Helping kids get past being scared?

Talk of the wrecked FRS and how good it is for kids to learn to drive early in gokarts and stuff had me thinking. I know when I was young and first got a dirt bike the noise scared the crap out of me and I didn't want to ride it. How can you help get your kids past their fear and excited about stuff that at one time scared them.

Right now for me my 2yr old loves cars but is scared of my radio control truck, loves watching forza talks about cars all the time but doesn't like the RC (which I thought she would love)

I want to start her down the path of riding on things and be interested in driving so we can get a kart at some point

Pedal cars and bicycles.

Working on tricycle now :) then hoping pedal car or power wheels next

mine(3) seems to overcome her fears by being allowed, with help, to control them. we play with my x=mods, and she gets to steer. she has also started riding around the yard with me on the riding mower (blades off, obviously). she really like sthat, and is much less scared now. she also likes to try to steer it.

slow power wheels worked for my friends kids. i just dont have any.

Powerwheels worked for all of my kids.

Sounds like its the noise that scared her. Is it a loud gas powered RC? If so, it'll work itself out. In 12 years she will be annoying the hell out of you with subwoofers.

No its an electric rock crawler. Even the sight of it after using it once freaks her out and she mentions it being in the garage where I had to hide it or she would not go out there

Get an RC model to match whatever car you work on/drive. Same make/model/color. It might just be the proportions and flexibility of the crawler that weird her out, whereas something generic that she can relate to might be the bee's knees.

She's 2, she's supposed to be afraid of everything. Give it a couple of years :)

Start small and slow, and go from there.

I've had my kid around loud noises, RC cars and the like since birth. I hope that works out for me.

Maybe the RC car scares here because it's small and darty, like a little animal running around.

As a half deaf adult reading the responses about noises...make sure to have her wear hearing protection around loud things, so she isn't saying "What?" all the time when she grows up.

Maybe let her attempt to drive it? Although she is 2, maybe that wouldn't be the best of ideas.

Maybe get a cheap R/C car that she can bash in to everything with wreckless abandon.

Pow Pow Powerwheels. Pow Pow Powerwheels. Powerwheels power makes it go!

steronz wrote: She's 2, she's supposed to be afraid of everything. Give it a couple of years :)

This. And the reality is she may never "outgrow" it. If it's something she's intrinsically afraid of/not interested in, you're very unlikely to change that. You may be able to get her more comfortable around cars, but it may not be her thing. If it's truly a fear, then work with her own it. Show her that when treated properly/handled right it's nothing to be afraid of and in fact can be fun.

In the end, she'll find her own way.

Yeah she's afraid of the vacuum also right now. It's not something I specifically feel I need to fix was just curious what people were doing more long view

Don't force it. My three year old was the same way. They'll come around. Last year at this time, he was afraid of the vacuum. Now he runs it by himself, complete with emptying the canister in the trash.

They make kid friendly two button RC cars/trucks/trains. Try one of those at some point.

Fear comes from the unknown. Much of this unknown can be controlling the situation and being able to predict the outcome.
The young'en does not understand how/why the RC car works or where it is going next. Same with the vacuum.

Tricycles, bikes and pedal cars.
Take the tricycle. Easy to figure out. All start and stop power comes from self. Outcomes are predictable.
Take it slow, the kid needs re-assurance.

My twins were both afraid of the vacuum too when they were about 2, maybe almost 3. My solution? May be odd, but it worked. I took the long tube attachment and put it on their shirt. Yes, at first they were terrified as I was putting it close to them. But once they realized it wasn't going to hurt them, and the noises it made were kind of funny, the fear turned into laughter. They thought it was funny. From then on, I would "chase" them with the vacuum attachment and they thought it was the funniest thing going. May not work for everyone, but it worked for me.

Klayfish wrote: My twins were both afraid of the vacuum too when they were about 2, maybe almost 3. My solution? May be odd, but it worked. I took the long tube attachment and put it on their shirt. Yes, at first they were terrified as I was putting it close to them. But once they realized it wasn't going to hurt them, and the noises it made were kind of funny, the fear turned into laughter. They thought it was funny. From then on, I would "chase" them with the vacuum attachment and they thought it was the funniest thing going. May not work for everyone, but it worked for me.

It's all fun and games until someone loses an eyeball!

Bryce

Im only 17 at the moment, I can still clearly remember when I used to be scared of all the loud cars my dad had. My dad has a '79 F250 custom. Built motor, no cats etc. Everytime he would fire that thing up it would give me chills. I didn't even come up to the tailpipes on it when he had me in the drivers seat on his lap pretending like I was driving it myself. He'd let me rev it in neutral, and always have me around when he worked on it. By realizing the truck responded to what we did, and didn't have a mind of its own was what got me over the scared stage I believe. I dont know exactly how old I was, but it couldn't have been anything to much over 2 or 3. Then again, I was drifting my Fisher Price Jeep (with added battery power) in the sprinklers since I learned how to walk lol.

My daughter (4 yrs old) loves sitting in the cars, washing the cars, and pretending to work on the cars (which usually involves scratching the paint with whatever tool she is holding, so she is only allowed to work on the BMW!)

But...she is terrified of the GT6 when the engine is on (with Monza exhaust and header, so it's pretty loud). So the other day I "tricked" her into getting into the car to play. And since she can't open the doors or windows (very tight), I fired up the car and she sat there while I revved it and such. I showed her how the tach goes up and down as I rev it, and showed her my foot pushing on the pedal. After a while she stopped not liking it, and was telling me to do it some more.

And though I'd never drive on a public road without her in the carseat in back, I will let her sit in the front seat when moving cars in or out of the driveway or changing positions or turning them around. She loves that and asks to do it all the time....

When we're driving on a trip, she insists on the sunroof open and as soon as we pull out of the driveway she says "daddy, go fast"

Let's see... my parents had me at outlaw Sprint races from the time I was old enough to be out of the house.(spent a lot of quality time with an incubator as a baby) of coarse we lived nearby so it wasn't a big deal (dad was an e2 or e3 at the time) living near the base and listening to F-15's go supersonic kinda got me used to loud noises, to this day I love the sound of a fighter taking off or flying by. Get em used to noise, take em to a race, maybe the drags on a test and tune night, as the big boys aren't usually running those nights, and moving up to something like sprints or outlaws. I would avoid the earthshaking sound of top fuel cars for a bit yet. Monster truck rally? My niece loves em, and doesnt mind the earmuffs I make her wear to go. Heck my niece thought it was funny that I wore ear plugs under my helmet for the challenge.

Edit: oh yeah, I grew up with the back seat of a straight piped 72 Charger as my ride everywhere till the time I was 8 or 9.