Kids come here pure and joyful for just being alive and being able to learn and have experiences. A simple blanket is a fort, your funny faces are hilarious, touch is essential and there is no fear. Some fears are inbred in all of us but they are a minor tentacle of the fear monster you’ll produce later in life. Outside of loud noises, children are for all purposes – fearless. This is why they enjoy each moment and why we fell like there is something magical about being around them – it is the openness to everything which we get taught out of us as we grow up while we laser in and specialize in some things. But they are free. They don’t wallow in the past and what happened at the jungle gym yesterday, they have more important things to do today, there are cartoons to be watched and walls to be drawn on. They don’t fear the future because they cannot grasp anything that would frighten them, they are too busy living. They don’t get nervous or anxious but excited about what is to come.

Yes you will have an increased feeling of fear due to increased load of responsibility but this fear doesn’t need to be paralyzing. Your kids will learn behavioral patterns from what they see because in the first few years on the planet you are their whole world. Of course you’d want them to be safe and to be obedient because in some cases you really do know better and this could save their life. They have no fear of putting their fingers into an electrical socket, showing their tiny hands into the mouth of a strange dog, of eating dirt, of traffic and this is your place to step in to keep them SAFE. But don’t disinfect heir world just so you wouldn’t feel fear, don’t bully them with threats and terrify them into complacency, into phobiacs that are too scared to move or make a decision. Mistakes are a part of the path. They were never afraid of dogs before you told them some “cautionary” stories, they didn’t mind being close to bugs, speaking in front of the crowd or making friends in random places.

You must give them the fears that will keep them alive and healthy but make sure they are exposed to things that will make them grow as well. They don’t fear rejection, disappointment or being judged until you tell them that it is something to be feared. Teach them that sometimes things work out and sometimes they don’t and their only job is to do their best they can at that point, that failure means nothing but an opportunity for another try, that rejection doesn’t mean they are undesirable but that there is something else out there to be found if they don’t give up, that disappointment means just being tied to the outcome beforehand the event even unfolded and that it means it is important to them.

Teach them to take the blows standing and not kneeling down and shivering in fear. Life is long, failures and disappointments will happen again in one form or another. Raise your kids to be aware of life and stable, not scared out of their wits by millions of warnings and threats lurking, not clubbed into submissive obedience, but well-rounded young people that have the mechanisms to deal with whatever comes their way and that can come to you for perspective and not a magnifying glass effect where you’ll blow fears and doubts out of proportions. Control your fears, if not for yourself, than because you’re teaching them how to live. Let them learn from you and vice versa – grab some lessons in fearlessness from them.