Methodical manual Kyiv "Pedagogical press" 2000 bbk 88. 8 K 43

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If adults know how to control their emotions in the face of fear, then children are defenseless in this regard. Their fear manifests itself as worry or anxiety. Most often this happens due to psychological pressure from others and the influence of parents.

Children are more susceptible to fear than adults

Diagnosis of fears in preschoolers, the research methods of which are very diverse, proves that this emotion cannot be ignored, because in the future it may affect the mental state of the individual. On the one hand, fear acts as a defense against many dangers, and on the other hand, it provokes the development of psychological illness.

The essence of diagnosis

Any technique for identifying fears in children is aimed at inducing them to open up. Further diagnosis helps to find out not only the fear itself, but also the cause of its occurrence.

Not all parents understand why a psychologist should communicate with a preschooler; if they have a prosperous family, they carefully ensure that the child experiences as few stressful situations as possible. Experts cannot immediately determine the presence of fears in preschool children. To determine them, find out:

• are there any possible deviations of a neurotic nature;
• does his behavior depend on his upbringing (in most cases, on the lack of parental attention);
• character traits.

Classification of fears

Comparing the diagnosis of children's fears in preschoolers and schoolchildren, psychologists identified two levels of the occurrence of fears:

• natural;
• age.

Level 1 fears are observed in children under three years of age. They can be described as protective. The baby may be frightened by a loud or unpleasant sound, a huge object, a stranger, or the absence of one of the parents nearby.

Age-related fears can be found in children:

• Younger age. After three years, fears arise most of all due to darkness, closed spaces, scary characters in fairy tales or cartoons.
• Around the age of five, most preschoolers begin to fear death, both their own and those of loved ones.
• At primary school age, when children find themselves in a new environment, they have even more fears, the main one of which is not fitting in with their peers.
• At high school age, children are afraid of non-recognition of others and physiological changes in the body. During this period, children most need psychological support, because their emotional side is too vulnerable. Adults ignoring such childhood fears leads to decreased self-esteem and self-doubt.

When examining the diagnosis of fears in children, experts note the following fact - the fear that worries a preschool-age child, in most cases, goes away within 3-4 weeks. In schoolchildren, fear generally passes quickly.

If the fears of high school students are neurotic in nature, then pathological ones are considered the most dangerous. They are provocateurs for the occurrence of mental illness in the future. Their striking features are:

• neurotic tics;
• poor sleep;
• regular aggression;
• anxiety;
• difficulties in communicating with others.

These fears appear in children at a young age and the main reasons for their appearance are considered to be:

• The desire of parents to isolate their children from the dangers of the outside world. Children develop a fear that something bad awaits them in the outside world.
• Regular conflict situations at home;
• The high demands that household members set for children. Children are in constant fear, afraid of not being able to cope with these demands.
• Authoritarian behavior in a family where decisions and rules are not challenged. Due to fears of their family, such children find it most difficult to communicate with others.

Your psychologist. The work of a psychologist at school.

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4. EMOTIONAL COMPONENT 4.1. “CHILD ANXIETY SCALE” Sources: Kudrina G.Ya. “Methods for studying the personality of a junior schoolchild” //Methodological development of ISPU. Irkutsk, 1999.

