2012 is scaring our children
“Mommy, is the world really going to end in 2012?”
It’s everywhere. If you aren’t talking about it, you’ve heard it, either on the television, the radio, or in conversations with people debating the “end of the world” predicted in 2012 by what some are calling the end of the Mayan calendar. There’s even a blockbuster movie about the predicted event called ‘2012’. Advertisements beckon people to “find the truth”.
No matter how hard you’ve tried, there is no way that you could have completely kept this topic away from your children unless you home school, live in the middle of nowhere, and have no televisions or radios. Children are starting to show signs of severe anxiety believing that the world will end, and everyone they love will die in a matter of years.
The point isn’t whether or not you believe the end is coming, but how you attack this topic with your children. You must be proactive.
- Talk to them with confidence-Even if the very core of you is making plans for a fallout shelter three miles under the Earth’s crust because you are a true believer in the 2012 hoopla, you must stay confident with your children. William Makepeace Thackeray stated, “Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.” What this means is that in the eyes of a child, their Mother is the center of the universe. What you say is fact in their eyes. Tell them that the people are being silly about a silly movie, and the world is absolutely not going to end. Lots of people make scary movies, and it doesn’t mean that they come true.
- Don’t make it worse-Don’t scare them by saying things like, “Well, a meteor could hit the planet tomorrow and kill us all,” as a way of trying to get them to see the bigger picture. This may seem logical to an adult, but to a child, suddenly the fear becomes much worse because now they have to worry about meteors.
- Do give more love-If you discover that your child has the 2012 fear, show more attention. Take them to the store even if it’s easier for you just to run. When they feel your presence, they feel like they are protected from everything. Hug more. Play games more. Be silly more. The more time you spend laughing, the less time they have to be anxious.
- Talk about the future-Talk about future plans, vacations, and things they want to do when they grow up. Talk about them often. If a child sees that you see a future, they will start to see one too.
- Bedtime magic-When children are drifting off to sleep, there is time for the mind to wander. Shadows become monsters, and the end of the world can become the source of nightmares. Start a practice of reading to your children every night. After the book, spend a few minutes talking about it. Then, have them close their eyes and tense up every muscle in their body. As you have them release each major muscle group, talk about a favorite place or memory. When they have released all of their muscles and are completely relaxed, continue to talk about the place or memory for a few more minutes while they just breathe and listen with their eyes shut. Kiss them goodnight, and tell them that they will get to visit the place or memory in their dreams tonight because you just did bedtime magic. More often than not, they will continue to hold it in their mind as they drift off to sleep.
- EMDR-Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing is in fancy terms, ‘a comprehensive integrative psychotherapy approach that contains elements of many effective psychotherapies in structured protocols that are designed to maximize treatment and effects.’ What does that mean? It uses both sides of the brain to help rationalize something and get it filed away in the right spot. How do you do it? Write a story about your child. You’re writing this for your child, so keep it at a level that is short and easy for them to understand. The child in the story should have all of the same kinds of family members and pets as your child, but with different names. In the story, the child should hear about 2012 in the same way that your child did, and the child should feel fear. Describe specific things that your child is afraid will happen. The story needs a beginning, a middle, and most importantly, and end. In the end of this story, the child should wake up on New Years Day of 2013 and learn that the world is still enact and everyone is safe. When your story is complete, read it to your child while some one else they love and trust lightly taps their knees or sits behind them and lightly taps their shoulders. Do this a few times the first week, then a couple the next, then taper off to once per week. Watch the fear melt as the child rationalizes the fear and files it away in the correct place in their brain.
- Therapy-If nothing else works, get your child in to see a therapist. This fear of the end of the world being in 2012 is world wide and spreading. Children can develop anxiety disorders because they dwell on how much time they have left to see their loved ones, pets, and friends. Anxiety disorders can seriously impair a child’s ability to develop normal, healthy lives and relationships.
