Children manifest fears in so many unusual ways. Most of the time, a mom can sense her children are afraid by merely looking at the immediate fear on their face or seeing their actions. Like when Bella walks cautiously into a darkened room only to high-tail it out of there faster than a bat out of hell. Other times, fears are much more subtle and can creep back into a little-one’s memory weeks after the initial incident. Like when Bella watched frozen in fear as Grandpa cleaned up his bloody leg that he scrapped on a piece of plywood. For days, she vigilantly walked around Grandpa, using her peripheral vision to keep an eye on his bandaged leg. Grandpa was finally forced to wear pants around-the-clock in 90 degree weather to cover up the bandages.
Apparently, visions of the oozing leg lingered in her little memory. Several weeks later, Bella spotted Daddy putting on a small bandage on his finger; her stare turned into deep concern and she tearfully requested her own bandage on her arm for no apparent cut or scrape. She wore the band-aid for 4 days and began to cry every time we asked if we could remove it. Daddy finally tricked her and tore it off underwater during her bath. Hopefully this fear has subsided.
The leg incident reminds me of a similar fear that to this day I recall from my youth. I was probably around 5 years old. I was watching TV on our little 14 inch tube when an old World War II moving called “Flying Tigers” came on. The movie featured the WWII Japanese kamikaze pilots who would sacrifice their own lives by flying directly into enemy boats or buildings, making them perilous flying bombs. Several battle scenes ensued where pilots were hit by enemy fire; blood spewed from their mouths and pilots in their fighter plans spiraled downwards to their death. The images of blood-splattered windows and dying men were too much for my young pure mind. My mom saw me sitting frozen in fear in front of the TV and promptly turned the channel to the much more innocuous variety show, “The Lawrence Welk Show”. For days, even months, I avoided TV altogether.
Thank goodness for Lawrence Welk. Bless his good soul.
In thinking back, I now realize how effective this fear mechanism could be as an unconventional method to reduce TV time. A sort of learned aversion, similar to Pavlov’s dog but instead of a pain stimulus, a fear stimulus results in aversion of an action. Perhaps we could apply this to Bella somehow. Hmmmm...
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