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  • Q&A with Australian Health Practitioners

    Can fears and phobias get passed down to children from adults?

    Related Topics
    Anxiety Mental Health Phobia
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    Dr Pauline Enright

    Counsellor

    When life doesn’t go well, support is needed - a patient listener, understanding ear, and help to find solutions. Conditions include addiction, anxiety, depression, grief, … View Profile

    Fears and phobias can be passed from adults to children, although to the best of our knowledge, not through genetic inheritance. Children can pick them up from adults by copying behaviour. Children are inclined to pick up behaviours and attitudes from adults, especially parents, care-givers and other trusted authority figures.
     
    If a parent displays anxiety and fear in front of the child, the child will be inclined to copy it, at least to some degree. So the best thing that parents can do if they are afraid of something is to work on overcoming the fear so that they do not put their child at risk of developing the same fear. If the parent has not overcome their fear, the next best thing they could do is not to display that fear in front of their children. If they inadvertently do, they could explain to the child that they are struggling with it, and that there is no need for the child to be afraid.

    Instilling confidence into your children will help them be less prone to picking up undesirable or negative habits. At the same time, you want to teach children to be aware of the dangers of things such as spiders and snakes. Educate them of how they can hurt you, and how to protect against them, rather than teaching and passing on fear.

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