Tuesday, March 8, 2011

by default

Kate woke up screaming last night.
She had a nightmare about spiders crawling all over her, her bed.
She wouldn't go back in her room.
In my still sort of asleep stupor, I actually thought for a second that maybe there were spiders all over her bed.

shudder

I hate spiders.
Truly, seriously hate spiders.

And now Kate is having nightmares about them.

I try so hard to keep my own fears and anxieties from my children, but I just can't help them seeping out.

Of course, I put on my brave face ... but, approaching the spiders we occasionally find in the house for squishing and removal is done tentatively.

And. As freaked out as I get by spiders, its something I can solve.
I can physically remove her fear.
I can point out, when she awakes from a nightmare, that there are no spiders in her room crawling all over her.

Now, David has not inherited my fear of spiders. Or snakes (don't get me started on snakes ... ).

David has had a lot of anxiety lately - new things, old things. He seems to want to avoid places with lots of people, especially people he isn't familiar with.

Which is one of my anxieties as well. And I see the emotions in him. And remember the emotions in me. And I wonder if I encouraged the anxiety in him without realizing it.

And I don't know how to fix it.
I can't squish his fears and remove them from the house.

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