Fear and Intuition

My question is what is he doing with the time he is choosing to give up going outside or miss family activities? If he is showing fear across the board, he may have been affected by the unexpected thunderstorm much more than anyone realizes; maybe even on the traumatic stress level. If he is experiencing traumatic stress, you are already doing the right sort of things like looking at weather predictions and emergency preparedness and it will take time for it to sink in. However, if it is deeper fear he may need counseling. You may also benefit from exploring what conversations are taking place among friends (without teacher/parent presence). Those type of conversations tend to get extreme and are often exaggerated, this may be feeding his fears. Good luck.

Instinct is one thing- irrational thought is something else entirely. I agree that allowing and encouraging your child to listen to their instincts is always a good idea, but endulging in their irrational thoughts is never a good idea.

With the pool situation, reassure him that the weather is fine. If he still refuses to play, just say "Oh, how sad, you've decided to not joint the family in all the fun." And then, just ignore him. Once he realizes that there is NO benefit to his irrational thinking, he will come around, all on his own.

Part of instinct or our 'inner voice' comes from experiences that we happened upon. If our parents are constantly trying to direct our experiences, how can we come upon them?

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We had that problem with all the children in my community after Katrina. The most minor rain shower would send them into paroxysms of fear.

Mine was in 4th grade then and I dealt with it by staying calm during rain and thunderstorms, not hiding from the weather, and talking, talking talking while reassuring my son that not all rain is bad and scary and horribly destructive. Small steps to re-acclimate him to normal weather.

Being stuck at school during a bad storm is scary - he is feeling the after schock of that. I would suggest that you continue to encourage him to participate in his normal summer activities, just know that you may have to cut them short if he gets scared.

It may take awhile for your child to get over his new fear. 6 years out from Katrina, my son, at 15, is still more wary of thunderstorms than before, but no longer paralyzed by fear every time it rains.

Good Luck
God Bless

How old is your child?

Because, "fears" are developmental. It happens, per age of a child.
It is their cognition and imaginations developing.
Thus, it is developmentally occurring. And it ebbs and flows, per age. Per developmental understanding and for understanding abstract concepts.

This is different, than "intuition" and "instinct."

my 3 yr old can sense storms too that is why I named him storm. He started doing it when I was pregnant. He would start kicking me and then come the rain. the more and harder he kicked I knew it was going to be tornadic. He gets really clingy and wound up as in restless when it rains. I think your son has a sense for it. Just out of curiousity does he have ear problems. They say the barametric pressure can be felt in the ears. My son who I am refering to has major ear problems. My son is more predictable than the weater man. I have won bets off of him.

The weather man says no rain and my son says rain he get is every time. weather man says rain if my son is calm I will say no rain. Now watch him very close. just cause you say fear it may be more of an intuiton than anything. My son can pick up a tornado up to 50 miles away. Just cause it isn't severe where your at doesn't mean its not severe somewhere close. Watch and see if I am right. I am betting mine is a meteorologist too.

Wonderful answer from Nikki G. I had things to say, but she said it better. So...Ditto.

P.S.
Are you now saying he predicted this brewing storm? Has he not been obsessed with talking about storms coming since a few weeks ago? He did not feel this storm coming, by intuition. A storm happened during a time, that he can't stop thinking about it. I can talk about a certain song every day, that I haven't hear in years and years. If the radio all the sudden plays it, that doesn't mean I caused the song to be played.

He needs to know some storms are bad, and we prepare for those. However, most storms are not bad. You are playing into your child's fear, by making it something it's not. He experienced a scary situation, and now he is scared of it happening again. That's ALL this is. It is NOTHING more. He does not all the sudden have the intuition to predict impending storm doom. You are putting a lot of pressure on your son, with these weird thoughts of yours. You are allowing him to have NO confidence, that most of the time things are OK...and when they aren't...with work, perseverance and resolve...they will be OK soon. Stop with this nonsense. You are doing him a huge disservice.

Your son may be too old for the book "Thunder Cake" but my 4 year old loves it. It's about a girl who is very afraid of thunder storms and how her grandmother helps her overcome her fears.

Maybe you can teach him to become a "weather watcher" or "junior meteorologist." I grew up with a father who was a Weather Channel junkie and taught me a lot about meteorology and how to watch the weather for signs of what was coming next. He taught me how to read the radar maps and Dopplar radar and all that business. When we got to Earth Science in school I whizzed through it and really enjoyed it. I loved it in high school and college too.

So if he can learn about weather patterns, what types of clouds there are and when they form, what trees look like with certain wind and weather patterns, which areas of the country are more likely to get certain types of weather over others, etc. it might help him feel more in control. Obviously you can't control the weather but having the information and being educated about it will help take away the fear.

