2.5 Yr Old Daughter Terrified of Bugs

Both of my children went throught that when they were that age. It's a stage she will outgrow hopefully before too long.

My now 6 1/2 yr old daughter had the same problem. When she was 2 1/2 we were outside and a fly was near her and she flipped out. Now she LOVES bugs (except spiders) and she will pick up just about anything and wants to keep them all. I used to have an extreme aversion to some bugs and spiders, but I've had to get over that somewhat. Good luck!

My daughter had the same fear...I remember she was playing at my moms house and started screaming and I thought she had hurt herself but a fly had landed on the other swing next to her. I am not too thrilled about bugs either but I had to hold one to show her it wouldnt hurt me (I did it with a lady bug because I wasnt scared of them LOL) I let it crawl on my hand and then after a few times I said should we let it feel your shirt and she was a bit afraid but she let me put it by her. Now if she see's a spider or something she does not freak out she just comes and tells me where it is and asks me to move it for her. Certain bugs still freak her out but for the most part she can wipe them off her without freaking out! I think kids have that fear because they dont know exactly what to think about bugs. If you show her they wont hurt her she may be more accepting!!

I have a 5 year old this is STILL afraid of bugs, especially the flying ones. It makes playing outside kinda hard, so I feel for you. I think there are some really great ideas here from the other moms about exposure to bugs through movies or bug boxes, but I also think that some of it is normal and you might just have to wait it out. I mean, bugs are gross and they move quickly and unpredictably so even though they are tiny, it's scary because they are outside our control. Maybe remind her that bugs live outside so we are in their "home" we need to get used to them. Good luck.

Be honest about your fears.

Tell her some bugs may hurt you but all do not.

Teach her with books and videos that for one you do not like spiders but some people do.

Teach her that butterflies who really are bugs a re pretty at times and help make flowers grow.

Teach her that bees sting so be care ful.

Use kid plastic plates with bugs on them as a design, play matching bug card games.

Have fun and be a kid and you may learn also.

Oh you can have her help you plant butterfly drawer plants.

Also she may be allergic to them and unknown how to tell you they hurt her and cause her misery and pain.

And if so see a dr expectly if she has welts, etc.

Plus see if you watch her if someone is telling her bugs are bad and or uses them to terrorize her or and bully her.

D.

Does she have any books about bugs? My son loves the books by Piggy Toes Publisher: Ten Little Lady Bugs & Eency Wency Spider. Another idea would be to get one of those bug houses. Maybe if you make it a game to catch a bug and put it in the container (especially when the lighting bugs start coming out). Then she can look at it without worrying it will touch her. Good Luck.

I also have a fear of bugs, and it was really noticeable when my 2.5 year old son started shrieking at every bug he saw...so I decided I had to calm down around them. Now, he's almost 3.5 and he has such a fascination with them! I believe it came from planning our garden for this year. As I learned about beneficial bugs, I would talk about this with him and show him pictures. Things like preying mantis, earthworms, and ladybugs. We call them "good bugs". He also knows there are "bad bugs" that eat plants or bite or sting. I've also faced my fears and even held bugs so he knows that it's ok. (Alright, I was wearing gardening gloves, but still!) He's funny, he runs to get his gardening gloves and will hold earthworms or grubs. (bad bug!!)

Does she like Elmo? Elmo has a springtime video that includes a segment all about bugs, and they showcase a little girl who is crazy about bugs...super cool. There is a Charlie and Lola book called, "But excuse me that's my book!" and in it Lola keeps checking out her most favorite book about bugs. It's pretty cute.

I would just act real casual and matter of fact about the role of a bug. Some are great for the soil, some help us get rid of mosquitos (spiders), some change their shape all together. And, maybe buy matching gardening gloves. ;-)

Good luck!

How about a simple game that has bugs as game pieces? I know Discovery Toys had on at one time. Maybe doing that will help. I know how she feels, I have been afraid of snakes and lizards since I can remember. My mother tried to convince me that they wouldn't hurt me, but to this day, don't even think of having a reptile near me. I have a mother-in-law afraid of spiders, but she takes a vaccum cleaner to them. :)

Hope you can get her through this, with little games or maybe see how many different bugs she can find and assure her that she doesn't have to pick them up.

