There comes a time in any family when a child begins to experience some kind of fear. Children are afraid of the dark, monsters under the bed, loud noises, and water. Parents may not always understand what a child is afraid of; children’s fears often seem nonsense to an adult. But for a child, all his fears are very real, they really exist, and cause a lot of negative emotions. We will try to understand what children's fears are, and what a parent can do to help the child cope, as well as what should not be done. Some fears are essentially age-related norms, so we will consider in more detail their characteristics and the age of their occurrence. For example, variants of fears characteristic of children under 5 years of age: fear of getting hurt, fear of unfamiliar places and strangers, fear of the dark, water, loud sounds, fear of animals. Slightly older children begin to be afraid of death, ghosts, monsters and the dark, and nightmares may appear. Schoolchildren develop their own specific fears, for example, fear of being ridiculed, of failure, fear of not finding friends, of being rejected. To help a child cope with fears, parents should: Recognize the reality of fear, accept the child’s feelings, say: “Yes, I see that you are scared,” “Yes, you are scared, you are afraid...”; Hug the child, tell him: “I’m with you”, “I’m here, I’m not going anywhere”; For children from the age of two, a simple explanation of this or that phenomenon that frightens them is enough; Encourage the child to talk about his fears, discuss ways to overcome them; You can get to know each other in a playful way take a closer look at his fears. If a child is afraid of the dark, then you can start by setting up a tent in the room during the day and playing with the child, turning the flashlight on and off. Later, you can play together with your child with a flashlight, when it’s already dark; Try to remove things from the child’s life that can increase fears (for example, watching TV: news, cartoons that are not age appropriate); Predictability in their life is important for children: and this, first of all, is simple and respected family rules and daily routine; Praise any, even the smallest, progress of the child in overcoming fear. Tell your child about your love for him, show that your feelings do not change regardless of whether he is afraid of something or not. What you shouldn’t do: Don’t shame your child (you’re already big, it can’t be scary); Don’t laugh at your baby’s fears (it’s funny or stupid to be afraid of this); Don’t force your child to face his fear ( stay in a dark room and you will see that there is no one there; pet the dog, it will not bite); Do not criticize the child for unsuccessful attempts to overcome fear; Pay attention to the warnings or threats with which you address the child: “if you do not obey.” , then your uncle policeman will take you away”, “if you behave like this, we will leave you here, we’ll go home ourselves”, “if you touch the sockets, you will die.” Such phrases can become a source of child’s fears. So, we see that the appearance of fears in children is a normal and natural phenomenon. With the right approach, in most cases, children and parents can cope with this problem together. But it happens that a child’s fears do not go away and this affects the life of the entire family: the child does not sleep in his bed, is afraid of doctors or nurses and does not let them near him, etc. And it is possible that some unwanted behavior of the child (for example, fear of sleeping alone) begins to perform an important function in the life of the family. In this case, you should contact a family therapist or child psychologist for advice..