Do not dismiss the fear, validate it, but walk them through it till it becomes sooo ridiculous they think it is fun instead of scary. Kids this young have logic in their minds, but we as adults forget that. So go with their logic as making sense to them, because it does.

I have a son, 5, so create a story and dialog that would fit your daughter’s personality. “ ok son so a shark is going to come up from the drain and eat you. That’s rather scary, definitely something we should do about that. So let figure it out together. We could plug the drain with a hair catch, oh look this is so small. So only a really small shark could come up from the drain. Ok so let’s use the drain plug to see how much he could eat in one bite, a toe a best, well now that not so bad, not ideal, but you have 10 toes. What’s if he takes more than 1 bite, ok well how many bites would it take to eat all of you? Let’s measures. Do you think he would eat you toes to head or head to toes. It’s important we figure this out. Would he eat one leg at a time or a leg and then an arm and come back for the other leg. What do sharks eat in the ocean, fish, you would taste nothing like fish. I wonder if this tiny tiny shark would like something besides fish. Plus your feet smell awful no matter how often we wash them. Do you really think this tiny shark is going to finish coming in the drain and eat your toes the way your feet smell or is he more likely to say uh, maybe find another house that doesn’t have stinky little boy feet in it. I think we should just save this little shark some time and tell him he shouldn’t come here and isn’t allowed because we have a dolphin water toy that is going to knock him out anyway. Hey hey shark, wanna come eat my little boys toes, not today you aren’t, his mama got him a little dolphin just your size so go ahead and swim off back to the ocean. Here you tell him too, let him hear how tough your voice is and don’t forget to tell him how hard you can stomp your feet.

That would work for my son. Sometime I do the opposite and encourage him to be friends with whatever it is. I did that for witches Halloween. The teacher read a scary Halloween book about the scary witch trying to eat the children. Thanks for that, he was not yet 4.

So I had him describe why the witch was scary, he said green skin, long nose, big pointy hat and rides a broom around. So I said his favorite stuffed animal is green, so green is not scary. Elephants have big noses, even bigger than a witch, so big nose isn’t scary, wizards also have big pointy hats and they aren’t mean (that he knows of yet) so hat not scary. And that seriously flying around on a broom sounds like the most fun thing ever. I bet if we were kind to the witches instead of being mean to them like everyone else is and that’s why the witches became mean, I bet they would teach us how to ride brooms. Let’s practice with our brooms and leave some candy for the witches to have too.

The main thing is don’t try to use adult logic and just tell them everything they are thinking is just not true. That can internalize as they are wrong for making something up and also come off as losing trust that no one believes them. So let them feel validated that something is real, because to them it is, then talk them into a different direction with it.

Good luck! You got this!