To think all children have strange fears and worries ( or was i just an anxious child)

[Mygotupandgowent]

Can anyone else remember having unreasonable ( but not at the time) worries and beliefs as a child?
I heard someone mention " the gates of heaven" recently and it brought back my fears as a child. I imagined the gates of heaven as like my dad's workshop with a small door inset into the bigger ones. It had a small hatch to look out of. I was afraid that Saint Peter would look out when I knocked and not look down and see me as I was ( and am) very small.i didn't tell anyone but I was so afraid!
I also thought that time passed faster as the hands came down the half hour on the clock and went slower on the way up to the hour. The teacher tried so hard to teach me to tell the time and I never once mentioned my theory.

I remember the field by my grandparents house had a sign saying 'Trespassers will be prosecuted' but he walked the dog every day and it was used as a shortcut to my aunts house, i was told to cut through rather than walk the long way. My childish brain confused 'prosecuted' with 'executed' so I'd run with my head down low, waiting for a hail of bullets.

@FFSToEverythingSince2020 I agree with every word of your post!

Nuclear war. The cold war was raging on, and I had this plan that if the four minute warning went off, we'd have to get to my friends house as she was the only person I knew with a cellar. Of course, I never asked my friend if we could do this, or suggested it to my parents, because they would have said there was nothing to worry about, but I planned it all out in my head.

I used to worry about what life would be like in a nuclear winter if we did survive. I'm not sure my father was terribly responsible in letting me read books off his bookshelf. I had nightmares about James Herbert's 'Domain' for ages.

I feel very lucky to be able to say I don’t remember experiencing any thoughts like this as a child. I do remember other children telling me things like because I had opened a crisp packet upside down I had to spin three times or else something bad would happen (I remember they were specific about what it was but I can’t remember what that was). Or the other classic some other friend of mine mentioned walking over three drains is bad luck etc. but I didn’t take any notice of these.

I also got into trouble for telling one girl at school that her dad is a liar because she said he had told her if you eat apple pips, an apple tree would grow in your tummy! 🤣

I have a very clear memory of the Shepherd Bush murders which took place in the mid 1960's so I would have been 7 or 8

Three policemen were murdered by a gunman who escaped. There was a nationwide search for him. I can't remember how long it was before he was discovered camping in some woods but it feels as though it was quite a few days.

I was absolutely petrified even though we lived 2 hours away from London. I was convinced this guy was in our garden at night and nothing my poor DM could say would reassure me. The day he was arrested I returned to my normal happy self!

The other thing I remember was my DP's bought a new wardrobe for my bedroom. It was much bigger than the previous one and I was convinced for some time it would spontaneously topple over and crush me in my bed!

No, but I was having a horrible childhood, maybe that’s why.

My mum did prayers with me Mathew, mark, Luke and John has a line about my soul to keep and when I am dead. It terrified me ! As did the theme tune to casualty, a British Gas advert about leaks, sparklers (iykyk), tall trees ( someone said one might fall one day and from then on I was scared) Getting my foot stuck on a railway track. (Thanks public safety videos)

I sometimes put a cup of water on my windowsill, because i had heard skeletons cant cross water. I was ok with the skeletons being in the garden but not through the window

It was the one about the boy throwing a ball into the electricity sub-station that freaked me out.

Oh no I’d forgotten about that one!

Sorry.

Oh and chip pan fire 🔥 which regularly Happened in our house 😮
tbh most 70/80’s kids had reason to worry we we constantly being told everything was dangerous and then sent out unsupervised to navigate it all!

I was scared of earthquakes and tsunami, clearly we were not at risk of either where we lived. I always imagined tsunami exactly like they show it in movies - a massive wave coming in and sweeping everything in sight. Much later I learned that it's actually more like fast rising water. Still devastating, obviously but not quite what I feared.

Loads and Im still very anxious at 40 years old

I remember one time I came downstairs early Saturday morning and the kitchen tap was running slightly and almost filled up the washing up bowl.
I then became obsessed with it and flooding the house. I would ask if it was going to rain too.
Parents had to get a plumber in to fix the dripping tap.

My parents also would say that I should sit and watch some tv movies with them. Disaster films about aeroplanes running out of fuel and sinking in the ocean. Or somehow getting stuck in space. I have never been on an aeroplane since I was 2.

Scared of people mostly these days and our son getting sick and hospitalised again. Due to asthma, he has been in hospital 4 times for overnight stays. The last one was the worst where he ended up in resus. I get so on edge when he hasn't washed his hands or running where he might fall over. I know its my fault if he ends up an anxious nervous wreck like me.

Sorry, OP, I went on a mini-rant and didn’t answer your question.

