Fear of Flying in a Six Year Old

[GrabbyMcGrabby]

My child, now six, has decided to be too scared of flying to consider this as a method of travel. Until now it hasn't been a huge problem, but I want us to be able to travel further afield and for it not to be all by car, train or ferry! Anyone else had the same? I think this appears to stem from things they have been told by other kids at school. Any tips for how to deal with it?

If he’s not generally an anxious child, I’m a fan of just chivvying along. Aeroplane travel is fun, you can see the pilot, we can go anywhere in the world. Reassurance without being soft (if that makes sense!).

There is (was?) a nice sticker book about the airport by usborne I think.
We've a book called Leon Spreads his Wings about a boy too scared to fly but then he realises he wants to go to visit his cousin.

Ours weren't too scared to consider it, we just treated it as fact. To get there we go by plane and won't it be exciting! Didn't make a big thing of it. Can your child tell you why they think it's too scary?

Thanks for the tips. I didn't want to dig too far as I was worried about reinforcing the fear, but I will have a go and see where that gets us. It is something to do with a fear of dropping out of the sky. I had tried rationalising things with them and was going to do a short 'practice' flight at half term to our destination. Wasn't workable, but DC has expressed relied that we are not flying. DC is not generally anxious but has had some scary thoughts about other things put into their head by other kids (maybe the same one). We've had problems with nightmares.

I am not planning to fly until Feb so have a while to sort things!