Many children hang on their mother’s leg with apprehension on the first day of kindergarten. Other children struggle to sleep some nights because of the monsters they think are under the bed. Or maybe the trip to the dentist each year is a source of anxiety for your child.

These are all normal childhood fears. They are specific to one experience, and they can be worked through, and the child quickly moves on from them.

When a child’s fears become disproportionate to the actual situation and are long-standing, bleeding into many areas of the child’s life, there may be more going on, such as a Specific Phobia.

A Specific Phobia centers on one particular activity, object, animal, or situation. The fear that the child feels drives them to avoid that trigger at all costs. An inability to avoid the trigger causes intense distress.