Helping Your Children Overcome Fear
Fear of heights, fear of water, fear of doctors, fear of being alone, you name it, children can be faced with them all. One of the most important things for us to remember as parents is that regardless of how ridiculous their fears may seem at times, they are real. If we want to help them overcome them, we must understand that, first and foremost. One of the worst things we can do with our children is to belittle them when we see some type of fear manifesting in them.
When you see some fear in them, take time out and talk them through it. Help them face that fear and walk it out with them. Last year while we were on vacation, for some reason, my son was scared to get into a swimming pool. He had never been fond of swimming, but for some reason this time he was terrified. It made no sense. He had been swimming before, but on this day he was paralyzed by fear. I came to the edge of the pool and began talking him through it. It took a long time, but I remained patient with him and he finally got in the pool. I don't know why he was scared and neither did he. He just was. We took it slow, and I just explained to him that we all have fear from time to time and that in order to beat it, we have to face it. I told him about my fear of showing off my 200 and none of your business pounds to the world, but was not going to let that keep me from going swimming with him. I explained to him that a brave and courageous boy wasn't someone without fear, just someone who refused to let fear rule over him. It was someone who was determined to face their fears and overcome them. Oh yeah, I also had to throw into the equation that fear comes from our enemy the devil and in order to beat him up he was going to have to get in the pool. All I know is it worked. He got in the pool and for the rest of the vacation he wanted to go swimming every day.
I'm not sure how all fears develop in our children but some things are a given. Certain television shows and movies can give birth to fear in our children. Pay attention to what your children are watching. Sometimes, we help facilitate fears in them by how we treat them. For example, constantly saying things like, "be careful," and "you're going to get hurt" can impart fear in our children. I'm not saying never to say things like that, I'm just saying be careful that you don't go overboard with it. Some fears are passed down from us to our children. More times than not, when this happens the fears seem much more elevated in our children than ourselves. Determine to overcome your fears so they aren't passed on to your children. Then, there are those fears that just seem to pop up from nowhere. Those that just make no sense. I believe our enemy the devil needs no assistance from us, television, or anything else to slap our children with a heavy load of fear. He's the author of all of it. Bathing our children with prayer and the Word of God will do wonders in helping them to overcome fear.
Related Tags: children, family, parenting, teen, parent, father, mother, fears, christian parenting, family life
Tim Stone is a veteran of youth ministry with over 15 years of experience in that field. He currently serves as youth pastor at Freedom Fellowship Church in Magnolia, TX. He is also the founder of EquippingParents.com, a website designed to inform and equip today's parents. For more tools and resources go to http://www.equippingparents.com
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