Re: Arachniphobia in Scout
Matt Gulick (mgulick@RADIUS.COM)
Wed, 5 Jul 1995 12:47:24 -0800
At 11:09 AM 7/5/95, John Pannell wrote:
>One of the problems we had last week at Camp was a Scout with a _bad_ case
>of arachniphobia.
>
>At least one night he would not even enter his tent because there was a
>spider on the outside. He would become a "basket case" when he saw one
>on the _inside_. Predictably most of his peers were brutal with him,
>especiallly when no adults were around. Even those who were trying to
>comfort him were viewed in his eyes as tormentors.
>
>Anyone ever encounter this before? What do you do for it? I would hate to
>lose him over a bad experience at camp.
>
>Maybe we can convince him of the virtues of Winter camping (no bugs)*g*!?
>
Be carefull as to how you aproach this. By forcing the encounters you can
actually make the phobia worse. I am 37 and react much the same way to
spiders. My wife has to kill all the spiders that enter our house. For me,
this started because of a bad reaction to a spider bite at a very young
age. I am very reactant to spider venom and will hallucinate and sometimes
go semi-comatose from a simple garden spider.
Try to accept the youths fears and be understanding. You also might teach
all the scouts to keep their tents zipped at all times. This way you will
not have to make a special effort with the boys that are paired up in the
same tent with this young man.
You may also want to educate your scouts to the fact that many things can
be deadly under certain conditions and that these are not things to be made
fun of. Some items that can cause death are as simple as Sugar, Walnuts,
Shrimp, Smoke, Spiders, Bees, NutraSweet,... All it takes is an allergic
response by the body's defenses and you can have a suuden death.
Again, please approach this in a caring fashion and I am sure there will be
an improvement.
Matt Gulick
I use to be a Bear...
PS. Also, some time that smarter the child, the greater the level of
imagination and fears.
Terry Howerton Sakima Group, Inc. SCOUTER Magazine Kansas City | 
