How to help DDs scared of bugs

[littleoctonauts]

We got caught in national flying ant day 10 days ago (i never knew about this phenomenon until then!!). Since then 4yo DD1 and 22mo DD2 are scared of all bugs even tiny ones and even anything that might look like one.

Please tell me your experiences of what has worked for you in dealing with this and give me hope they'll get over it..We are trying a range of methods but it's really challenging

Hmm not sure on this one tbh. DD is terrified of flies for some reason. She also seemed to develop a phobia of spiders, which we sorted out by telling her that if she doesn't like flies she should like spiders as they eat flies. Now she loves spiders and says hello everytime she sees one Still have her screaming and running for cover if she sees a fly though...

Not sure how I would handle fear of all bugs in general though :/

I have a real hatred and fear of bugs and all creepy crawlies, and I'm trying very hard to not pass this onto my DDs.

To do this, we read lots of books with bugs in the illustrations and talk about how cute/clever they are (when clearly they are conniving little pricks trying to take over the world) and generally talk about how teeny they are compared to us- how scary we must look to them.

Then at any opportunity I will get them to look at bugs, we go in the garden and resist IMHO every natural instinct and overturn stones and look at the little fuckers.

And then holding them. Bleugh. We recently have started going to the zoo more and I even held a stick insect and let my DD stroke it.

So far they love bugs, I don't know if this approach would work given they already have the fear, but I would hope it could be w start!

Oh I am so following this one!!

DD 2.8 has also developed a fear of flies which started with the recent influx of greenfly... It makes spending any time in the garden very stressful!

I was actually only talking about this at work today and was given a tip to give her a 'fly' cloth (tea towel or whatever) and tell her it's her cloth to wave the flies away. Worked for about 2 seconds at tea time before she was saying "you do it mummy, you do it!" but it did stop the terrified screaming every other second!

Thank you for your replies and great ideas. I will try some of them, thanks!!