helping ds with fear of heights?

[Alohamama]

My ds, who is about to turn 4, is apparently afraid of heights. Last year when we flew on an airplane, he was sitting next to a window and was freaked out, especially when we banked and he was looking straight down at the ocean! A few weeks ago, we drove on a high cliff road and he was really afraid we were going to go off the cliff and crash down the hill.

We are flying again this summer and when I have mentioned that we are going on an airplane he is very upset and says he does not want to go.

Any suggestions for helping him deal with this fear? We live on an island, so going anywhere necessarily involves getting on an airplane. I have even postponed a non-urgent surgery for him because it would mean flying to another island. But we can't avoid it forever...

Obviously sitting next to the window is a bad idea, but aside from putting him in a middle seat, is there anything else I can do?

Is it better to keep exposing him to heights so he can "get used to it"? Or is that heartless and cruel, and I should just avoid high places whenever possible? Can I give him some tools to deal with fear in general?

Thanks for your advice.

[Denise K]

Hm. I share this fear. For me, it never worked to be pushed into scary situations so that I'd get used to it--I jsut kept being scared. What I would suggest, based on me, is more giving him lots of chances to be "high" places that feel safe for him--whatever that is. On top of a playground thing, in a small tree, on your shoulders...encourage him to climb whenever he is interested, and talk about how his arms are strong, his legs are pushing him up there, just do the whole sports-announcer thing (even literally--at least, DS likes that).

And play games that involve heights--if he wants to play airplane, hooray; if not, play baby eagle, or building towers for toy people to climb, or something. All the better if some of the characters are scared. DS has responded really well to play about fear, as long as there is a character present who is scareder than he is and who HE can choose to comfort or terrify as the mood takes him. For instance, he was scared our house would catch fire. He had a tool brochure with a pic of a spark-throwing saw on the front, and I made a tiger who was (very dramatically) scared of the sparks in that picture--even though DS explained it was a picture, he was still scared. We played this for weeks, and he mellowed out about the fire worry quite a lot.

I always cite the same book, but here I go again: for lots of ideas on helping kids through fear and challenges with play, Playful Parenting by L. Cohen (not the other ones w the same title). Absolutely worth it.

Good luck! And...I am still afraid of heights, but as an adult have learned ways to cope OK, and can do what I want to do except roofing.