Children might feel fear for a myriad of reasons: costumes, decorations, loud sounds, or things that jump out with the intention to scare. As adults, we have lots of practice in our experiences of the world. We know that the skeleton decoration cannot harm us, or that we’re safe when a costumed friend says hello. A child, who hasn’t been around long enough to make patterns out of this information, doesn’t always know that they’re safe. We often want to quickly swoop in and squash those fears, mostly with the hopes that they’ll then feel safe. But rather than giving our children that sense of security, we’re missing an opportunity to help them learn what to do when they feel that. When we hold space for a child’s feeling without solving or rushing it away, we communicate that we’re regulated and can handle the hard things, and that they can learn to handle the hard things, too. Fear is welcome here. What comes up for you here? What does this look like for you?