Yes, I think children have irrational fears but what I was trying to say is that I think those fears have changed, on a societal level. I think we are underestimating what a huge effect it has when a population is constantly being injected with fear. Constantly. Yes, these “fears” are what are supposed to keep adults tuned into the news or to make them want to buy certain products, but children are also consuming this media without the agency that adults have, meaning that fear and worry are more likely. An adult sees a commercial that talks about life insurance and it makes them think, “maybe I should get some.” A child sees the same commercial and it may kick off a (irrational) fear of their parents dying.

Children simply do not have the tools and rationality to fight against what social media and advertising and ALL media are trying to force on them, in terms of fear and worry and anxiety, which is why this court decision has been made against Meta and YouTube. I think cBeebies is about the limit of what I’d let a child watch, and having seen YouTube ads (and comments by men in their 50s on a video of a 3-year-old girl in a paddling pool) myself, I would never let them on that platform.

It is also not a surprise to me that, as a result of the first generation that grew up with a 24-hour news cycle - and then I feel as a society, that we’re constantly “bathed” in either true crime or crime drama (I think a generation that grew up with Law and Order SVU, which JUST focuses on sexual crimes, is going to have a LOT of anxieties) - we’re seeing increasingly anxious-style parenting, either general anxiety or often health anxiety. Our parents were the depression generation (first widespread use of antidepressants); we’re going to end up being the anxiety generation (I swear, seems like everyone I know born in 1983 has anxiety of one type or another), and I don’t know what today’s kids will end up being.

So yes, children will always have irrational worries, but I believe those fears have sadly changed from a crocodile in the bed to being raped and murdered.

This has been a strangly comforting thread to read. Knowing I wasn't the only anxious child out there.

My fears started as tiny witches flying out of a cupboard in my bedroom on their broomsticks.
Then focused on my china dolls - I was sure that when I closed my eyes they were moving. I would petrify myself that they were under my cabin bed.
I also used to go up the stairs as quickly as I could with my back against the wall as I was scared of being chased/someone shooting a bow and arrow at me 🙈
I also used to sleep only on my back as I worried if I slept on my side someone would tap me on the shoulder.

Also lots of generalised anxiety around death, wars, asteroids, ghosts, the dark.

I remember telling my mum I was scared of death. She said I didn't need to worry about it. , but I did continue to worry about it.

My Nan used to read the newspaper and told me that a meteor was coming soon and would destroy the earth. I was terrified after this, waiting for the date it said. I would often look up at the moon at night and kept praying it wouldn’t happen

Quicksand. I have no idea why there was so much talk about quicksand in the 80s.

My earliest assumption was that sooner or later a robber was going to come in through my window, so I used to sleep as close to the wall as I could so they'd pass me by unseen. I wasn't worried about what else the robber might do in the rest of the house, I probably assumed my parents would sort him out. I was just worried about being stolen.

I also used to practise holding my breath as I was sure people were going to come around the streets blowing a poisonous gas. Whenever I was playing out and it great a bit too still and quiet, I used to run indoors because I felt they were on their way.

I'm not a particularly anxious person now but I don't watch the news and I don't watch horror films. As a teen I didn't sleep properly for about six months after seeing silence of the lambs.

I remember crying & being quite hysterical when the Gulf War broke out because I thought my dad would have to go back in the army & fight.

@ContentedAlpaca I watched, "The Elephant Man" when I was about nine. (Still not blind) and was greatly affected.

Not all . Very well explained. And may I say you write so well .Very interesting . Thank you

I was a horribly anxious child. I don't think I ever really talked to my parents - whose general attitude to life was 'brisk' - but there were a couple of things my mum commented on when I was an adult which makes me realise she was at least a bit aware.

Childhood fears:
Wolves (I blame early exposure to fairy tales and the Box of Delights for this)
Nuclear war
Car crashes. I just got it into my head that everyone, once in their lifetime, would be seriously injured in a car accident and was just waiting for my turn.
My parents dying. They were in their mid 40s when they had me (less common back then, I'm 50), and I got so much stick at school for having old parents I just assumed that one day I'd get home from school and find them dead.
Generally getting things wrong or making the wrong decision - one of the things my mum remembered from my childhood was being at the panto and balloons dropping from the ceiling. I got two - a red one and a blue one. Walking out we saw a child who didn't have a balloon and mum suggested I give them one of mine. I agonised over which colour to give them. What if I gave them the red one and regret parting with it later?
Had nightmares throughout my childhood.

It all sort of melted away in mid/late teens. I've had a calm adulthood, weathering some really difficult times in a way my friends tell me looked admirable.

Now in perimenopause it's back with a vengeance. Different stuff of course although still have quite a visceral reaction to wolves.

i love this. The way you told the whole thing brought back that feeling of childhood plans against an ultimately non-existent threat. Very sweet and funny. Takes me back to the 80s, as that’s when I was a child!

I read an article about spontaneous combustion in my Dad's magazine when I was about 12, and had nightmares for years.