# Fear of going down the drain



## catnip (Mar 25, 2002)

Is there a kids book that deals with this? Any tricks? My 2.5 year old is terrified of the drain. It's past the point of not letting her see the tub drain. She knows it is there and won't get in the tub at all and won't get in the shower unless I hold her in my arms the whole time. I hand her off to daddy, and she worries about me falling down the drain until I get out. Really over the top hysterics.
We've got some family tension going on, her dad is having an operation in a couple of weeks, and I just had a big fight with some friends, so I'm sure that is part of it, but I'd like to help her address the specific fear so we can get back to normal hygeine habits.


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## limabean (Aug 31, 2005)

Aww, poor kiddo! I remember having a brief fear of the drain after one of my teachers taught us a (now funny) song that went:

Alice, where art thou going?
Upstairs to take a bath.
Alice was like a toothpick
And her head was like a tack.
Alice stepped in the bathtub
Turned on the water spout.
Oh my gracious, oh my soul
There goes Alice down the hole!
Oh Alice, where art thou going?








So for starters, don't teach her that song!









But on a serious note, do you think she'd get it if you put something way smaller than her in the bathtub and let it drain to show her that if that item didn't go down the drain then she won't either?


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## catnip (Mar 25, 2002)

Tried that. She got hysterical, and snatched the object and whisked it away to safety.

That was why I was thinking book. Or heck, at this point I'd even go for a video! I know there was a Mr. Rogers about this subject, but it's not one of the 8 episodes available on DVD, which is a shame for them, because I'd totally spend a ton of money on it right now.

What triggered this was a lid to a bubble bath jar getting wedged into the drain hole. I pried it out with a butter knife, and it was no big deal-to me. To her it seems to be the end of the world. Oh, and I also tried getting into the tub with her. No good. She was afraid I was going to go down the drain, too.

She's also steering way clear of the drains in the floor of public restrooms, too.


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## limabean (Aug 31, 2005)

Hmm ... Could you try asking what she thinks will happen if one of you goes down the drain? Maybe you guys could make a silly story out of it, like, "Would it be like a water slide? Oh my, I guess I'd have to borrow your floaties so that I could swim around in the water after I went through the pipes, huh? And maybe there would be frogs living there too and we'd make friends and sit on giant lily pads together..."


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## snoopy5386 (May 6, 2005)

it's summer, buy a cheap kiddie pool or even a blow up bathtub in Target for like $10 and bathe her in that for a while until she forgets about it.


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## gmvh (Nov 26, 2003)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *snoopy5386* 
it's summer, buy a cheap kiddie pool or even a blow up bathtub in Target for like $10 and bathe her in that for a while until she forgets about it.

Or what about the kitchen sink? Could you sit her in there for a wipe down? Or a utility sink?

Another book to avoid - The Tub People. The tub child goes down the drain and gets stuck. I was really worried we'd have drain fear after reading the book because my children obsessed about the tub child going down the drain for weeks. Good luck!


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## Robert Goodman (Mar 13, 2006)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *limabean* 
Aww, poor kiddo! I remember having a brief fear of the drain

Me too. Might've been from _Scuffy the Tugboat_. I distinctly remember its being, at least at a certain point, a true phobia in that I knew that it made no sense, that I couldn't possibly fit. It morphed seamlessly into another rationale: fear of contamination from sewer/drain water. I was OK as long as the drain was closed, but had to jump out when it was opened.

And that's how it is with phobias: they become unmoored from their original justific'n and find new ways to persist. For the past 6 years I've had a highway driving phobia.

If it's not a phobia but a regular fear based on ignorance or misunderstanding (the recently late Albert Ellis would've said phobias are that anyway), then it's just a matter of learning their way out of it. Which of course doesn't help the original poster, because it's saying her kids needs the wisdom of years.

But if it is a phobia, an acknowledged irrational fear, smarts don't help without a program such as Rational Emotive Therapy. I'm smarter & older than my sister, but she didn't share my drain phobia. I actually had a vague uneasiness with water generally, and she & I would share a bath and she'd be fine but I'd keep concocting excuses to have Mother or Daddy close by.

Robert


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