Children's Ways

WITH FEARS

ult of t

d so important that it seems worth while to deal with them

ne of the chief sources of their happiness, should cause so much alarm when they first come on the scene. Yet s

here takes its rise in the experience of shock. In other cases we have to do rather with a sort of ?sthetic dislike to what is disagreeable and ugly than with a true fear. Chil

hen taken to the Zoological Gardens at the age of two years three months showed a fear of the big caged animals whose forms were strange to him, such, e.g., as the lion and the tiger. Some children have shown fear on seeing a tame bear, others have selected the cow

and the fact that they seem to be just as often from small harmless creatures as from big and mighty ones, suggest that other causes are at work here. We may indeed suppose that a child's nervous system has been so put together and

attack. And this supplies an explanation of the fear of one boy of two years three months at the sight of pigs when sucking; for, as the child let out afterwards, he thought they were biting their mother. The unexpectedness of the animal's movements too, especially when, as in the case of birds, mice, spiders, they are rapid, might excite uneasiness. In other cases it is something uncanny in the movement which excites fear, as

nds". Quite tiny children, on first seeing ducks and other animals, so far from being alarmed, will run after the pretty creatures to make pets of them. Nothing perhaps is prettier in child-life than the pose and look of one of these defenceless youngsters when he is making a brave effort to get the better of his fear at the approach of

ight

dren. It does not show itself in the early months. A baby of three or four months if accustomed to a light may no doubt be upset at being deprived of it; but this is some way from a dread of the dark. This presupposes a

etimes show fear of mists, and that many are haunted by the idea of the stifling grave. Hence, it is not improbable that children seized by the common terror and dizziness on suddenly waking may feel the darkness as something oppressive. This is

ing eyes of people and animals which children are apt to see in the dark receive their explanation in this way. Of course these sources of uneasiness grow more pronounced when a child is out of health and his nervous tone falls low. Even older people who have this fear describe the experience as seeing shadowy flitting forms, and this suggests that the activity

en he goes to bed, be projected into the surrounding blackness. Any shock in the waking hours may in this way give rise to a more or less permanent fear of being alone in a dark place. In not a few instances the alarming images are the product of fairy-stories, or of ghost and other alarming stories told by nurses and others thoughtlessly. In this way the dark room becomes for a timid child haunted by a "bogie"

with some powerful dream-image still holding him in its clutches, and when the awful struggle to wake and to be at home with the surroundings issues in the cry, "Where am I?" It is in these moments of absolute hopeless confusion that the impenetrable blackness, refusing to divulge it

nces of Charles Lamb and others have told us. It is not too much, I think, to say that to many a child this dread of the black night has been the w

ave been going to sleep. A lady whom I know tells me that she never had the fear as a child though she acquired it later, towards the age of thirty. How common it is among children under ten or twelve, we have as yet n

daylight, he can see his beloved fairies, talk to them and hear them talk. We know how R. L. Stevenson must, when a child, have gladdened many of his solitary dark hours by bright fancies. Ev

the most in these ways, the effect varying with nervous tone and mental conditio

rise of gloomy thoughts. The very blackness of night, too, which we must remember is actually seen by the child, would probably tend to darken the young thoughts. We know how commonly we make black and dark shades of colour symbols of melancholy and sorrow. If to this we add that in the night a child is apt to feel l

e of the

s of children. The facts seem to show that they are exposed on different sides to the attacks

feeling of insecurity. More particularly children are apt to feel uneasy when face to face with the new, the strange, the unknown, and this uneasiness grows into a more definite feeling of fear as soon as the least suggestion of harmfulness is added; as when a child recoils with dread from a stranger who has a big projecting eye that looks a menace, or a squint which suggests a sly way of looking at you, or an ugly and advancing tooth that threatens to bite. How much the fear of the dark is due to inability to se

imagination which creates and sustains the larger number of their fears. Do we not indeed

of uneasiness if not of fully developed fear. Dogs, cats, and other animals will "shy" at the sight of "uncanny" moving objects, such as leaves, feathers, and shadows. Yet the

y things, such as the storm-wind, and the rare and startling things, e.g., the eclipse and the thunder. The ignorance and simplicity of mind, moreover, aided by a fertile fancy, which lead to

aversion of a baby to its medicine glass, or its cold bath, one sees, perhaps, more of the rude germ of passion or anger than of fear. Some children, at least, have a surprising way of going through a good deal of physical suffering from falls, cuts and so forth,

particular kind of harm. When, for example, a child who has been frightened by a dog betrays signs of fear at the sight of a kennel, an

fears of far-off savage ancestors, to whom darkness and the sounds of wild beasts were fraught with danger. That, however, is far from being satisfactorily demonstrated. We can see why in the case of children, as in that of young animals, Nature tempers a bold curiosity of the n

son that children are never more reticent than when talking of their fears, and that by the time the fears are surmounted few can be trusted to give from memory an accurate report of them. One thing seems pretty clear, and the new questioning of children which i

d, the Ill of

tormy sense of

ry from th

entimental exaggeration. Even allowing what George Sand says, that fear is "the greatest mora

other sides by their ignorance. This is well illustrated in the pretty story of the child Walter Scott, who was found ou

etting used to the disturbing sound, the ugly black doll, and so forth, a child, like a dog, tends to lose its first fear. One must say "tends," for the well-known fact that man

en it is frightened. But if only there is the magic circle of the mother's arms within reach may it not be said that the fear is more than counterbalanced by the greatest emotio

first by the coming of the new and strange thing. The eager desire to know about things is perhaps the most perfect inward defence against many childish fears. Even when fear is half awake the passionate longing to see will force its way. A little girl that was frightened at a

e small body; if, on the other hand, the child is cooler and has the cheering daylight to back him, he may be bold enough to play with his fears, and to talk of them to others with the chuckle of superiority.[8] The more real and oppressive the fit of fear the more enjoyable is the subsequent self-deliverance by a perspicacious laugh likely to be. The beginnings of childish bravery often take the form of laughing away their fears. Even when the ugly phantoms are not wholly driven back they are half seen through, and the child who is strong enough can amuse himself with them, suffering the momentary compression for