The FEAR Plan

So, What’s the Plan??

My daughter, who is now in 6th grade, has some anxieties. It got to be too much for us, as parents, to deal with on our own; so we seeked out help. First, we asked the school and then we asked friends. The school put her in a small group in a program called CIS (Community in Schools) and one of our friends told us about a child study through UT. CIS was great — it helped just knowing someone at the school was looking out for her and that she could go talk to someone when needed.

We learned so much from that child study! One of the main things we took away from our two year program was making a “FEAR” plan with our daughter. The study has been closed for about a year now and she still does this when she gets anxious.

Making a FEAR plan is something you do with the child, helping them discover their feelings and how to work through them. Once you’ve made the plan you can put into practice when that fear/anxiety presents itself.

Like everything, FEAR is an acronym:

• F stands for feeling. What are you feeling? Can you name it?
• E stands for expectations. Okay, so what’s going to happen? What are you expecting to happen? Go through and name everything the child thinks might happen and then one by one, talk about what the possibility of those things happening are.
• A stands for actions and attitudes. What action can we take to help the child not feel this way or to get through their feelings? And what is the attitude you and the child are going to have while doing it? Hint: Your attitude needs to be positive or this will be a hard step! Remember to name all the actions the child brainstorms. This gives them choices and helps them feel more in control.
• R stands for reward and reflection. During the planning process, you would have agreed on a reward for trying the plan. This does not have to be big. It can be a sticker, 5 minutes of extra recess, a special seat in the cafeteria, etc. If they can get all the way through the plan, then have the reward get a little bigger. Two stickers, 10 minutes of computer, etc. They get their reward for just TRYING the plan. It might take time to get through every step. It’s hard to face your fears and feelings. The student gets their reward and then has some time to reflect. They write in their journal about how they got through that feeling and how awesome they feel now! How did they feel before they went through these steps? What are they feeling now? If they still have the feeling, maybe it’s lessened a little. Have them rate it 1–10.

CONFUSED? Yeah, it takes some practice. I’ll give you a quick example.

One time my daughter was so scared that her dolls were going to come to life and hurt her in the night (thanks R.L. Stein). I could not talk her out of this. She was in 4th grade. So, old enough to know that dolls don’t really do that. Okay, we worked through the plan. I’m so glad we had it!

• F- When we asked her what she was feeling, she told us she was scared! TERRIFIED!
• E- She expected her dolls to come to life and hurt her. We talked about the likelihood of this happening. How long has she had the dolls? Has this ever happened before? She is so big and the dolls are little, can’t she just over power them if this were to happen? Could she yell for mom, dad, brother, sister to come help her if the dolls were attacking her? (Yes, we went through all the scenarios).
• A- Action. Okay, what are we going to do about this? She’s crying, wanting to throw the dolls out. Umm, no. They are American Girl dolls so she will have them until she is an old lady. What else can we do? The dolls can get moved out of her room. Great. She likes this idea. Sounds like a plan to me. And I’ll keep them in my room as an extra precaution (and to prove they won’t hurt me while I’m asleep). Attitude? Can we be happy about this idea? YES! She is better and calming down now that the dolls won’t be in her room.
• R- Reward and Reflection. She was willing to work her steps with me. She gets her reward! We started a sticker book for her and after 15 stickers, my daughter would get a special treat. Sometimes it was ice cream, sometimes it was a new bow, and sometimes it was staying up an extra 15 minutes before bed. After a few days of the dolls being out of her room and in mine, she felt that maybe they weren’t trying to come to life and maybe that was really just a made up thing she saw. She wrote in her journal about it and we agreed I would keep the dolls for one more night and then they could come back in her room. We did this because one more night would be a Friday and if she couldn’t sleep at least it would be Saturday and we could nap.

I hope this plan will be useful for you. Use it with your students, your kids, your spouse, or your friends. Anyone in your life that might have some extra fears around something could benefit from the plan. Remember to make sure THEY are doing the steps, though, and you are just the coach!