Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Spiders and dogs...

DD6 was in an art class this week with a group of 20+ 5-10 year old girls. They were sitting on the front steps of the building. Along came a very impressive spider. Said girls ALL screamed and scattered.

Except for DD.

DD likes spiders. She was totally unconcerned. Much was made by the other girls that DD could have been bitten and DIED! DD scoffed at such a suggestion. It was a green lynx spider. They hardly ever bite, and their venom isn't remotely life threatening. The other girls were not impressed. They saw this as a terribly cavalier attitude on DD's part.

Later a dog ran into the group, and DD climbed a tree to escape it. She HATES dogs. She's convinced they're all going to bark and bite. She was terrified.

All of the other girls cooed over the dog, and cuddled it, even though it had no collar and there was no owner in sight. DD scurried out of the tree and into the classroom, where she hid.

Again, the other girls were dismayed by DD's behavior. DD felt isolated and ridiculed. She was really bummed when I came and picked her up from class. Worse yet, when she's feeling judged DD gets really standoffish and kind of makes faces at other kids.

The whole thing made her really sad. DD knows she could have played along... and she understands why the other girls thought she was "different," but she felt like her reactions were more honest than many of the other girls who were really only pretending to be scared...

Hopefully with time and greater exposure to a wider variety of experiences, the girls will all expand their horizons to find they have many things in common with each other, including their likes and dislikes.

Maybe you can use these incidents to help her understand different kinds of fears and to help her learn about how to use the situation to find common ground with the other girls.

It's wonderful that your daughter knows that certain types of spiders don't really pose a threat to her or other people. Maybe she can help the other girls understand that not all spiders are a threat, and that the girls may be afraid of them because they don't know enough about them. Perhaps the other girls could help her learn the same thing about dogs. Perhaps they could all see that the fear of the dog and the fear of the spiders are actually the same kind of fear (something unknown). TBH, I think the different reactions could be wonderful for highlighting the idea that seemingly very different reactions are rooted in the same way of thinking. There's a lot to learn in there.

I understand that your DD feels isolated and unhappy. That's really hard. She's only 6 and doesn't have perspective. Why does she feel judged? I might ask her to think about how she judged others. For example, isn't she judging the other girls for being dishonest about their reactions to the spider? Why is it okay for her to be afraid of all dogs, but not okay for the other girls to be afraid of all spiders?

Again, I think there's really a lot to be learned about being afraid of all [insert animal names] and how different people react to different animals for the same reasons.

Hmm. A stray dog with no owner in sight? Bigger risk than a green lynx spider.

Isn't it funny (and ARRRRGH exasperating) the way that NT responses can be so contrary to ones based on intelligence.

(Fyi if it helps, you can share the story with your DD that my son was bitten by a dog but neither of my kids have ever been bitten by a spider.)

If you see a spider on the ground and you don't want to get bitten by it, you can simply wander away. If a dog wants to bite you, they can run after and injure you badly, possibly kill you. They are top predators after all. At least this dog apparently didn't have an owner to blame you for you making their dog bite you.

The key point is that the situation is not symmetrical. Some fears are far more justified than others.

I'm with CCN and 22B. Your DD's risk assessment is much more accurate. Maybe she can give a presentation to her class about dog bites vs spider bites so their attitudes are more empirically informed.

I still think that Val's point is well-made, however-- it will not be socially acceptable to point out to potential friends that air travel is many thousands of times LESS hazardous than a short trip in an automobile. Fear is inherently irrational much of the time, but you don't make many friends with others for minimizing their fears as "irrational." So I vehemently disagree with the idea of a "presentation" regarding risks. I think that most adults can see why this would (socially) be a disaster amongst peers in a professional setting, right? It's intrusive and presumptuous; more on that momentarily, but NO WAY would I mock someone's fear of, say-- bicycles-- if they'd been mowed down by one as a young child, or witnessed a serious accident involving one. Our risk assessment may well be skewed by previous personal trauma.

Without seeing the circumstances, I can't say for sure whether being actively avoidant with the dog was an irrational response or not-- given the interactions on the part of the other children, it does sound nearly as disproportionate as their response to the spider, however. I realize that this is probably not what your DD would like to hear, however-- and her dislike and lack of familiarity with dogs is likely at the root of the problem-- just as it is for the other children with the spider.

A small-ish dog, with a collar and well-cared for, clearly well-socialized and friendly toward children? Pretty low risk-- which the other children seem to have recognized. Not as low, certainly, as a spider correctly identified as harmless... but low, nonetheless. Particularly with a child who is familiar with dogs enough to understand how to interact with one safely. I've worked as a vet tech-- and I've NEVER been bitten by a fearful/angry dog, but have sustained a black widow bite. So really-- IMMV. I'm wary of spiders until I can identify them.

BTW-- I'm not irrationally fearful of much, but snakes are on my own list. It doesn't make sense, I know, given that I live in an area where coachwhips/racers are the only REMOTELY hazardous snakes for humans or other animals (they do bite pretty hard). But it doesn't need to make sense. I'm more intimidated by a garter snake in my yard than I am of a wandering golden retriever. {sigh} My DD is unafraid of snakes, but IS irrationally fearful of spiders.

That kind of thing isn't really about calculated risk-benefit or intellect. It's about fear.

That's all and well if fear is the issue, but from moomn's OP, it isn't. Many of the girls feigned fear to fit in, and that groupthink is, in large part, what made his DD feel left out.

As a Bayesian, I'm a proponent of respectfully helping others update their priors. Calmly presenting facts is, IMO, quite different from the mockery you have in mind and empowers people to think clearly and rationally.

As a personal aside, I see a lot of families locally (not here on the forum) are tacitly encouraging a disempowered female concept by focussing excessively on Disney princess themes, encouraging fear/avoidance of sports and some wildlife, and unduly emphasizing personal grooming and appearance. I can appreciate how the Princess Complex a lot of young girls exhibit today, as in the spider example, would be disheartening to a girl raised in a less stereotypically feminized household.

ITA with Val.


How does one know that the girls feigned fear? Having seen quite a few girls through the 6-year-old stage, my experience has been that there are quite a few kids out there who are scared of spiders. My own almost-13-year-old dd was just screaming today out of fear when I asked her to get rid of a cobweb. OTOH, I can count on my fingers the # of children I've known in my entire life who were afraid of dogs. Not saying either one is justified, makes sense, or whatever. Just noting that it's not all that uncommon to find kids around 6 years old who are genuinely scared of spiders.

polarbear

From the OP