Helping Children with a Fear of Animals

This October we’re focussing on anxiety. We’ll be talking mostly about our pets and how we can help them, but I’d also like to talk about anxiety in children around animals.

This post is not meant to be professional psychological advice for children with anxiety disorders, but rather a discussion of general ways that we can help prevent children developing a fear of animals and help relieve this.

I’ve been an animal lover all my life (as far as I can remember) so it came as something of a surprise when my firstborn seemed to come out of the womb terrified of animals! While he may never naturally gravitate towards animals, I’d like him to feel comfortable around them and have collected some tips that both yourselves and I can use to hopefully help achieve this:

• Having a loving and loved pet in the family home from an early age will help acclimatise children to having animals around and to develop a love of animals.

• Practice gradually introducing them to animals – read books about animals, watch tv shows about animals, play-act having a pet or being a dog, tell stories about pets.

• Point out animals when you’re out and about. Be excited and describe their behaviour – what’s normal and what’s not. “Look, there’s a cow eating grass”, “look at that doggie, see how he’s jumping with excitement!”, “look at that cat sitting in the window grooming himself”, “see how that doggie is crouching with his ears back - he looks a bit scared!”

• If your child has had a bad experience with animals in the past, it’s good to talk about what went wrong. It’s important that children understand that not all animals are safe. It’s important for them to gain an understanding of normal and relaxed animal behaviour vs. an animal that is frightened or showing signs of aggression. It’s important to explain that not all animals are scary and dangerous.

• Spread the word about responsible pet ownership. Encourage the people you know to keep their dog on a lead when they’re in public, to ensure fencing and gates are suitable to keep their dog restrained, to keep cats indoors, to teach their dog not to jump on people, to discourage mouthing. These actions can help provide controlled and polite interactions with animals and reduce fear.

• Explain to your child how their behaviour can lead to reactive behaviours in pets. Explain that being loud and jumping up and down or running around may frighten some animals or may make some animals become hyper-excited. Explain how frightened animals may become aggressive. Explain that hyper-excited animals may accidently injure them by jumping and scratching.

• Explain the benefits of owning and loving a pet. Explain (and ideally demonstrate) how patting a dog makes you feel relaxed, explain how having a cat purring on your lap makes you feel happy, tell them how you can talk to animals and tell them any of your secrets and they’ll never tell anyone.

Dr Rach xo