With the movie opening in November, fear and panic about the end of the world will only get worse. Keep an open line with your children. Don’t introduce the idea to them, but if you get questions about the end of the world, or overhear questions, or see pictures they draw of the earth blowing up, crouch down and attack this problem head-on.
And really folks, don’t buy into this 2012 thing. We’ve seen doomsday predictions before. In 1996, thousands of people were convinced that the world was ending. A 17th century Irish archbishop had predicted that the end of the world would take place at 6 pm on October 22nd, 1996. They lined I-5 from
Another fact that is becoming more and more known is that the Mayan people are not completely gone. There are tons of them still living today, and they are making fun of the 2012 believers. According to David Stuart, a specialist in Mayan epigraphy at the
The truth is, no one knows if and when the world will end, but it’s been here for a really long time. The odds are in our favor.
A group of astronomers involved in educating and outreach have been dealing with this topic for years, and have created an entire site dedicated to answering the rumors and questions about 2012. You can find them on the web at 2012hoax.org.
Comments
Amateur astronomers involved with outreach in the community have been dealing with this specific rumor for years now. Several of us have gotten together and composed a site that defines and debunks every doomsday rumor we can find. The site is 2012hoax.org. We invite parents to educate themselves here.
Thank you, very much for writing this article.
Myself and others such as 2012hoax have been battling this thing.
My niece was one of the unlucky children who had heard of 2012, it's definitely tough on a person trying to comfort their children or niece/nephew, whatever the case may be.
So again-- Thank you for writing this.
I'm quite sure this article was designed for pre-pubescent children, but...
As a teenager of fifteen years old,
I even felt more soothed reading this.
Sure, many adolescent youths realize that a parent's opinion towards issues that involves their children will always be bias toward the welfare of their children. That's just how it's looked at in a teenage eye. And, because of this way of thought, many teenagers degrade their own parent's opinions.
But, after reading this article, I felt that this will work for any misinformed teenager (thanks to 2012hoax.org, I'm not one of them).
Thank-you for your parental expertise. It's definitely going to help.
I'm fifteen and as stupid as it sounds, I was hysterical after I heard about the 2012 "end of the world" thing. To say I was scared is a complete understatement; "scared" doesn't even begin to cover how awful I felt, how I would cry and scream and curl up against my parents for nights on end because I so believed that the world was going to end. I didn't eat, I didn't sleep ... I didn't do anything. It was the Summer holidays, and my mind was just consumed with "2012!". It was crazy. But I didn't think of looking into it. I just took it on face value. They said the world was going to end, so it was. Simple. I never thought of thinking "who exactly are they?" and thinking logically about whether I could actually trust them or not. I just thought it was. I'm prone to anxiety though so that probably didn't help, haha. Anyway, I'd just like to thank you for creating this website and making me feel a hell of a lot safer and sturdier. I can take a clean, deep breath of air now.
renjade don't be silly ^^ I'm 18 and am scared of all the 2012 hoopla that everyone made it's just a big money scam and a great way to come up with a movie we will still be here on Christmas day and in 2013 :) After reading this article I realized that I have nothing to fear.
I feel so sorry for the kids who have been scared out of their wits by this. As a teenager, I was around people who fell for this stuff all the time (especially one individual), and as I wasn't yet sufficiently seasoned to know that people make claims like this all the time with a 0% hit rate, I was often frightened and worried that absolute doom was due anytime within the next ten years. It was a miserable existence. Fortunately, I caught on and realized just how stupid all of it was. You had nothing more than a bunch of pseudoscientists, kooky new-agers, apocalypse nuts, and other people who were so far "out there" they wouldn't know reality if it bit them in the butt looking for attention and/or money.
I hope the kids who are terrified of 2012 don't do anything drastic, don't get hurt, and more importantly, come to realize that the kooks making these predictions have been doing so for thousands of years and haven't got a hit yet.
