5 YO and phobias

[Frieda86]

DD (5) has always been timid but phobias are getting out of control!
Any dog we see she hides behind me and refuses to move until its passed (she did see a dog jump up at DS so I do undetstand that fear).
She won't go to the bathroom on her own.
She wouldn't go in the garden today because there were bugs.
She just keeps saying she's not brave.
Any ideas how to help?

Are you making a big deal of it? I’d actually start by not really giving it much attention. This doesn’t sound like a ‘phobia’. I’d say something like, oh you’ll be okay, look I’ll hold your hand so we can go in the garden together. Give her comfort and reassurance, but not in a way that plays up the fear. Did something happen around the time these started? New sibling, house move, other big life transition? If so, I’d actually go back and focus on reassuring her about that.

What did you say when she said she didn’t want to go into the garden because there were bugs?

Honestly I wouldn't be giving it any attention. It sounds like she could be feeding off of your reactions.

I don’t think I’d take the approach of giving it no attention. I’d acknowledge she feels not brave/unsure/worried/scared and help her name the different feelings as they come up. I agree don’t endorse that these are things to be scared of, but I think you need to start with where she is, and let her know you’ve heard. I remember being afraid of my gran’s bathroom as a child, in my memory it is dark and shadowy and I didn’t know if something would jump out at me! I think all of these things you can expose gradually, go to loo with her but say you’ll wait outside and be there if she needs you. Drawing attention to what they did that wasn’t fearful.

When my kids say they can’t do something that I think they can do I say ‘show me the hard part’ and if there really is a hard part I’ll help but they’ve then done the rest and I can draw attention to what they did do.

Thanks for the replies. Im not making a big deal of it. With the bugs I said they're tiny and they won't hurt you. As she got more hysterical I said she'll just have to stay in if shes not happy.
With the toilet I just remind her that shes done it on her own before and that I'm not far away. But she sometimes just refuses to go alone.

And there's not been any big changes recently.

I think you are handling it well then. Matter of fact and telling her the natural consequences. I teach children your DD’s age and it’s increasingly common for children to be able to express how they are feeling like this. At work I say ‘it’s ok to feel nervous that a bee might come’ or ‘it’s ok to feel sad that mummy isn’t picking you up’ because it is ok for them to have those feelings but it’s finding a way to have those feelings but not to let them stop you from doing things.

My oldest was always quite wary of the world. For her, it was about making mistakes or making decisions. I used to try to make mistakes of my own all of the time and then deal with those mistakes to show her that it would be ok. And I’d get her to make decisions like ‘if you were that girl in the book, would you wear those shoes on that page or those ones on that page’.