Preschool children's fears : relationships among parents' and teachers' perceptions and children's self-reports

This study examined the relationship between mothers', fathers', and teachers' perceptions of preschool children's fears and children's self-reported fears. The relationship between adults' perceptions of children's fears also was examined. A theoretical model of children's fears (Davidson, Poppen, Smith & White, 1984) was used as a conceptual basis for the study; variables included the fear stimuli content, fear responses intensity, coping strategies used in fear evoking situations, and effectiveness of the coping strategies.

Data were collected in a university day care program. The sample included 23 children, 21 mothers, 17 fathers, and 2 teachers. The Children's Fear Survey Schedule (Ryall & Dietiker, 1979), a measure used to assess the intensity of the fear response and the content of the fear stimuli, was orally administered to the children individually and administered to the adults in questionnaire form. Additional questions were included in order to obtain information about the coping strategies used by children and adults.

Pearson's product moment correlations indicated mothers' and fathers' perceptions of children's fears were significantly related. The study provided inconclusive results between parents' and teachers' perceptions of children's fears. Mothers' perceptions of children's fears were significantly related to the head teacher's perceptions of children's fears; however, not significantly related to the full-time teacher's perceptions of children's fears. Fathers' perceptions of children's fears were not significantly related to teachers' perceptions of children's fears. However, caution must be used when interpreting these findings because the results of this study indicated mothers', fathers', and teachers' perceptions of children's fears were different from children's self-reported fears. Adults underestimated the intensity of children's fear responses and did not perceive accurately the content of children's fears. Children's self-reports of coping strategies were different from adults reports.

The results of this study indicated tearfulness is a complicated process. Future research endeavors should be directed toward investigating the total fear process to increase understanding of the changes in the patterns of children's fears as they grow older, the variables influencing the development of fear, and effective coping strategies used in overcoming fear.