The Sum of All Fears

My 4 year old is afraid of everything right now. EVERYTHING.

I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about this since our trip to Disney World. It was during our trip a few weeks ago when Nora’s fears really seemed to take hold and become more of a challenge… not just for her, but for all of us. That first day in Magic Kingdom, it became glaringly apparent to Michael and me that we overestimated what Nora would be willing to do. We thought she would ride more rides. See more shows. Visit more characters and see more attractions. But she took one look at Splash Mountain and proclaimed it “too scary,” and then the rest of our day kind of went downhill from there.

Amazingly, she rode Big Thunder Mountain Railroad with me after just qualifying for the height requirement. I told her it was a rollercoaster, and I watched carefully as other smaller children returned from their round, seemingly unscathed. I figured we’d give it a go. Nora HATED it. She started panicking as soon as we went into the dark and the loud CLACK CLACK CLACK CLACK of the chains pulling the car up the hill began, and she proceeded to scream and sob throughout the rest of the ride, repeatedly telling me she didn’t like it and wanted to get off. I felt terrible. I promised I wouldn’t take her on anymore rides like that for the rest of the trip.

But the thing is, it didn’t end there. She refused to ride Peter Pan because she was sure she would see Captain Hook. She wouldn’t ride Ariel because she was terrified she’d see Ursula. For a while, I thought maybe it was Big Thunder Mountain Railroad that did her in. I thought that was my mistake, and what had caused this downward spiral. But then I think about how she was right out of the gate… the whole thing with Splash Mountain. She was scared from the get-go. I certainly don’t think Big Thunder Mountain Railroad HELPED matters, but I think we were going to be dealing with fears regardless.

Then there were characters. Nora loved the princesses and had no problems with them. Then, on our second morning in Disney World, we went to Tusker House in Animal Kingdom for breakfast. It’s a character meet-and-greet with Mickey, Donald, Daisy, Goofy. The first to our table was Donald, and Nora got up and interacted with him, posed for a photo by herself, had him sign her book. But then, at the very end, Donald “kissed” her and it was over. After that, she whined incessantly about how she was afraid of all of the other characters, didn’t want to meet them, didn’t want to take photos with them, etc. It was like a switch had been flipped and we were dealing with a different kid. It didn’t just last the rest of the breakfast, or the rest of the day, it lasted the rest of the trip. She acted the same exact way when we went to Chef Mickey’s for breakfast (another character meal) a couple of days later.

Michael and I really had to let go of a lot of expectations we had about Disney World to accommodate her fears. After a day or two of dealing with them, I felt like I had a pretty good handle on when to push her to overcome the fears (walking into Ariel’s Grotto for a meet and greet, for instance) and when to ease up and not push the issue. We forced ourselves to follow her lead more, and let her make the most of the trip for herself. Fighting her every step of the way wasn’t fun for any of us—which we learned with dramatic flair on Day 1—so Michael and I soon realized that we had to let her do Disney World her way. If she wanted to ride the same rides over and over again, fine. If she wanted to spend half an hour playing instruments in Africa at Animal Kingdom or Epcot, fine. It was in her joy that I found my joy, so it was better for all of us this way. (And that, my friends, is my first Disney takeaway, for all of you planning future trips. If you have expectations? LET IT GO, just like Elsa says.)

Anyway, we’ve been back home about 10 days now and things have not changed. Nora is still afraid of everything now that we’re at home. Movies that she’s seen before. The dark that she’s slept in all of her life. Santa Claus and his reindeer. She complains of her tummy hurting every night at bedtime.

All of these things are not entirely new. She’s always been a “cautious” kid. An observer. Shy. We’ve dealt with the movie thing before—sometimes she’ll love something for a while (take Finding Nemo, for instance) but then suddenly label it “too scary.” She has always been wary of Cinderella because of the mean cat, the mean stepmother and stepsisters, etc. She has never really liked Lion King because of Scar and the hyenas. But for a really recent example, let’s talk about The Grinch That Stole Christmas. Not the creepy Jim Carrey version, but the classic cartoon. Nora watched this with me on a whim last Christmas season when it happened to be on one afternoon when I brought her downstairs from her nap. At the time, I was surprised at how much she was into it. Afterward, she talked about it a lot, about how the Grinch is mean and takes everyone’s presents, but how he is nice in the end. And, because she has a memory of an elephant, Nora started talking about the Grinch again several weeks ago. She started talking about the movie, but also the book—which she remembered we had in our collection, when I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW WE HAD IT. We read the book a few times in November (not following my rule to respect the turkey!), and she was excited to watch the movie, which we said we’d do in a few weeks. Well, last night at dinner, I mentioned how the Grinch was going to be on TV this week and how we would record it and OH MY GOD, wouldn’t you know it? Now the movie is too scary. She went on and on and ON about how it’s too scary and blah blah blah, even after I was like OKAY NEVERMIND I DON’T EVEN CARE IF YOU DON’T WATCH IT.

The bedtime thing is kind of frustrating, but again, we’ve gone through stages of this. Perhaps not quite to this extreme—she’s REALLY insistent on the hall light being left on right now, and does a lot of whining right before I leave the room—but we’ve dealt with it in one way or another in the past. Several months ago, she suddenly decided she couldn’t sleep with the door closed anymore, so we now leave it open a crack. Now she says she can’t deal with the dark, so we leave the hall light on until she falls asleep. These all seem like fairly reasonable requests for a four year old—I remember wanting the door open and the hall light on, even as an older child—so I don’t argue it much. But when lumped in with everything else… it’s been tougher to deal with than before.

I feel like this has to be developmentally normal. I’ve done a bit of Googling, and it seems that way. I’ve definitely noticed lately a difference in her imagination, and it makes sense to me that a more sophisticated imagination could result in a spike in the number of fears. But my biggest issue right now is that I don’t know what to do. I’m not sure how to handle all of this. Do we ignore it and stick with the “and this too shall pass” parenting philosophy? Or are there specific things we should be doing to help her along and make sure we’re not scarring her for life? And then there is part of me that wonders, of course, if maybe this ISN’T entirely normal. Does she have anxiety?

This is one of those times when I REALLY wish that children came with a handbook.

With this new level of fear has also come a whole new level of attitude. The amount of sass emanating from this child lately has been a little unbelievable at times. So maybe we’re just dealing with “4” as a whole right now? I’ve heard repeatedly how challenging an age this can be, and maybe she’s starting to show us why.

I’ve been consciously stepping up my game with the positive reinforcement. Overall, I still maintain that she is a really good kid that just has her MOMENTS. I’ve been telling her how proud I am when she’s behaved well, or when she’s brave. I tell her a lot about how much I love her, and how I think she’s such a good big sister, etc. She is still the sweetest, funniest, loveliest little girl I’ve ever known, and I seriously couldn’t love her more. But she’s also making me want to pull out my own hair. (But not really, since it’s all just starting to fill in again after the post-partum hair loss catastrophe of 2013.)

Has anyone else been through this—or currently going through this—with a preschooler? What worked? What didn’t? Are any of you out there early childhood teachers or child development specialists that can shed any light on any of this for us?

I’ve actually been thinking about putting in a call to our pediatrician because she LOVES dealing with the behavior challenges. (Note to self: CALL HER. I’d love to hear what she has to say.)