Your daughter may be a little young for this. But we just moved in a new house that was empty for almost a year. Bugs moved in before we did. Any way we sprayed but my five year old daughter would scream every little thing she saw crawling. What i did was showed her not all bugs are bad. We stated with rolly pollys. The bugs that roll into a ball when touch them. She though it was great! Then we took her to see a butterfly house worked great for the flying bugs. And we adopted a toad he lives inside a cage and we feed him crickets for the store. But now my daughter has become a bug hunter for him. Which is ok until she finds a spider or something i can't handle. But the only way for her to get over it is for both of you to work through your fears together. I truly was not fond of the crawly things also but now as long it's not a spider or bees i'm manage. Hope this may help. Also maybe if she has any boys to play with may help. They like that stuff! Anyway good luck!!

I am sorry to say that my kids so far don't have that fear. I have 4 kids with one on the way and when it came to bugs it was no problems. I understand your fear. I have a phobia of spiders. I scream if I get surprised by one. My kids know it and think it is funny. My oldest (15) will let it walk on her hands and she will take it out side. You might want to start with books, use the movie a "Bugs Life", I know that it is not real but it will help. Try to caputre a lady bug and have it in a jar for a day to show her they can look pretty. We have a butterfly house and if you have one in your area you can take her there to show her how wonderful they are. It will be hard because of her age but do it now while real little so it will not be a bigger problem when gets bigger. I have noticed that this seems to be related to girls. So we wanted to let them be sure that girls and boys can like bugs too. Good luck

I read the responses and I need to give my opinion on the movie Bugs Life. My daughter was a little bit scared of bugs (I think she was three) then we watched the movie Bugs Life and now she is terrified of grasshoppers. The grasshoppers in the movie are VERY SCARY and beat up the ants and even threaten to eat the child ant. My daughter had MANY nightmares about the grasshopper stealing her baby sister from the crib trying to eat her. She would cry and say there is a big grasshhopper in the corner. She is no longer scared of ants but is now scared of grasshoppers. So, my opinion is stick to good books or movies that show all bugs as good. There is a movie from Max Lucado kids named Hermie and Friends. We have Buzby the Misbehaving Bee and it is very good. It shows bugs being kind and it teaches why kids need to obey the rules. I'm sure the other Hermie and Friends movies are good too.
Hope this helps.

I had the same problem when my daughter was that age. When she saw I bug she would scream like it was life threatening. Like you, I would run all the way up stairs (or where ever she was) at break-neck speed just to see her pointing at a ladybug. When my heart quit pounding, I told her it was just a lady bug and to go throw it in the toilet. Funny thing is, she would pick it up and throw it in the toilet.

It took a few months, the screaming subsided, and she got used to them. But she still hated to hear a fly in her room. So at night we would lay on the bed and listen for flies. When I'd hear one I'd chase it down and swat it. Some nights would take longer than others, but not more than 10-15 minutes. Sometimes it was very commical trying to find where it was hiding.

You may have to get over your fears or she'll pick up on it. I would treat the bugs like they were nothing at all and tell her that she should not scream. After a few blood curdling screams I didn't come running. That may be part of the appeal too. Those screams will bring the neighbors running!

In a nice way this came to be of help 3 years later when my daughter now had an 18 month old sister. Baby sister had a stage where she would scream over any little upset. My older daughter could not understand this phase. We worked with the baby to help her through it and I told the bug and screaming story to the older one. I told her what she used to do and how it made mom and dad come running and it was just over a little bug. She thought it was pretty funny and that helped her understand the baby's phase a lot better.

Soon, that phase shall pass.

Find the insects you aren't fearful of and help educate her about them. There are lots of kids books on bugs, I'm sure you can find something on Amazon.com
Make, or buy, a little bug cage for her to catch the bugs and look at. Pill bugs (rollie-pollies) are found in most areas and are not dangerous. They are great for kids to get to know insects and they are fun to "play" with. Worms and sugar ants (because they can't bite you), box-elder bugs, etc... even black house flies. If you can teach her which ones are 'dangerous' (ie: those that sting/bite), and those which aren't harmful (ie: those that are just slimey, or funny looking), she'll be better off. If YOU can't do it... find someone else to teach her. FEAR usually comes from lack of understanding/knowledge. Educating yourself will help you overcome your fears, and thus help her. Wiki Encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page is a great resource - if you know the name of the bug in question.