2012 is all fake i never belive these things. i just living life to its fullest. remember its all fake. and i have plans to see the ball drop for 2013
2012 is all fake
i feel a lot better nowing it was a scam!!!!!!!!!!!
Really, thank you for making this. I'm 13 and I was freaking out. That 10+ minutes you lay in bed every night in the darkness was always consumed with this thought, and how the movie "Knowing" Was going to come true, but thanks to 2012hoax, i feel so confident and releaved, and am now trying to convince my crazy parents!
Good article but how come nobody points out how anybody claiming the "end is near" has a book to sell - if the world really was coming to and end, what good would money be?
thanks lots for this. being a 12 year old and hearing it disscussed on tv, at school, and home, it really started to take a toll on me. I had nightmares and had started cuddling up to my mom at night beacuse of how much it scared me. thank god for this site becasue had i not found it i would be driving myself crazy!
well believe it or not im 10 and i asked my friends if they believe that the world will end in 2012 and all of them said no but after i heard about it it was like 1 and half ago i cried for like hours on that night and i a bhuddestso i dont read or know what the bible says so i really scared so and its not easy getting things out of my head i mean chain letters i used to believe in them and i read one and i only posted it 5 time and i was scared of what will happen to me the next day so yea. im just going to cry alot that day which is 12-21-2012 i throw up when im scared so alot of pukeing. and my family is vietnamese so they dont know anything about this because they dont know whats on the movies or conversations. and i dont ask them for advice on what to do.im doing whatever i can to make me feel better like the 2012hoax.org website. i am constantly hugging my bro mom dad and my other family members becuz im just scared so if you have any advice to calm me down or other people who are scared can you please reply to this? thank you
hi its me again from the anonymous one advice please
Anonymous-
I understand that with so much information going on right now that the thought of 2010 can be very scary. There are a lot of people who believe the world will end that day, but this is not the first time that has happened, and we're still all right here.
There are also a lot of people who are making a joke about it that you might not see at your age as making fun of it.
When I wrote this article, I was devastated at the amount of children searching the internet all by themselves seeking truth and trying to feel safe instead of the incredible fear they were felling.
Shame on us as a culture for not making the safest place for a child to be in our own homes.
Anonymous, my best advice is to unplug. Don't search it. If you see a show about it on the Discovery channel or something, don't watch it. Don't read about it, don't research it, and do your job as a child. Do you know what that job is? Playing with friends, listening to music, learning new hobbies, and playing video games.
In the meantime, I think you might want to go talk to your school counselor about the anxiety you are feeling. Anxiety is a fancy way of saying really scared feelings.
Learn some deep breathing techniques so that when you start to feel that 'uh-oh' feeling in your body, you can calm yourself down and think of something else.
Keep checking back, because there will be an article coming up about ways kids can feel better when they are scared.
Leave a comment any time you feel like the fear is overwhelming and you need some words of encouragement, and I will comment back as soon as I can.
Remember, this has happened before. Just as many people thought other days would be the end of the world, and we are still here.
If you believe in God, pray for peace in your soul and for strength to not be afraid. I will say prayers for you as well.
Well im a Bhuddest but i dont care what relgion as long as i know that im safe
yea i intend to ask on yahoo answers will the world end and all the no's made me feel a little better and i intend to search up things that make me feel betters its wierd well people have been saying that meotiers or comets etc is gonna hit the earth ,and all sorts of natrual disasters will happen and the soaler storm or sun storm or somthing will happe and somtimes i feel like half the time i feel like i wake up the day afterand nothing happend and i thinking to my self i was worried for nothing for the past two years and half the time i feel like i just want to cry all night
tnx for replying :D
There's absolutely no point spreading fear.
