Following on from my monster in ASDA thread, DD is freaking out

[sherby]

here

things have got much worse we went to Matalan and she freaked out again about the halloween stuff

then in Toys r us really badly about a star wars display, to the point where we had to take her out and she wasn't even bothered about not getting the toy she wanted she just wanted out

then today we went to a friends house and she utterly screamed the house down because they had a troll ornament in their living room even when they took it out she still wasn't happy and just screamed to go home

I'm really worried about her now she seems so anxious and scared, is this normal for 3yrs old? any ideas from anyone for something I could do to help here?

v normal i think. ds1 was terrified of masks / clowns / pictures of "monsters" at that age. was all a phase.

My friends dd went through a phase where she was scared of anything in costume even if it wasn't scary. She was scared of fairys and santa etc. She grew out of it but it went on for about 2 years.

oh really

hope DD doesn't get that bad, not sure if I should be removing her from the situation or making her put up with it to show her there is nothing to be afraid of (not what I want to do at all) but what everyone else seems to think I should do

my dc3 is having a thing about insects at the moment so I really sympathise.

Have you thought about Meg and Mog books?

She loves meg and mog! at the moment the scared of list is

Monsters
Trolls
Ghouls/ghosts
Skeletons
Dinosaurs
Robots
Any weird mask kind of thing

My 8 yr old son saw a clip not even the whole episode of Dr Who,when these characers were wearing white masks,we had him in our bed for 6 weeks! It annoying but normal for kids to freak out,just try to ride it out. Good luck

As hash as this sounds you really need to try not to remove her from every situation she starts screaming at.

She needs to learn that these things aren't going to hurt her and the only way she'll do that is to be around them. If you keep removing her everytime she gets upset she's going to end up with a full blown phobia.

Clearly the thing in asda was stupid, and whoever put it there should be shot.

You could try and humanise them, we are giving the insects names at the moment 'there's grandpa fly looking for Betty the beetle - there he goes say bye' kind of thing.

Or the story of the magic finger springs to mind. If trying to humour her doesn't work tell her she has magic powers to zap the monsters etc. away? We've even given ds3 a water pistol at times so if the flies don't fly away, he gently encourages them out!

I'm glad to hear that intense fearfulness is reasonably common at this age. I was getting worried. Dd (3) has overnight developed an intense fear that if we go out of her sight i.e. out of the room for any reason e.g. toilet, laundry etc she will disappear and be lost. I think this is something to do with her CM training her to hold her hand when they are out walking.

I've tried to reassure her that this is only important outside in busy streets and not in the house. But she gets hyserical. We had a standoff yesterday where I needed both hands to bring the laundry downstairs and in the end she humg, wailing, onto my T-shirt. It's driving us batty.

A friend's DS was terrified of balloons and clowns at this age. He did grow out of it.

Thanks for replies

Went to see a homeopathic lady in town today who DD thinks is a friendly witch

She made some magic potion for DD to drink (rescue remedy) that makes her feel brave and gives her magic fingers to shoo scary things away and we made some monster spray for the house that the monsters don't like the smell of

So we will see how we get on!

We've got two friendly monsters (who only the two of us can see) who frighten nasty monsters away. Can remember trip around park when ds significantly younger when 'baby Jack' (also imaginary) was sitting in the buggy and holding 'Jessie's' hand, I was holding ds's hand and ds had his other hand out sideways holding 'Freddie's' hand! They are very useful at times - usually to be found nearby in case of need, and can be called to get rid of nasty monsters