My 5 year old son is afraid of flies and now Bee's as well ...... ?

Question

Every time we are outside he see's a fly or a bee he go's into like this panic mode and he screams, cry and is heart race's so fast. Even if we are inside our house and he see's a fly or bee outside from inside he freak's out still screams and cry. I don't know where him be afraid of them has came from. i just don't understand. My mom say that it might be a phobia and her friend thinks so too. I really need some help on this. I just really don't what i should do and how should i help him?

Answer 1

Don't push.  But I would start off with pictures and information.  You have a million pictures of insects on the computer.  You may need to learn first or you could learn with him all about insects and spiders.  What is good and bad about both  Unreasonable fear is bad any time it occurs.  You don't want him starting school with these kind of fears.  

Answer 2

I used to be the same way when I was little and still sort of am. The only thing that I can recommend is for you to teach him how to swat flies. That helped me a lot. Tell him to stay away from bees, though! He might or might not be allergic to the sting, so it's infinitely better to err on the side of caution when dealing with bees.

I hope I was of -some- help.

Answer 3

1.Buy a toy fly, and a toy bee (plastic, and explain the difference. 2.Catch a fly and show him there is no reason to be afraid of them.

3. Watch a you-tube video on bees or flies, and explain to him that if you leave bee's alone they won't bite you.

Answer 4

I try to demystify the bug.  My 4yo ran in screaming because a bee was "chasing" her, so I took her outside and found some more bees.  Explained how they go from flower to flower collecting pollen (while holding her really tight) and that when they fly off one flower, they're just going to another flower, etc, etc, and that when they're finished they go off and make us honey!  How amazing is that!  And if we stay really still it won't chase us, but if we scream and flap around they might get caught up in the panic and sting - she'll happily watch bees all day now.  And living in Australia I make sure they can identify different spiders and learn how they behave.  If they find a redback they'll come and tell me, if they find a wolf spider they'll get a weapon and go nuts on it themselves (brutal I know, but the house gets swarmed with them in summer, I need all the help I can get!).

Basically, they're not afraid of the things they know, and they learn their behaviour from us.