Hi, my daughter is nearly 5 and is scared of most animals. She likes looking at them, and she sometimes says they are sweet. If they come up to her though, she compleatly freaks out. Her main fears are Cats, dogs, birds and cows.
My MIL has a small dog, who is extreamly sweet and well behaved. We go to her house most days and my daughter is o.k with this dog. She dosn't like him jumping up, but that's all. My MIL also has a cat, who my daughter is terrified of. We have to keep her and the cat seperate.
She comes from a family of animal lovers, so it's a bit strange really.
She is also scared of the water and going swimming.
She used to be fine until she was about 2.5 when she fell out of a boat and although she was wearing a life jacket, her head went under.
We tried to take her swimming since then, but she starts screaming so we have to leave.
She has been going recently with her school. They take them to a neer bye leasure centre. She was fine the first 2 times, as her favourate teacher was there with her. The last time though, the teacher couldn't make it and when my dd realised it would be someone else helping her, she freaked out. Apparently she was screaming and trying to climb up the teacher, shouting "get me out, get me out!". Not good.
We are going on holiday in 2 months time and there will be a lot of swimming involved.
I'm hoping she'll be o.k with her Konfidence jacket and rubber ring. She'll have us there too of corse.
I'm going to start taking her to our local swimming pool once a week. She already goes once a week with school, so once a week with me might be helpful.
If you have any ideas, to help with water confidence or fear of animals, please could you let me know.
We will be swimming with dolphins on the holiday, so I'm really hoping she can over come her fears enough to take part, even if it's just stroking a dolphin.
I'm worried, she'll just freak out and it'll spoil it for everyone. I'm hoping the staff would take her for a while if this happened.