While the fear of animals affects almost all children, it happily seems to decrease as the child gets older. In the intervening years. A number of approaches can be made to lessen the child's fears.

1. Don't transmit your own fear. Study and then teach the youngster the proper behavior around animals. (For example, always approach a dog from the front where it can see and sniff your hand.)
2. Identify the child's fear for him. For example, "Dogs can be scary, but this one lives right next door, and he wants to be your friend."
3. Consider having a pet in the family and choose one that is smaller than the child. (They can grow together.) Then let him help with feeding and caring for the animal.
4. Under no circumstances should the child be allowed to tease or mistreat an animal. This can provoke an attack or a bite, and then it will doubtless be a considerable time before the youngster's fears can be fully overcome.
5. Don't force the child to pet an animal. Let him do it in his own good time. Don't encourage hand-feeding animals whose bite may be bigger than the portion offered.

School phobia, as it is sometimes called, may have a number of causes, both real and imagined, and it is the parent's responsibility to find out what is causing the problem.

Clearly this is often an unresolved fear from childhood since so many adults are fearful of going to the dentist. It is usually provoked because the child feels he has absolutely no control over the situation. It's a fact of life that children do need to go to the dentist at regular intervals so their fear must be dealt with and overcome.

1. Choose the dentist and his clinician carefully. If possible, seek out a practitioner who specializes in children's dentistry.
2. Start early so the child will get used to visiting the dentist's office for simple checkups when nothing except a cursory examination is required.
3. Teach the child good dental hygiene so that trips to the dentist will be minimal.
4. Try not to transmit your own fears of the dentist to your child.

Children are usually curious about death, and this is normal unless the child begins to suddenly worry that someone he loves will die soon. The average child generally doesn't really fear death until he has seen it in a person or animal. It is then that he may feel the first inklings of his own mortality.

1. Be willing to discuss death with the child if he wishes it but use this as a time for reassurance, indicating that he really need not worry about it right now.
2. Be honest when someone close to your family dies either through illness or accident. It's the child's lack of knowledge that will cause his fears.
3. Be reassuring if the child thinks he was responsible for a death. Youngsters who are angry can think, "I hate him. I wish he were dead-" If by some awful chance, the person to whom the hate was directed dies, the child can feel responsible. Be sure that he knows he is not.
4. Many experts feel that a child should be over five before he is exposed to a funeral home or funeral service experience and only then if he is willing. Parents may want to describe it as a way of saying "goodbye."

Perhaps the kindest thing parents can do when dealing with a child's fears is to admit their own childhood fears, especially if the parent had similar fears when he was a child. Idle parent can indicate that he understands just how devastating such fears can be and that he stands ready to reassure and comfort whenever the child feels a need.