Magical Cat's Corner

Buggin'

My three year old daughter is afraid of bugs, especially the flying variety. When I say afraid, I mean terrified for her life. At the sight of a fly, bee, gnat, or whatever, she screams, starts crying, trembles, hides her face and/or gets behind me. The scream startles everyone around us, and they think she is mortally injured. So whenever this happens in public, it's really nice to endure all the stares from people.

She also has the uncanny ability to find the smallest bugs around the house. She'll point out the tiniest ant crawling around on carpet where it normally would be camouflaged. One day she told me there was a spider in the potty. I'm thinking it's on her little training toilet... no, there is a spider crawling around in my toilet bowl! I'm glad she found it. I am amazed at her bug spotting ability, but it does not help her phobia one bit.

I don't know why she developed this phobia. I may jump once in awhile if a bug lands on me outside or if I see a big bug in the house, but I've never reacted like that. Maybe it was television. It gets blamed for everything else, so we'll just say that's it.

We have tried various approaches in order to deal with her phobia. We've reassured her that bugs won't hurt her, they are afraid of her, some bugs are good, and so on... but she is three. You can't reason with a three year old. After having this happen again and again I finally lost my patience and yelled at her and put her in timeout on the couch. That didn't work either. You can't scare the fear out of someone. The psychologist in me thought about systematic desensitization, but again, she is three. I think she is going to just have to outgrow it. In the meantime, I have to remain calm whenever I encounter a creepy crawly. I don't like millipedes, and there have been two of them in the house recently. It's really hard not to yelp when you see one of those. I have to suck it up and set a good example!

It's going to be a fun summer indoors... I bought Tess a pool, but she can't enjoy it. She barely even had a foot in it today when she saw something and ran screaming back into the house.

Happy Summer Solstice!