Clowns
What is it with clowns and kids? It seems that lots of kids nowadays have this unexplainable terror of clowns.
My daughter saw some in the park and we had to leave. They were doing balloon animals, and I saw all of these kids far away from them freaking because there were clowns present. A few kids were up there getting balloon animals, but most were terrified.
She has absolutely no reason to be afraid of clowns that I know of. But this fear doesn’t seem to need a reason. She even has nightmares about them.
I want to help her with it. I tried drawing a clown on her aquadoodle and she even freaked about that and left the room until it dried (and thus went away).
I’ve decided that we probably won’t go see the circus this year.
I don’t know if this is something she will grow out of or not. I hope so, because at this point there doesn’t seem to be much I can do to help her come to terms with it.
We dealt with the fear of the vacuum cleaner. We dealt with the fear of shadows. We dealt with the fear of storms (even after the really bad storm). But the clown thing isn’t something we can deal with, apparently.
May 10th, 2006 at 3:09 pm
Hi,
I had this fear when I was a little girl. I wasn’t just scared of clowns, but anything that was “human like”. I was terrified of Santa; Halloween freaked me out, mimes, movies about robots, etc. Thank goodness my mom never pushed me to sit on Santa’s lap or to just get over it. I guess she knew I’d grow out of it eventually, and I did. Now that I’m an adult I understand that it’s an irrational fear, but they still creep me out and I’ll never decorate my baby’s room with clowns, well unless when she’s older and wants to. Sorry for the rambling, your post brought up a lot of memories!:o)
May 10th, 2006 at 4:10 pm
RQ – same thing with my now 6 year old – when he was 2 he would literaly chock me by hanging on to me if he saw a clown – as a matter of fact one day he ran up to me and jumped on me and hung on for dear life – and I said “Is there a clown around here?” and sure enough, he had seen a clown! He is definitely out of the “clown terror” stage, but does not like them – as a matter of fact, they kind of freak me out too. We just made sure to stay away from the front in any parade or clown containing activity.
May 10th, 2006 at 5:04 pm
Is it strange to be afraid of clowns? I always assumed EVERYBODY hated clowns. If you don’t find them creepy/terrifying….you probably find them supremely irritating. My oldest son has only now (at 8) been able to abide any adult in costume. The upside….I have never felt guily for not taking my three to DisneyWorld……..
June 12th, 2007 at 11:32 am
Not all kids are scared of clowns or characters in costume. My boy has always LOVED them and even ran toward them at a young age (around 1 or 2)…. but its not unusual for kids to be frightened of them.
As for creepy/irritating… I think mimes are incredibly creepy and irritating.