Hugs and Bugs: Helping Your Entomophobic Child

Entomophobia. It sounds like a long, scary word, but what does it really mean?

Entomophobia can simply be defined as a specific phobia of one or more classes of insect. A specific phobia is a DSM-V defined anxiety disorder in which an individual has an irrational fear to specific objects or situations. Because of this fear, these individuals typically begin to consciously avoid situations or experiences in which they could come in contact with the feared stimulus.

If you are visiting this blog, chances are you have a child who has been diagnosed with entomophobia, or perhaps arachnophobia (fear of spiders), apiphobia (fear of bees), or myrmecophobia (fear of ants). Understand that this is not completely out of the ordinary: entomophobia often times develops in young children and is highly treatable.

Before you go on to my other blog posts, I have decided to define several terms that might come up in my future posts. This way, the language will not seem as foreign to you and you can better understand the intricacies of what your child might be going through.

Systematic Desensitization: systematic desensitization is a form of treatment for specific phobias, fears and other anxiety disorders. Systematic desensitization consists of helping the patient engage in a form of relaxation, be it deep breathing, progressive relaxation techniques or guided meditation. Once the patient is sufficiently relaxed, they will gradually be exposed to ‘levels’ of the feared stimulus. For a child with severe entomophobia, this could begin with simply bringing the child outdoors, followed by sitting in the grass and eventually working up to holding a ladybug.

 

Generalization: when a phobic child generalizes, they begin to extend their fears beyond the originally feared stimulus to other similar situations or stimuli. As entomophobia becomes more severe, a child will continue to generalize more and more until, at its most severe, a child will not want to go outside. This can be called agoraphobia, or fear of being in an unsafe environment. If a child’s entomophobia goes untreated, their anxieties can really have an effect on their daily functioning and well-being.

Bibliotherapy: bibliotherapy is a common technique used to help children with specific phobias like entomophobia. In bibliotherapy, parents or caregivers will use books as a medium to help their child tackle their anxieties. Usually with the help of a trained professional, parents will construct an anxiety hierarchy in which they rank their child’s feared stimuli from least feared to most feared. Once this has been done, parents will obtain books about these feared stimuli and gradually begin reading to their children about them, slowly exposing them to stimuli and working their way up to the ones that they fear the most.

So now that you know some of the lingo, here is how you can begin to take the steps of identifying your own child’s anxiety hierarchy. First, though, is some background research taken from Edwards’ (1978) case study of an entomophobic and arachnophobic child. This research is our basis for bibliotherapy.

In this journal article written by Susan Edwards in Elementary School Guidance and Counseling journal, a case study regarding a little boy named was examined. “Little Tom”, as he was called, was incredibly fearful of bugs and spiders. His case was examined under the guise of Arnold Lazarus’s multimodal learning theory (Lazarus 1976). According to Edwards (1978), this case study helps to add to the general understand of fear-reduction in children.

Tom was 4 1/2 years old and intensely afraid of “anything outside—bugs, birds, spiders.” (Edwards, 1978). Edwards (1978) first gives brief background on Tom’s history. He began to have scary dreams at age 3 1/2. Tom’s fear of spiders eventually was generalized to all insects (something quite normal in phobic people—a fear begins as one thing but is eventually generalized to things that resemble or remind the person of that initial fear). Tom began to refuse to play outdoors with his friend and whenever he encountered a flying object (bug, spider, bird), he would run into the house in hysterics.

To treat Tom’s entomophobia, bibliotherapy desensitization was used, a common form of phobia treatment for young children. First, a fear hierarchy was made (an understanding of what objects caused the most fear down to the least fear) and picture books were selected about each fear and read to Tom at the end of each day. Tom’s parents began with the things he feared least (flying planes) and worked their way up to what he feared most (flying insects). According to Edwards (1978), Tom began to emulate the behavior of the main characters in the books—he began to adopt a strong desire to learn about names of different insects and birds and even asked his dad to make a birdhouse with him.

As a parent, what are some steps in which you can emulate Edwards’ (1978) research?

 

1. Identify your child’s fears with your child. 

Make this something that you can do together. This opens the lines of communication with your child and can help them open up to you about their fears. Communication is key in anxiety disorders. This might also give you, as a parent, a window into your child’s brain and thought processes. While it might not seem rational to you, remember that anxiety is inherently irrational and beyond your child’s control.

2. Take a trip to the library together. 

This can be a family affair! Who doesn’t love reading?! Bring the whole gang to the local library or bookstore. Having your child help choose books that correspond with their fears is the first step in giving your child some sense of agency and autonomy over their anxiety. This can be extremely gratifying for the child, as they will likely feel like they have regained some sense of control.

3. Get reading! 

Read at every chance you can get! Before bed, on a rainy day, with the whole family. Incorporate this into the daily routine so it becomes habit for your child. When the whole family is involved, the stigma or shame that your child might be feeling can be eliminated, at least a little bit.

 

 

As a parent of an entomophobic child, you might be at a loss of what your role is. Should you be tough on your child? Should you nurture them? What is the best approach? The short answer is that it varies from child to child. You as a parent know best at how your child responds. That being said, whether your child is incredibly tough, or very sensitive, when dealing with anxiety, there are a few key rules.

1. Never make this seem like your child’s fault

Your child has little control over this. It is not something that you can just “get over” or “suck up”. Anxiety is very real and can take on a life of its own if it is not properly treated but your child will make no progress if they are made to feel like it is their fault.

2. Remain calm yourself, too

Your child looks up to you. Children can sense fear in adults, much like a dog. As a parent it is imperative that you are strong for your child. When you see a bug that might scare you, too, do you best to relax. Trust that your child will be okay and get the help that they need. Having a calming presence will do wonders for both your child and you!

3. Don’t shy from professional help

Oftentimes, your child’s entomophobia will extend beyond your realm of knowledge and resources. That is when it is time to seek professional help. There is nothing wrong with this whatsoever. If anything, it is actually a very admirable thing to put your faith in somebody else’s hands and trust that they will help take care of your child. Below are some ideas of resources to help your child:

-Pediatricians

-Psychologists/Counselors

-Psychiatrists (can prescribe medicine)

-Mental Health Clinics (like urgent care but for children)

-Teachers/School Psychologists

Now that you have a better understanding of what entomophobia is and how you can help your child, this post will help you to understand what is going on inside your child’s brain.

To begin to figure this out, scientific researchers have used techniques called PET scans (positron emission tomography) or fMRI scans (functional magnetic resonance imaging). These two techniques are essentially brain scans which show researchers what areas of the brain are being activated at a given time. At a very basic level, a researcher could show an entomophobic child a photo of a bumble bee while they are hooked up to a PET scan and see what areas of the brain begin to become activated. Here is what they have found…

The amygdala, a small structure in the brain’s temporal lobes, is involved in decoding our emotions, particularly those that make us feel threatened (or things that we perceive as threatening). Information from many parts of our brain send sensory information to the amygdala; this information comes from parts such as the thalamus (‘hub’ of sensory information, among other things), hippocampus (structure involved in storing memories) and prefrontal cortex (involved in executive functioning such as decision making, moderating social behaviors, personality).

Once our brain receives information, it is our prefrontal cortex that interprets this as “danger”. For many stimuli and situations out there, we are biologically programmed to fear these things: it is simply natural. That being said, in an anxious or phobic person, their prefrontal cortex interprets stimuli as dangerous or fearful even when they are not.

Hopefully that is a simplified version in helping you understand the basics of your child’s brain! The most important thing to understand is that there is nothing “wrong” with your child’s brain. It is simply acting in overdrive.