We are often afraid of something, and we also watch our children’s fearful reactions with concern. Sometimes we cannot comprehend how someone can be so afraid of things as harmless as a blank sheet of paper or an ordinary table. We approach it differently when the blank sheet is one of the pages of a test and the table is in the gradebook with a mark.
Many people know this: vomiting, stomach aches and a child asking not to go to kindergarten or school. What do we adults do with this anxiety? How do we react? With the whole range of our own emotions: compassion, irritation, anger or a surge of our own fear. It does not look as colourful as it does in a Disney cartoon, does it?
It is worth seeing the animated film “Inside Out”, and it is also worth talking with your child about this emotion on sunny summer days, so that in autumn they can bravely head off to school or kindergarten. If you need something in a different style from a Disney cartoon, something more reflective, you can turn to the therapeutic story “The Box Girl”, about a child who was so afraid that she hid in a box.
At meetings with the author of “The Box Girl”, children willingly and very seriously talk about fear. What does Grażyna Hanaf ask her young readers at meetings? Ask your child the same thing. Let them talk creatively about this “frightening” emotion. Ask your child:
- Do they consider themselves brave?
- Do they know what fear is?
- If they were to paint fear, what shape would it have, what colour, and what would it be made of?
- What sounds does fear make, and what language does it speak to us?
- Can you become friends with fear?
- How do we react to fear?
- Can fear be made to laugh?
Asking questions and drawing fear is also good fun for adults. Ask yourselves: what colour is your fear? Does it have your boss’s eyes, or is it perhaps made of bank charts plummeting head over heels?
We wish you success in overcoming your own fears and recommend the story “The Box Girl”, about a little girl who looked fear in the eye and was able to leave it behind.
Below is a meeting with children at Primary School No. 5 in Bolesławiec, in class 3a (class teacher Agnieszka Bednarska) and class 2b (class teacher Jolanta Wierzbicka).
The story “The Box Girl” can be purchased in Bolesławiec at Agora bookshop and the BOK-MCC ceramics shop.