Goal : Identify the dominant mental state, perception of various educational situations. This technique evaluates situations and areas of reality that are for the child, from his point of view, the main causes of anxiety and fears. Instructions: “I will talk about different cases that happen in life. Some of them may be unpleasant for you and cause you fear and anxiety. If this case, this situation in your life that I am talking about is very unpleasant for you, you put “++”; if it is only a little unpleasant for you, you put one “+”; if this case is not scary in your life, it is not scary for you - then “0”. The psychologist (teacher) reads out the questions: 1. Answer at the blackboard in class. 2. Mom or dad scolds you. 3. You meet with kids from school. 4. You will go and visit strangers. 5. You are left alone at home. 6. You come up and talk to the teacher. 7. You can’t cope with the task in class. 8. Compare yourself with other guys. 9. You think about your own affairs. 10. They look at you like you’re small. 11. You cry often. 12. The teacher unexpectedly asks you a question in class. 13. No one pays attention to you in class when you have done your work well and beautifully. 14. They don’t agree with you, they argue with you. 15. You meet with older guys in the courtyard at the entrance. 16. People don’t pay attention to you when you do something or play. 17. You have terrible dreams. 18. The teacher gives a difficult task. 19. You choose the main roles in the game. 20. Your work is assessed at home or by the guys. 21. You don’t understand the teacher’s explanation. 22. The guys laugh when you answer in class. 23. You watch horror movies on TV, they tell you “scary” stories. 24. You think about what will happen when you grow up. 25. Adults (mom, dad, teacher) are angry with you (it’s not clear why). 26. The teacher evaluates your work that you did in class. 27. People look at you (watch you) when you do something. 28. Something is not working out for you. 29. The guys don’t play with you (I never play), they’re not friends with you. 30. The teacher makes a comment in class. The methodology includes situations of three types that determine the types of anxiety: 1. situations related to the learning process, communication with the teacher; 2. situations that analyze ideas about oneself; 3. communication situations. Interpretation : the answer to each point of the scale is assessed by the number of points: “++” - 3 points; “+” - 2 points; "0" - 0 points. The total score for each section is calculated (shows the level of anxiety for the corresponding activity) and the total score for all sections (the indicator for the entire scale is the overall level of anxiety). In addition, analysis of children’s responses to each situation will help the psychologist determine the child’s problems, the causes of his anxiety, and his fears. Children with high anxiety (more than 20 points in each section or more than 60 total level) and “very calm” children require special attention, especially those cases when the score in each section does not exceed 5 points or is close to 0) Normal level of anxiety, which is inherent in everyone for children, ranges from 10 - 15 points to 20.

4.2. Theoretical support for diagnostics and monitoring “Features of school anxiety”

Source: Rogov E.I. Handbook for a practical psychologist in education: Textbook. – M.: VLADOS, 1996. – 529 p.

High scores for certain types of anxiety or in general indicate real trouble in the child, which can exist even despite an objective favorable situation (especially from the point of view of adults), resulting from certain personal conflicts or disturbances in the development of self-esteem in a given child. The latter cases seem to be the most significant, since they often go unnoticed by teachers and parents. Such anxiety is often experienced by schoolchildren who are good and even excellent students, who are responsible for their studies, social life, and school discipline, but this apparent well-being comes at an unreasonably high price and is fraught with breakdowns, especially when their activities become more difficult. Such schoolchildren exhibit pronounced vegetative reactions, neurosis-like and psychosomatic disorders. Anxiety in these cases is often generated by conflicting self-esteem, the presence in it of a contradiction between high aspirations and quite strong self-doubt. Such a conflict, forcing these students to constantly achieve success, at the same time prevents them from correctly assessing it, giving rise to a feeling of constant dissatisfaction, instability, and tension. This leads to hypertrophy of the need for achievement, to the fact that it becomes insatiable. The consequence of all this is the overload and overstrain noted by teachers and parents, which are expressed in attention disorders, decreased performance, and increased fatigue. Naturally, depending on the student’s real position among his peers, his success in learning, etc., the identified high (or very high) anxiety will require various methods of correction. If in the event of real failure, work should largely be aimed at developing the necessary work and communication skills that allow one to overcome this failure, then in the second place - at correcting self-esteem and overcoming internal conflicts. However, in parallel with this work aimed at eliminating the causes of anxiety, it is necessary to develop the student’s ability to cope with increased anxiety. It is known that anxiety, once established, becomes a fairly stable formation. Schoolchildren with increased anxiety thereby find themselves in a situation of a “vicious psychological circle”, when anxiety worsens the student’s capabilities and the effectiveness of his activities. And this, in turn, further increases emotional distress. Therefore, work aimed only at eliminating the causes is not enough. Techniques for reducing anxiety are quite general, regardless of its real causes. You should also pay attention to students who are characterized, relatively speaking, by “excessive calmness,” especially in those cases when the scores on the entire scale do not exceed 5 points. Such insensitivity to adversity is, as a rule, compensatory, protective in nature and interferes with the full formation of personality. The student does not seem to allow the unpleasant experience into his consciousness. Emotional distress in this case persists at the cost of an inadequate attitude to reality, negatively affecting the productivity of activity. The limitations associated with the use of the scale, as well as other survey methods, are due to the dependence of the student’s answers on his desire to answer, trust in the experimenter, and sincerity. This means that the scale primarily identifies those students who not only experience anxiety, but also consider it necessary to report it. Often, high scores on the scale are a kind of “cry for help” and, on the contrary, “excessive calmness” may hide increased anxiety, which the student, for various reasons, does not want to tell others about. The school does not fully ensure the identification of students’ anxiety, primarily due to the large number of various “defensive” tendencies, ranging from elementary ones (reluctance to open up to a stranger) to the most complex defense mechanisms. In addition, the scale does not reveal anxiety strictly associated with certain objects.