I do homeschool but I don't live in the middle of nowhere. I live in Portland, OR. I just don't talk nonsense or watch the "news" in front of my kids. We are Christian and I have had the talk with my 9 year old that someday the world will end and Jesus will come for us. I've told him that it doesn't really matter when it happens but that we need to keep living our lives and doing what's right and honoring God. He respects that "it could even happen tomorrow or it might not be for hundreds of years" and just keeps living his life. Living one's life in fear of what may or may not happen is one way of destroying the life you have.
Anonymous: no one knows the day or the hour that this world will end and the next will begin. Millions of people have made guesses and millions of times they've been wrong. If you know anything about numbers and science you'll realize that the Earth has been here for a really really long time. There's a better chance of you winning the $100,000,000 lottery than of the Earth ending in our lifetime. The media (t.v., movies, government people, etc.) have gotten bored and are just making up stuff to get everyone overly excited and to watch every second of what they say. That's what they get paid to do. Its very sad. Instead of focusing on the scary stuff they make up try to study hard at school. Maybe you'll grow up to make some big changes and stop them from scaring other kids.
time is just moving so fast and i feel sad half of the time i feel lke in my head its says no it is not going to happpen i mean cmon its outer space , i just have to enjoy every minute of mylife and not worrying about that and saying to my self it is not gonna happen and half the time i feel like suddenlythe sky grows dark and an earthquake is going to hit im scared can you tell me what else i could do to forget about it? :) thankyou if you reply
time does move so fast, and it can seem like it's moving even *faster* when you're young, doesn't it? your brain goes from thought to thought to thought so fast sometimes it's like a blur, I know. even being grown-up doesn't solve that sometimes, but just remember, you're in control of everything in your head, it doesn't have to control or scare you. when things seem like they're moving too fast, it's when it's good to take a moment, breathe deep and just relax and think peaceful things till things feel like they've slowed back down. it's hard sometimes, but when you can hug someone or play a game or look at something pretty it's easier with every try.
this world is big, and very old, and we're all here now with each other. how special we all are to be living now with everyone else in this age of wonder. anything might happen anytime, but it doesn't mean it will happen tomorrow. chances are it never will and you can't spend every moment of every day worried about what Might, possibly, maybe, could be and forget to live Today. no one should ever so be worried about dying that they forget to live and breathe and look at themselves and the world and the wonder of everything around us.
for every bad person in the world that tries to scare people and make money off of fear there are 10 people like the people here who do their best to make the world and outer space Less scary and to protect us and to give us knowledge and truth and hope instead of fear and panic and lies. they help us so we can be happy about Today instead of scared about tomorrow and we're lucky to have them.
Amen Daniel!
I am twelve and when the 2012 film came out and one of the things mentioned on advertising posters was "We were warned.". I was really confused and thought it was related to the 2012 olympics. Anyway around the beginning of 2011 I was bored so thought I would look up this 2012 thing and see what the big stirr was about. That was when I found out about the planet X prediction. After that I went back to look at some more and saw all the other predictions. I got quite scared but after a while I got suspicious at how many predictions there were for this one date. I have also recently seen a video with David Morrissey ( I think that's how it's spelt) which is really been useful. In this video he talks about some of the questions he has been asked about 2012 and explains how they are not true. To conclude, don't be set on the first thing you see. Look at all of it first and don't be taken in by all these people, they are just trying to make money selling these survival packs and info on how to survive and scare you. Until a respected scientist comes out with some hard evidence we can assume it isn't real.
Oh thank god! I'm 18 and was very scared about 2012 happening especially after watching the movie my grandma told me she listened to a NASA scientist and told me the world will not end in 2012 and I listened to that same scientist and didn't bother reading the youtube comments because some of them said he was a 'fake'. Again thank you so much!
I'm 14 and after hearing these rumors and seeing them all over tv and stuff, I was really scared! Although I new it was not true, half of me was still terrified! Thank you SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much for writing this article as it has soothed my fears. Maybe I will get more sleep tonight:)
I hope that you'll say the same for May 21 (the week after tomorrow). A lot of kids are scared of the date.
