Ecosystemic factors influencing the experience of fear in young children

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate ecosystemic factors influencing the experience of fear in young children. Through qualitative method, a sample of 12 grade three learners’ drawings, 12 parents, three grade three teachers from low socio-economic status, middle socio-economic status and high socio-economic status participated in the study. In this way, the study aimed to compare and investigate whether a particular setting may determine what influences the experience of fear in young children. I purposefully selected 12 grade three learners’ drawings (four from each school) from which each system of Bronfenbrenner’s bio-ecological theory was illustrated very well and depicted fearful experiences. As such, a multiple case study design was employed to explore and compare what influence fearful experiences among Grade 3 learners from three different socio-economic class. For data collection, I relied on learners’ drawings, narratives, informal conversations, audio recordings, semi-structured interviews, field notes and a research journal. I analysed data through thematic inductive analysis. The results highlighted that negligence, nightmare, domestic violence, bullying, terrifying television programmes, COVID-19, kidnapping and murder are causing fear in young children. The findings suggest that adversities, television content, kidnapping and murder as well as COVID-19 has the negative effects on the well-being of the children causing fears that are not normal for their age group. The persistent exposure to fearful experiences interferes with the ability of the learners to learn effectively in the classroom. Teachers’ lack of competencies in supporting learners to cope with fear add to low participation of learners in the classroom. Therefore, teachers need adequate support and training to deal with learners experiencing fear. The contribution of this study is to provide various strategies which can be employed by teachers and parents to support young children to cope with fearful feelings. Moreover, the findings of this study suggest a need for parents to limiting the amount of domestic violence and terrifying television programmes that young children are exposed to, in the home environment. The insights gained from this study will be shared as recommendations with the schools, institutions of higher learning and the DBE. This will be done to highlight what schools can do to support teachers and parents to assist young children to cope with fear and the kinds of capacity-building programmes that will help teachers, social workers and police officers to become partners in education.