Re: Consequences of Fear Factor in Childhood
But at this age .. if I am afraid of something then its electricity … yes I have a fear of electricity … known as Electrophobia .. I can’t even change bulbs and tube lights ..
interesting.... How did you grow this rather wierd fear?
In my case, I can’t really say that anyone ever instilled any fear in me but that is not to say that I wasn’t scared or afraid of anything. Most of the things I was scared of were based on stuff I saw on TV. I remember this Arabic show on TV where there was an episode about a woman’s nightmare which had something to do with night time, moon beams and a woman rising from the dead as a zombie...
Lest it be said, I was really afraid of the moon for a while and had to keep my drapes shut at night time so that I don’t see the moon from my window.
It’s just that kids have such vivid imaginations and with an impressionable time in their lives, you need to be very careful with what you expose them to – deliberately or inadvertently. Like others have said already, it’s a delicate balance you need to maintain in order to instill a healthy sense of caution against things that are unknown to them.
Children also have a very misplaced sense of cause and effect… so we need to be careful about unintentionally having them associate things that might cause them distress. An example I have in mind is my brother when around 3 or 4 years old started to cry at the sound of the Azaan… and later we realized that my dad used to leave for work after his afternoon lunch break and it was almost always around Azaan time so he could pray at the masjid on his way to work. So my brother started associating any Azaan with his fear of separation.
Interesting account of observation UT...
Normally, moon is something that a child is attracted to most.... hence, we see the moon being refered to as "bataasha" in urdu poetry or geet like "Anokha laadla; khelan ko maaNgaY chaand" ... even Iqbal's poem Ehd-e-Tifli depicts the period of infancy as something where infants and children feel love of curiosity for the moon.... but your explanation on why you felt afraid of moon is one unique one... tells us about the individual perspectives of the things.