Fear

In Ms. Leom's Community today (Thursday March 14), we worked on the 2nd Step lesson about "Dealing with Fear". We talked about how having fears and feeling scared is normal. We talked about how our body feels when we are afraid. Students brainstormed many ideas: hot, difficult to breath, sick, brain shuts down, queasy, want to hide, and shaky.

We had a picture of Christine, a girl who is afraid to go on stage that evening for her school play. Christine wanted to go home from school, and she considered telling her teacher she was sick. We talked about her fears and all the things that could go wrong ... she could forget her lines, people could laugh, she could freeze up, she could forget part of her clothing, she could get sick ... We also brainstormed what could happen if she told her teacher she was sick ... she could go to the nurse, her parents could take her to the doctor, she might have to have (medical) testing, her parents could give her medicine she didn't need, her parents might not believe her the next time she said she was sick ...

We talked about fear being like a snowball. In the beginning, it starts out small, Christine was feeling slightly ill and worried about being in her class play. As she continued to worry, her fears grew, there were more and more things that could go wrong, and more ways she could get in trouble. The fear grew so big, like a giant snowball that might be used as a base for a snowman, it would be too heavy to move.

We asked students if they had ever found themselves in a similar situation. EVERY hand went up (even Ms. Leom). Fear is normal. We are not alone to have fears.

Now it was time to develop our strategy.
1. Calm down. (Are you really sick, ill sick, or are you scared?)`
2. Decide what you're really afraid of.
3. Decide whether this fear could actually happen.
4. Talk to yourself. (Shut down the negative and turn up the positive.)
5. Talk to someone else about your feelings.

Today felt like a productive community meeting. There was a large amount of student participation and student body language indicated this was an interesting topic to many participants. Consider sharing a past fear you have experienced, your strategy for solving it, and the outcome. Some of discussions open a new pathway of thinking for fourth graders and having an adult at home to share in their personal discovery can be helpful.