Spider phobia

Every blog has its interludes from time to time, when there's a feeling in the air of "where am I going? what's this blog for?". I've had mine, and now I'm back.

Daughter is scared of spiders. I understand. When I was a child (and still now), I had (have) a snake phobia. I never saw a real snake, but that didn't matter. I remember seeing a picture of a snake in a book or on the tv, and the back of my neck would constrict, there'd be a jarring, ringing, grating noise in my ears, and I would feel frozen. It was a visceral reaction. I expect it saved my ancestors from death by anaconda, and was handed down in the DNA as a useful evolutionary tool.

Logic, reason, understanding... they didn't come into the phobia. My brother had a toy wooden cobra, made of a long series of wooden Vs, and I hated it. I hated the way its many joints would allow it to move from side to side in curves, like a real snake. I knew it wasn't a real snake, of course, but I still hated it. He would occasionally silently nmanoeuvre it round my bedroom door, and I'd turn round from doing my homework at my desk and see it, and feel petrified. Turned to stone, is what the word petrified means, and it was like that. The jangling noise in my ears and the freezing sensation in my body. He stopped doing that trick (he was a kind soul), and sometimes I would go into his bedroom, and make myself touch that wooden cobra, and pick it up. Logic must triumph over irrational panic, I would tell myself. But I'd only do that when no-one else was around.

I would only go to a zoo if I knew I didn't have to go into the reptile house. Snakes were the worst, but I didn't like lizards either. I did used to go to Tring Museum, where there was a large display of stuffed animals, collected by one of the Lord Rothschilds (he who had zebras to pull his trap instead of horses). There weren't any stuffed snakes, but there were snake skins. Trouble was, they were opposite the dogs. I loved the stuffed dogs. So I would go round the first few galleries knowing that I had a choice ahead (Tring Museum was a regular holiday treat), and trying to gather my courage. I could avoid the snake skins, but that would mean missing the dogs. I remember the fear, and how only facing it would mean I could manage it. So I would sidle along, looking at the dogs, and then when I felt brave enough, I would turn round, look at those dusty old snake skins, pinned out in glass cases, and prove to myself that I had nothing to fear.

So I understand 11-yo's fear of spiders. I know that saying "it won't hurt you" or "it's probably more frightened of you than you are of it" doesn't help. What I want to do, is to find out how to help - not just for the here and now, because we deal ok with each episode, but for the future. Is it best to help a child root out a phobia like this? Or is it best to live with it, until your chid is a young adult and can make her own decisions about what she wants to face and what she wants to put up with? I don't want to risk making it worse. If I've ever suggested doing anything about it, 11-yo, predictably, meets the suggestion with an emphatic "no!".

The difference between a snake phobia and a spider phobia is this. The snake phobia was unpleasant, but not significantly life-limiting. It would have been problematic if we'd moved to Australia, presumably, or gone on exotic holidays, but we didn't, so it wasn't. But if you live in the UK, and you fear and hate spiders, it's something that you have to deal with fairly frequently. I can see that 11-yo manages very well, and as far as I'm aware, it isn't something that hangs over and colours her daily life. But she'd still be better off without the fear, and I'd like to know what I can do to help.

I was going to put up a picture of snakes and spiders, but if you type that kind of thing into Google images, it really spoils your Wednesday evening. Go right ahead on your own, if you would like to see some. You don't need me to pick one out for you.

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