Phobias in childhood and adolescence

Etymologically phobia means, fear, panic and terror. The description of irrational fears appears already in Egyptian papyri and in the Corpus Hippocraticum. As medical terminology it first appears in a work by Celsus in which he refers to hydrophobia as an important symptom of rabies. The concept of phobia in its current meaning appears in 1801.

Irrational fears in children and adolescents

Throughout their development, children and adolescents have to face new situations with which they must become familiar. For this reason, fear is frequent during this stage of personal development. Some of the most common fears in childhood and adolescence are fear of the dark, of loneliness, of certain animals, of strange people, of ghosts or monsters, of water, of being attacked, of the other sex or of deformities of one’s own body.

How should parents act?

Children and adolescents will be able to cope successfully with a banal fear if their parents act in a supportive and supportive manner and at the same time respect their pace of adaptation and adaptation to the situation that generates this fear. If the parents act with an overprotective attitude and constantly and excessively prevent the child from facing the dangerous situation, the child will become fearful and will adopt an avoidant personality unable to withstand the experience of fear.
On the other hand, if the parents exercise an action of confrontation of the child with the objects that generate fear beyond his physical and psychic possibilities of adaptation, the failure of the child to confront this fear will cause his resistance to confront that which is the object of fear to rise notably.

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When does an irrational fear become a phobia?

From an educational point of view, the child must learn to progressively avoid situations that represent an objective danger, in order not to face useless risks. At the same time, he/she should recognize those situations that, although they cause fear, do not constitute a risky situation. In this way he will mature with the progress that means being able to slowly face new situations. At around seven or eight years of age, common fears attenuate or disappear, thanks to the child’s realization that certain situations, objects or people that frightened him/her do not pose any real danger.

We will only speak of phobias when a specific fear is associated with an avoidance behavior, producing a damage in the personal adaptation or in the social relation of the child. Phobia consists of the repulsion or distressing fear specifically related to the presence of an object, being or situation that, due to its specific characteristics, does not justify this state of anxiety. The phobia is not incapacitating at first, but it interferes notably in the social activity of the subject and also in his productive performance. In some more serious cases, it can lead to school absenteeism (school phobia), depression or addictions.