Like toddlers, preschoolers are preoccupied by fears, although the fears are likely to be different and more frequent because the preschooler has a richer imagination. While your preschooler no longer feels an intense separation anxiety, or might even have overcome his fear of loud noises, he can now imagine something bad happening to him. Unlike a toddler who may not worry until the thing he fears is about to happen, a preschooler can become afraid even when there is no possibility of it happening. He can conjure up frightening creatures he has never seen. Your preschooler has now begun to ask What if? questions. "What if a bad guy comes into the house while I am sleeping, and takes me away?" "What if that monster I saw on TV yesterday suddenly jumps out of the television and turns me into a frog?" While the greater imagination creates all kinds of fears that you may find puzzling, bear in mind that it is an important element of his developing ability to learn.
Because your preschooler is now spending more hours outside the home, he is exposed to all kinds of situations that can feed his rich imagination and cause him to worry. He worries about the people and events he sees on television and hears other people talk about, like wars, robberies, or children getting kidnapped. He may get very anxious when his parents argue in front of him, even if they are arguing constructively. This is the period when he may have nightmares frequently and may find it difficult to distinguish between them and reality.
Take control of fears
How do you deal with these fears? Some of the things you did to handle fears when he was a toddler will be useful -- avoiding scary books, movies, and videos, especially at times like Hallowe'en. You may also want to try to figure out what caused the fear in the first place, though sometimes a preschooler's fears have no cause that can be discerned. However, because a preschooler is more verbal and has greater understanding of speech than a toddler, talking about the fears and explaining them is much easier and workable. You should help the child understand that we all have our different fears, and that he is not alone; it may give him some relief to know that. It may also help to tell your preschooler stories of the kinds of fears you had when you were a kid, and if you can do it with humour, so much the better.
It may help to find ways to give him control over his fears. For example, you can tell him that dreams are like television, if you don't like one channel because the program is scary, you can change to another by using your imagination to switch. You can get him to suggest ways in which he thinks he can slay the fear as he would a dragon.
It is not useful to be impatient with a fearful preschooler, or tease him, or say things like "Big boys are not afraid of monsters." This may only make him more anxious or make him try to hide his fears, even though they still bother him. As his experience of life grows, he will be able to deal with his fears better. In time, he will realize that monsters do not jump out of the television set and that nightmares are not a part of reality.