Just read 2012hoax.org Im a member of that site , you 2012 is Psuedo-science , False science read the site and youl know 2012 Is fake
Hi i am 13 and terrified of 2012. I know that the smart sid e of me is saying that it is all stupid, but the curious side of me is genuinly frightened. Every night i think about it and it has become an obsession. I am scared of what people will do around that december time period. It is crazy how a simple rhumor can blow up into something much bigger. I feel like i need to talk to someone about my fear, but when i ask my parents about it they think i am just being silly.
Advice?
Oh yes, almost 2 years past since the movie came out AND the following events are fake:
Haiti Earthquake
Oil Spill
Extreme heat
Japan Erthquake/Tsunami
and little events in between.
So nothing to worry about kids!
Just read this lame article, read those lame "kid's" comments (composed by adults< probably the author of the article - yes, your writing style in every comment) it will sure calm you down and shut the voice of your souls screaming about what's coming!
thank u so much now i feel a lot better i feel like new after two horrible years living in the movies of 2012 and more movies and more tv shows in history channel i read the truth and i feel good :)
2012 not true
2013 enjoy it
I'm still scared :(
I'm 13 and worried about solar flares in 2012 (now changed to 2013). What would happen if a solar flare like the one in 1859 hit? Obviously it would be disastrous because of our reliance on technology but I realized a few days ago that it would be far worse than that because all the nuclear reactors would melt down without power! Ever since then I've been constantly looking things up about solar flares and nuke plants and am really scared. I haven't gotten any sleep and have even slept in my parents' bed. This is also not random prophecy but something that could very well happen so that's why I'm so anxious. It happened in 1859 and this solar peak is similar. Can anyone tell me what the likelihood of this happening is? Many people seem to be concerned about a large solar flare but I have found very few people online who have considered nuke plants with the solar peak. My parents tell me not to worry about it and how minuscule a chance it is, but they don't know anything about space and are also trying to calm me down. Some sites seem to be exaggerating the probability but are they? I don't know anything about it so I don't know who to believe.
In the US, there are committees that have committeessitting around thinking of ways disasters could cause nuclear meltdowns. Afterthat, they come up with even more ways they could stop it. After that, they come up with every way those ways couldn't work, and they make those ways better.
Stop browsing end of the world or even space sites for a month. Give it a month. Don't let yourself do it, and it's going to be hard because you've fallen into an addiction pattern. Find something else to fill your time. Join a youth group at a local church. Get out of the house and out of the computer's grasp, don't watch natural disaster shows on netflix or anything else, and go live. Notice beauty around you everywhere and see that God has your back.
Pick up a bible, but don't go straight to revelations. Read the New Testament.
Did you know an egg has four parts? The shell, the yolk, the white, and the membrane. Do you know what's at either end of an egg? Two air pockets. There are 6 minutes of air in a chicken egg that allow the chick to hatch without suffocating. Now, think about this: Who decided the egg needed 6 minutes of air? Did a hen go through 40,000 eggs before she got it right? No, a hen never had to think about it. That's not random, and couldn't have been created through the chaos theory. God will set you free kiddo. I hope this helps.
Everybody just remember that God loves us very much. Afterall, we are his children and he created this beautiful planet in which we love in and he would NEVER let anything bad or evil happen to us. So, please have faith and have faith in him and LIVE your lives to the fullest.
Don't believe all that negativity and trust me that only God can make that judgement. NOT MAN!
Thanks so much for this! I am a kid myself who conteplated suicide last year. Recenlty this fear came back.Thanks as this saved my life I love you guys.
Don't give into the hype. As the 'date' approaches, give your energy to something else. Find a church and seek solace. I'll be praying for you. It breaks my heart that people would drive our youth to suicide over 2012.
I want you to start talking to someone next if you are feeling suicidal at any point. Life is beautiful and worth living, and you are worth fighting for.
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