they would have discouraged me from this line of thinking. A child who is to afraid to stray too far is a child who is less likely to get lost.
We also feared both God and Hell, death was going to happen to us sometime soon, and we were instilled with the fear of being found sinful at the time.

I must ask my son what his childhood fears were.


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## invictaspirit

I think British kids are still scared of ghosts, aliens, monsters and fantasy figures. In some very dodgy parts of our biggest cities older kids might be scared of muggings, getting their iPods/phones ripped-off by older gang members. But I have never come across any widespread fears of kidnapping or shooting outside a number of very small, very deprived islands of poverty and crime.

My near-permanent worry as a child that the USSR would nuke my home town (which had one of Europe's biggest submarine re-fitting bases and was a prime target) has now morphed into kids' fear of terrorism and perhaps more worryingly, a general fear and mistrust of Islam.


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## Etcetera

As a child, I feared death. 
I also feared of being lost in a big supermarket. 
At the same time, I wasn't afraid of darkness and ghosts (on the contrary, I dreamt of meeting one!).

I'll ask my sister what she's afraid of.


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## Agnès E.

Mmm... I have some feeling that what children fear most is what is brought to their minds by adults: either through the means of tales or TV, or through the means of threats, for example (_Bobby,_ _if you don't behave, the big ogre will take you and devour you!_).

In absence of a concrete object of terror brought by adults, I think they just fear the dark and its obscure  dangers created by their own imagination...


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## maxiogee

maxiogee said:


> I must ask my son what his childhood fears were.



It appears that my son had a deprived childhood. 
He says he had no fears. 
(Or maybe he just means none that he wishes to tell me about.)


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## Etcetera

Agnès E. said:


> Mmm... I have some feeling that what children fear most is what is brought to their minds by adults: either through the means of tales or TV, or through the means of threats, for example (_Bobby,_ _if you don't behave, the big ogre will take you and devour you!_).


A phrase I've never heard from my parents. Maybe that's why I've never feared any creatures from fairy tales.


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## Nunty

The adult-generated fears in my childhood had to do with the political situation in divided Jerusalem, and I will not go into that. They were fairly reality-based, though. The other-child generated fears had to do with being "got" by a crazy lady in the neighborhood or by... nuns. (Hah!)

A huge percentage of children in Israel and Palestine (*) show clinical symptoms of post-traumatic shock syndrome, and their fears reflect that: fears of bombs in the night or on a bus in the marketplace, of people from the other side, of soldiers and terrorists (defined by the environment, of course). These poor kids don't have the "luxury" of being afraid of ghosts and ogres.

On a lighter note (?), I was also afraid of the little Rumpelstilkin-like man who I was sure lived in the kerosene heater during the summer and in the crawl space above the kitchen in the winter. Also vampires. Big time vampire fear. Lasted a long time. In fact, let's not go there... 

(*) I hate the "studies show" line, but in this I'm relying on research done by people I actually know.


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## Vanda

Nun-Translator said:


> The adult-generated fears in my childhood had to do with the political situation in divided Jerusalem, and I will not go into that. They were fairly reality-based, though. The other-child generated fears had to do with being "got" by a crazy lady in the neighborhood or by... nuns. (Hah!)
> 
> A huge percentage of children in Israel and Palestine (*) show clinical symptoms of post-traumatic shock syndrome, and their fears reflect that: fears of bombs in the night or on a bus in the marketplace, of people from the other side, of soldiers and terrorists (defined by the environment, of course). These poor kids don't have the "luxury" of being afraid of ghosts and ogres.
> ...............


 
BTW, based on the fears based on political situation I remember when children were afraid of comunists. In that time we were under a dictartorship and people used to tell children that the comunists ate little children.  

Nun, I really expected someone to tell us what you have said about "war like situation" fears. Those poor children living under these conditions are almost like our children here living in "disguised terrorist situation" in our big centers like Rio and São Paulo. Therapists are working on this to help these kids. 
Isn't it sad, that these kids can't just be afraid of _bicho-papão_(animal that eats children)?


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## LouisaB

There seem to be two types of fear in children.

The first are the primeval type which seem to be almost passed on in our genes, just as a young spider knows how to spin a web. These are mainly fear of the dark, or of supernatural forces outside ourselves - monsters, witches, devils. Our ancestors feared them, and so do our children until we teach them better... (?)