Well, kids can sense if you are fear. So even though you may not think that you show it, your child may sense it. I would put an ant on your pants and show your child that it is ok. That it will not hurt you. I would suggest purchasing bug candy but that may teach your child to eat bugs and that is NOT what you want. SO, I would try just try to SHOW your child that you are not AFRAID and you can work on overcoming this phobia together. You could also purchas a little kids bug catching kit and then you could make a game of it instead of paying attention to the fear you can turn it into something fun. Just a different approach.
Good luck.

My daughter has never really had a fear of bugs, so I don't know if this will help.

We bought a bug box years ago and we catch all kinds of cool things in there and she can watch it up close and look at it for as long as she wants without it being a threat. We catch some COOL and sometimes,...scary big bugs in that thing. We even caught a caterpiller once and it cocooned itself and turned into a really cool looking moth in just a matter of weeks. We caught a HUGE spider once and he lived in there and we fed him live other buge that we'd catch. She lived in there for a week or so until we took it for a walk in the park and let it go on a tree. We always turn them loose so she learns to respect other creatures...even ones as small an insignificant as a spider. We will put sticks in there and some grass and a leaf or 2 to make it a nice home for the day, and then...we let it go.

Maybe taking a closer look at bugs in a different light, a more scientific light, will make them less scary. She'll be able to look at them closer and see how truely amazing they are.

Hi H.. I hear your pain, my three year old son was also terrified of bugs at a very early age for no apparent reason. He is still leary of certain types of bugs, but he's gotten better. It was so bad for a while there that he would wake up with night terrors, convinced there were dozens of tiny spiders or bugs crawling and flying all over him.
Part of what helped is that I had other relatives hold certain bugs and show him there was nothing to be scared of. My 10 year old daughter would hold caterpillars, my little sister would hold roly-polies (pillbugs) and I would show him how harmless daddy long leg spiders were by touching their legs. (Which took some good acting skills) He didn't immediately stop being scared of everything, but over time it really made a difference. He still doesn't want any bugs to be on him and he still hates when moths get into the house and fly around, but he can go up to bugs outside now and get close to them and not look like he's going to jump out of his skin.
It might help to get a book on bugs that doesn't have any really horrifying-looking ones in it and show her what good things some of them do - like spiders eating bad bugs that destroy gardens, etc.
Good luck.

I HATE bugs and have a 6 year old boy that LOVES them and a 3 year old that is scared to death of them.

He became fascinated with a movie called "micro cosmos" which is all about bugs, and also plays with these plastic colorful bugs and we talk often about the " good job" bugs do etc
he's now starting to be more comfortable with REAL bugs. He'd still scream in terror if a spider crawled on him, but now when we're walking he will say " hello Mr ant!"
it's true that kids really pick up a lot from US and how we choose to respond.
I say go the videos and toys and information route. That way you can learn in your own comfort zone and the more you know the less scary they become

The more you learn about bugs and talk about their positive aspects the more your daughter will like seeing them. I remember telling my children when they were afraid of bees
"Look there is a bee he is getting necter to made honey!" And when we ate honey I would aske them who made the honey we were enjoying. With ants we read about how ants work together and take care of each other. The more we educate our children and get them interested in things they lose their fear. She is really afraid because she doesn't understand it. Once she understands that the "bugs" are not going to hurt her and are an essential part of nature she will learn to enjoy them. You may even find that your own fear will vanish. The only bugs I really don't like now are mosquitoes but a single bat eats about 6000 of them each night. So even mosquitoes are beneficial to the food chain.

Hi H.,

My 3 yr. old daughter is also afraid of bugs. Its helping (slowly) to show her that she can step on them and vaccuum them up in the house. Outside, we show her how a ladybug or ants can crawl on mommy and daddy without hurting them. We also rented A Bug's Life, to show her bugs can be fun. Good luck!