When Fear Is Just A Four-letter Word
Fear is a noun since man has induced it on thy man. When a baby is born, it is the parent who introduces this feeling into the child.
This fear could be dawned upon people or things or the circumstances. Unfortunately, this fear when persuaded becomes deeper than any wounds.
“Don’t talk to strangers they could be a bad influence”
“Wash your hands or else you will get sick”
“Don’t run too fast or else you will hurt yourself bad”
“Don’t go near that fan. It will chop your finger off.”
“Study well or else you will not have a successful career to have these comforts.”
I have heard the above commands by my parents and unfortunately I passed it along to the younger generation.
Thus, no one is at fault because our society starts with a no-no and then when an individual goes into the shell, we try to pull her out of it by saying the world is beautiful shun your inhibitions.
Yeah! Right
We are a confused bunch of Homo sapiens.
Now of course we won’t have the heart to instruct our children to do one such thing that scares them each day, but we would not want fear to limit their abilities.
What do we do?
Society demands that we make a man cautious for honestly there is ugliness out there and if not warned, man would rather be safe than be sorry later.
With such ghastly incidents happening around our globe that it makes middle aged person’s eyes shut in disgust. The child will be frightened and he ought to be kept safe by giving him a hint in subtle language about it.
Now the question is how delicately a parent would approach a horrifying topic without inducing fear. I think inculcating courage, audacity, and determination to beat that fear should also be rattled along cause that gives something to hang on to.
The above commands could be reiterated as:
“You could talk to people whom you don’t know, but be aware of what they say and get it approved by your parent before you come to any decision.”
“You could run fast as long as you know when to restrain yourself.”
“You could go near that fan, but be brave of the consequences.”
“You should work hard to continue enjoying these bounties of life.”
“Being hygienic is good because you will stay away from bugs.”
“That plane went missing because there could be some problems in the plane or maybe some bad people chose to direct it someplace else. But, there are many people looking for it, and we shall find it in no time.”
Giving an ultimatum to our kids is easy and it makes them put those commands into compartments of good and bad thus, ceasing them to think about the conclusion.
Making labels is easy, but does that help us build a secure future for them?
Thus, the next time when we try to give them a report about something ugly in our society, we first ought to compose within ourselves and then while giving out the fearful news we ought to phrase out words that can help calm them at the same time.
Because what a four letter word FEAR can do, another four letter word, CALM can help wipe out its side effects by just making them mere words with no aftermaths to deal with.
Ruchira Khanna is the author of Choices published on Amazon. She blogs at http://abracabadra.blogspot.com/