Then there are those we learn. We learn them from the news, and from drama, especially that on television piped into our homes. We learn them from our own parents. I remember being pleased and excited at catching a huge fat spider on the landing one day as a child, and taking it to show my mother in bed. I had never seen my mother scream before. Now, I am so afraid of spiders my heartbeat goes up to danger point at the sight of one. Into this group (I would guess) go kidnapping, sexual assault and murder. To protect our children from very real dangers in the world today, we teach them a host of fears that would never otherwise have troubled their dreams.

We have to do it. But don't we all wish we didn't...


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## invictaspirit

My little son is only 2 weeks old. This morning he woke screaming from what was clearly a nightmare, and shook with fear until I cuddled him and spoke to him gently.

My question is: what on earth was he dreaming about??? he hasn't ever done or seen anything scary...just been looked after, fed, bathed, all of which he is happy about. He doesn't yet know what a monster is!


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## Sallyb36

being born can be quite traumatic, there you are in a  lovely cosy warm place with no bright lights, noises, then you are forced out into this bright, noisy cold place.  That might be what he was dreaming about.


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## maxiogee

invictaspirit said:


> My little son is only 2 weeks old.  This morning he woke screaming from what was clearly a nightmare, and shook with fear until I cuddled him and spoke to him gently.
> 
> My question is:  what on earth was a dreaming about???  he hasn't ever done or seen anything scary...just been looked after, fed, bathed, all of which he is happy about.  He doesn't yet know what a monster is!



Assuming that babies sleep at times when in the womb, then he was probably terrified by the experience of waking up 'not' surrounded by amniotic fluid and sensing the steady throbbing of mummy's pulse.

 Maybe the loss of the dampness of the amniotic fluid is why babies constantly strive to rectify this 'dry' sensation on their skin


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## luis masci

My mother used to have a big laugh when she recalled what I said being a little child: “I’m fearing of what doesn’t exist”  



Vanda said:


> BTW, based on the fears based on political situation I remember when children were afraid of comunists. In that time we were under a dictartorship and people used to tell children that the comunists ate little children.


What a curiosity Vanda; in spite of the fact that we had similar governments in our respective countries (under hard dictatorship) I was afraid due to all the opposite that you said about Brazilian children. I was afraid to be aimed as a communist by the government and to be another “desaparecido” (disappeared)


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## Vanda

> I was afraid to be aimed as a communist by the government and to be another “desaparecido” (disappeared)


 
I can tell you that was the worst fear of _adults _here. For the children, little ones that couldn't understand what was going on, being eaten was enough fear.  

Someone above has told us about modern fears and parents' divorce. Interesting this is one of those fears children dare not to express it aloud, just in case it may turn into reality!


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## Cereth

As child I was afraid of being abducted by aliens, being lost in a supermarket -as etcetera mentioned too- and Freddie Kruger!! ahhh he was really scary in my opinion, specially because I had a doll house just as the one of the movie...every night I used to cover the house with a blanket and an image of christ in order to protect me ^^''

At that time many of my friends were scared of the "pitufos/smurfs" too.

My little brother is 9 and he is afraid of:
*Kidnapping
*Ghosts
* the idea of my mother´s death.


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## Victoria32

maxiogee said:


> la plus ca change, and all that!
> 
> We also feared both God and Hell, death was going to happen to us sometime soon, and we were instilled with the fear of being found sinful at the time.


With atheist (then) but very strict parents we were aware of being 'wrong' more than sinful... I certainly feared death, because when I was three my brother had died, although I remember it vividly, I am not sure how much I understood at the time...

That I always thought, was the root of my fear of losing my parents... but probably not, if my son has (and he does) the same fear without the same experience.

Halloween today! I must put my "get lost" sign up!


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## la reine victoria

Vanda said:


> Nun, I really expected someone to tell us what you have said about "war like situation" fears. Those poor children living under these conditions are almost like our children here living in "disguised terrorist situation" in our big centers like Rio and São Paulo. Therapists are working on this to help these kids.


 


Let's all spare a thought for the terrified children in Iraq.  




LRV


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## Victoria32

la reine victoria said:


> Let's all spare a thought for the terrified children in Iraq.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> LRV


Absolutely! I have just read a story by the Australian fantasy author Garth Nix, written for the Warchild charity, "_Charlie Rabbit_", it's awesome! (IIt's in his book _Across the Wall_, which my son gave me for my birthday)


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