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| |    Why Do Children Have Fears? by Dr. Benjamin Spock reviewed by Robert Needlman, M.D., F.A.A.P. In her first year, your baby may become fascinated with one thing for several weeks on end--the telephone, for instance, or planes overhead or electric lights. Remember that she learns best by touching, smelling, and tasting things. As a little scientist, she needs to conduct her experiments over and over. Let her touch and become familiar with objects that are not dangerous or disturbing. But the hardy explorer also begins to develop fears of certain things around age one. She may be frightened by strange objects that move suddenly or make a loud noise, such as folded pictures that pop up from a book, the opening of an umbrella, a vacuum cleaner, a siren, a barking dog, a train, even a vase of rustling branches. All children have fears. This is a normal element of the developmental process. It's not hard to understand why. Fears occur when the child's understanding of an object or event is too poorly developed to really explain why this object has suddenly come into her life, why this startling event has occurred, and if the situation is really safe. We all fear that which we do not understand. In the second year of life, that covers a lot of territory. (See Fears Around Age Two.) In the first year, I'd suggest simply avoiding as much as possible these startling things until she figures them out. If the vacuum cleaner bothers her, try not to use it for a while, at least while she's nearby. Always be comforting and sympathetic. Don't try to convince her it's a ridiculous fear. Her terror makes perfect sense to her at her level of understanding.
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