Hello moms,
I am desperately seeking help for my 4-year-old daughter, who over the course of the past year and a half has developed an immense fear of buttons (like the kind on clothing). It sounds crazy, but it truly is a real phobia called koumpounophobia and from what I understand, it affects one in 75,000 people. It really affects our family's day-to-day lives, in that my daughter will not talk to, play, or eat with anyone who is wearing buttons on their shirt. When my husband walks through the door after work, she is terrified of him and immediately runs from him screaming as she goes to his dresser to bring him a t-shirt to change into. She screams and hides if my husband or I even try to touch her if we are wearing buttons. She won't even play with her younger brother (whom she adores) if he's wearing buttons. When I ask her why she doesn't like them, she tells me that they are saying mean things to her and that they don't like her. It just breaks my heart when I hear this.
Aside from the daily frustrations I have with dressing her, feeding her (she won't eat anything I prepare for her if I'm wearing buttons) and just encouraging her to normally socialize with people, I also feel so very sorry for her and deeply concerned for her future. Most of the people I have heard of who have this phobia are teenagers and adults who say that it also started when they were very young. I worry about it being too much of a distraction for her at school, and even though my husband and I were strongly considering enrolling her into a private school, we are now reconsidering it only because it would mean she would need to wear a button-down uniform every day.
Has anyone else had to deal with this, and if so, how are you treating it? Has anyone else had to deal with their child's phobia of any kind? Please help us! I'm looking for a child psychologist who specializes in phobias in the south OC area. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.
Hi there.
I wish I had some actual experience with this to help you, but have you talked to your pediatrician? They should have some good therapists they could recommend.
Good luck.
-M
I would say, never make her feel embarrassed or ashamed of her phobia. Never let her see your frustration. There are 2 things I can think of that could help...one, show her (only at times where SHE doesn't have to be interacting with you) how there can be positive interaction with buttons i.e., you and your husband are lovingly playing with each other while one buttons the other's shirt, or something like that - that's positive. Don't even tell her to "look" at what you guys are doing - just do it each day. Start making buttons a positive. There are even button games - like you could play TiddlyWinks with large, colorful buttons. There can even be a nice little prize for the winner, over and over. Start out by playing it with Daddy each night before bed or something. Then just ask her if she wants to play. Or, you can do crafts with buttons - they make great eyes on a project, or get an assortment and just make a cute collage all covered with little pictures from magazines of little puppies, playing children, Mickey Mouse, whatever. Let her paint buttons, sort buttons, whatever - SLOWLY, but by bit. Secondly, let her have some POWER over the buttons. You know how you talk to a child about their nightmares? Well, you can make up a game about "the buttons" who are being mean - give her a mantra she can say to the buttons such as "I AM YOUR LEADER! I COMMAND YOU TO BE GOOD!" or something like that - something that gives the power back to Her!! Buy her a special magic wand that's only to have power over the buttons - SHE needs to feel that she is in charge of them before she gets too much more afraid and feels helpless to control them. Please let me know how it goes - good luck.
M. C.
Sometimes with difficult/unique medical problems it's good to go staight to a teaching hospital. University of Cal. at Irvine would be a good place to start ask them for referals and advice. Also there may be a another University here in So. Cal that is doing research on childhood phobias look around. Of course this dosen't prevent you from visiting a private psycologist as well. Best wishes.
UCI Child Development Center is a great place to
start.http://www.cdc.uci.edu/np_evaluations.shtml
I'm not affiliated with them but and not too familiar with them but it's certainly a good place to start..