I live in Connecticut where the weather can be changeable and unpredictable, and harsh. My girls have a fear of hurricanes, tornadoes, severe thunder storms, you name it... but learning about the weather and reading the maps helps ease their anxiety a bit.

So maybe you can start with getting your son a couple of books about the weather and see how that goes.

I don't understand, what does instinct have to do with fear of weather changes?

S'anyway, here is what helped when I was a kid. There will be no wind blowing, no rain before a tornado hits, none! I saw this first hand when a wall cloud went over our subdivision. It never dropped, probably because we are in an urban area which can disrupt the patterns so tornados won't fully form.

Anyway, nothing. If there wasn't this really ugly!!!! cloud above us you would think no big deal. As soon as the wind died Troy yelled get in the basement now!!!! I was actually dumbstruck by the lack of anything.

sometimes we educate ourselves to the point that we create fear! & while I do not advocate sticking your head in the sand either.....there has to be a happy medium.

For my daycare, I have one family in particular who really stresses out over storms. Their storm cellar is out in the yard....& having to run thru the yard has created a sense of urgency & fear for them. & I don't blame these kids for being afraid or for their parents heading out to that cellar. It has saved them several times ....just in the past few years.

That said, I have taught them to cheer the best they can when storms hit us. We jump up/down, we cheer, we act like maniacs. I try to make it as much fun as possible....& wait as long as I can before we head to the basement. We try to predict when the next thunder-boomer is going to hit & that child gets a prize! (we use a clock to set up our lottery system...weird, but it works).

They know that I have our safety 1st & foremost in my mind.....they know I have my storm bag ready.....& they know that when I crate the dogs downstairs - that it's all serious & we need to move to safety. But between the toys, the mood I try to create.....it's all good. & as a full disclosure: yes, our neighborhood has been hit by tornados & it's not fun. I do my best to create "happy" for the kids......

& perhaps that should be your answer: maybe this isn't a case of fear/instinct. Maybe it's a case of changing the mood!

I am going through something similar with my daughter. In her case it is an irrational fear of getting sick, which has gotten so bad she won't eat in restaurants, at school or at other people's homes. This is a severe anxiety disorder, she KNOWS the fear is irrational, but she gets panic attacks, headaches and stomachaches if she even THINKS something she ate might be "bad." She has just started seeing a therapist because nothing we say or do makes a difference, she needs professional help.
In your son's case, it could just be a developmental phase, a lot of kids go through fearing things. My son was deathly afraid of swimming from about age four to eight, but he outgrew it. Our family friend had a daughter who was terrified of dogs, but around age ten she just seemed to get over it.
I'm sharing my daughter's story with you because I want you to know that certain children are more prone to anxiety than others, and all it takes is something to trigger a reaction, like the bad storm you mentioned. That is definitely what my daughter is going through, she's (over) reacting to a rather traumatic sickness that she had a few months ago :(

Never forget that what you DO and how YOU react, influences your kids WAAYYY more than what you SAY! Have you ever noticed that when a toddler "topples over" he or she will instinctively check how his/her mother reacts before they start to cry ... or not? I've seen it over and over again - if mom smiles and goes "oopsie daisy" and helps toddler up without fuss, odds are toddler will toddle off happily; but if mom rushes over all agitated, baby will start screaming as if he/she is in danger of imminent death! :) Bottom line - check yourself first, make sure you don't "feed the fear" by being overly concerned about storms. Limit the "on-line weather checking" to once a day (max) and use the times when there IS a storm to do something fun with the kids. When the kids start associating the sound of thunder with playing a special game with mom or cuddling with mom and reading a story etc - thunder will no longer bring fear but rather happiness! Trust YOUR instincts! Best of luck :)

I am all for knowledge, but it should be age appropriate. You don't go explaining cell division to a child who asks about how a baby got in your belly ("mom and dad do a naked hug" did the trick at age 5 for my girls), so I wouldn't go to deep into weather dangers with a child who is fearful of the weather. The weather station is after all a news station and they need sensational images to capture the audience. I think you need to be more matter-of-fact: "the weather is fine, we are all going to the pool and you have to come along, but bring a book if you don't want to swim".
Having said all that, both my kids went through a phase in early elementary of being afraid of something. The older one of fire after the fire department came in to teach stop-drop-roll in full gear, the younger one of burglars when there was a string of car break ins (40 in one night) a few streets over. Did he perhaps hear about the recent tornadoes, or has there been dangerous weather in your area?