Acquaintances are suddenly eyed suspiciously or rejected, only dad and mom can comfort. What role strangeness plays and how best to deal with it. Sabine’s grandmother bends over her grandchild, who is playing peacefully on the carpet. But as soon as she gets closer, the peace is over. Sabine’s eyes look fearful, her face contorts and a wailing scream comes out of her mouth. Only the rushing mother can calm the child again when Sabine is in her arms.
Conscious perception
Sabine is now 8 months old and has started her strangeness phase, also called eight-month fear, expressively. From now on, she will react to a lot of things not called mom or dad with reluctance and also distrust. Parents make life easier for themselves if they understand that Sabine is going through a necessary development. This is because crawling children consciously perceive differences between people for the first time between the seventh and eighth month.
So far, Sabine has become extensively familiar with her parents’ gestures, sounds, smells and facial expressions. Now, when Grandma appears, the little one realizes: “Oh, she’s completely different from my parents, I’d better keep my distance. Since Sabine can’t yet put her feelings into words, she doesn’t have many means of communication. But the ones she chooses speak a clear and actually unmistakable language: crying and screaming, hiding behind Mom’s legs or turning her head away from the “stranger.
What relatives and friends quickly take personally and often even interpret as childish spoiling is basically a safety measure against new and strange things. Experts believe that caution and mistrust are even worthwhile in order to protect oneself from negative experiences.
Individual differences
Unfortunately, it is impossible to tell Sabine’s parents or even her grandmother when this phase will pass, because every child has a different temperament. Thus, the sudden fear can last weeks, but also months – in one baby it is more pronounced, in another less so. Encountering unfamiliar situations and people is one trigger; another is separation from familiar people. Sabine’s relationship with her parents has become so intense that she reacts with fear when they separate. If mom or dad leave the room, she feels insecure. When her parents come back, she beams all over. In these moments, Sabine needs protection and understanding even more than usual.
By the way, her cautious behavior toward strangers is also a sign of devotion and trust in her parents. That’s why mom and dad can proudly enjoy those moments when the little one seeks shelter with them. After all, the comfort and security that Sabine experiences through them forms the basis for the child to approach its environment with curiosity and self-confidence. And indeed, after a few minutes on her mom’s arm, Sabine dares to look at the “strange” grandma and … smiles.
Tips for parents
There are concrete helps that make the stranger phase easier for the child and his environment.
- Achieve understanding by telling friends and relatives about the child’s strangeness phase.
- Take the child and his fears seriously, instead of fighting against it.
- In Fremdelmomenten no contacts force. Rather go a little distance and have a calming effect on the child.
- In a separation, for example, when the mother works, or the parents go out, the child especially slowly accustomed to the caregiver.
- With small games to reduce the fear of separation or a stranger. Peek-a-boo game: hide face behind a cloth and then pull it away again, with time carefully increase the duration of hiding. Important: When hiding in another room, never close the door between you and the child. A ball that can be rolled towards each other without coming closer is suitable for establishing contact. Or give the “stranger” a cuddly toy of the baby in the hand, this arouses interest in the child.