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Manifestation of fear

Diagnosis of fears in children of primary school age and preschool age consists of determining the nature of this emotion. If the fear is real, then the baby is really in danger and at a certain moment the self-preservation instinct kicked in.

If the fear is invented and haunts a person for a long time, then it is neurotic in nature. Such fear is also called free, because it arises in moments not associated with any danger.

Thanks to methods for identifying children's fears, experts have divided these emotions into two forms of their manifestation:

• dumb;
• "invisible".

In the first case, the child categorically denies the presence of fear, although his family convinces him otherwise. Here they focus on the new, dangerous and unusual. It can be:

• fears due to animals;
• dangers from unknown people;
• fear of a new environment;
• fear when loud sounds occur.

Invisible fears are the opposite of mute fears. The baby is afraid of something specific, while family members do not understand the reason for his fear. For example, a child dropped a mug and it broke. He has been in a tense state for a long time, awaiting punishment, and in the end no one even paid attention to the incident with the dishes.

This form of fear indicates that there is a lack of mutual understanding and communication skills between family members. If it is identified, it is worth thinking about how to change your behavior in order to regain at least the minimum trust of the baby. If you don’t take any steps and leave everything as it was, then this can lead to negative psychological consequences for the baby.

Often in children's fears there is some element that causes the child to almost panic. At the same time, from adults to such a reaction he sees only a smile, or even laughter. You should not do this, because the baby’s subconscious has already noted this emotional manifestation to his fear. In the future, the result of such fun may become his isolation, because he will constantly be afraid of emotional manifestations.

Diagnosis of children's fears

In order to diagnose fears, you need to understand that there are different types of childhood fears. Fear can be real when the innate instinct of self-preservation manifests itself due to exposure to external danger.

Fear can be neurotic in nature. This type is associated with mental disorders. A state of constant fearful anticipation that appears at different moments that are not associated with a specific situation or object is called free fear. Today, the problem of children's fears worries almost every parent. Therefore, an important factor in the work of a psychologist is diagnosing children's fears and identifying the causes. Absolutely any method of diagnosing fears in children aims to detect not only the types of psychological illness, but also the cause that caused it.

Some psychologists use drawing to solve the problem of diagnosing children's fears, others may use modeling, and still others choose conversations with children. It is quite difficult to determine the best method for diagnosing fears, because all these methods give equally effective results. When choosing a technique, you should take into account the whole complex of individual psychological characteristics and age characteristics of each baby.

In the classification of children's fears, two main forms can be distinguished: silent and “invisible” fears. Silent fears involve the child denying that he has fears, but for parents the existence of such fears is obvious. These include fear of animals, strangers, unfamiliar surroundings or loud sounds.

“Invisible” fears are the exact opposite of silent fears. Here the child is fully aware of his own fears, but his parents do not see any symptoms of their presence in the baby. Invisible fears are considered more common. Below are the most common ones. Many children are afraid of punishment due to the commission of some offense. Moreover, their mistake may be completely insignificant and parents will not even pay attention to it. The presence of such fear in children indicates the presence of serious problems in communication with parents and disturbances in relationships with them. Such fears can often be a consequence of treating children too harshly. If a child is diagnosed with this form of fear, then this is a reason for parents to seriously think about their own model of upbringing and their behavior with the child, otherwise such upbringing can lead to serious consequences.

Children are often afraid of the sight of blood. Children often experience panic at the sight of a tiny drop of blood. You shouldn't laugh at this reaction. The test children's horror of blood is most often due to simple ignorance in terms of physiology. The child thinks that all his blood may drain out, as a result of which he will die. Another common childhood fear is the fear of the death of their parents. Often this fear is generated by parents.

Children's fears and their psychology are such that even if children do not show anxiety or parents do not notice the presence of such in children, this does not mean that they lack fears of various etiologies and forms.

Fears can also be diagnosed using specially developed methods, such as the Phillips or Temple test for determining school anxiety, various projective methods, the Spielberger technique, etc. There are methods that allow you to determine the number of fears, for example, a test called “fears in houses”, developed Panfilova.