Captain Courageous

"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do." - Eleanor Roosevelt

Adam is a fairly fearless child. There are pretty much only three things he is scared of -- Batman, Spiderman, and King Kong.

When he first came home, he was very afraid of sand and of grass. The fear of grass ended abruptly when he saw the swingset in my brother's yard and decided it was worth running over the grass to get to it. We went to Florida for Christmas three months after he came home and he wouldn't let his feet touch the sand, with or without shoes. The next summer, we went to the Aquarium at Coney Island. Before we went he talked about how he was going to walk on the sand to see the ocean. Once on the boardwalk, he steeled himself and stepped out onto the sand. He got about three steps before he screamed and called for me to pick him up. We went back to the boardwalk and he immediately wanted to try again. Mind you, I didn't push the idea of walking on the sand in any way -- this was all his own idea. He made three similar attempts before he gave up. Last Christmas, he was determined to walk on the sand and after a few stalled attempts, succeeded - with his shoes on. This summer the shoes came off and he walked from the Coney Island Boardwalk to the water and back. I was muchly impressed at how he took on this fear, faced it, and conquered it --all on his own.

Lately I've noticed that if he sees something that scares him on TV, after his initial reaction, he will ask me to rewind it and play it again. And again. And again. And again. Until it no longer scares him. How does he know to do this? And that it will work for him? I am in awe of this child.