User:Sophie mandrile/sandbox

The anxiety children experience when meeting a stranger is based on the sensation of fear they develop when introduced to an unfamiliar factor in their life that elicits the feeling of fear. They are not born with the awareness that meeting a stranger for the first time will cause them to be fearful. The child discovers this feeling when facing the stimuli, in this case a stranger, for the first time. Experiencing fear causes toddlers to sense they are in a potentially threatened position and therefore, they go towards their caregiver in order to seek protection from the stranger. This reaction enables children to develop instincts to guide them when they feel endangered, like to seek the protection of a familiar and trusted individual to ensure their safety and survival. The stimuli which provokes a child’s anxiety in the presence of a stranger are the individual’s age, gender and his or her distance from the toddler. When a child is in the company of another child that is a stranger to him/her, he/she is less frightened then if he/she were with an adult who is considered a stranger as well. This is due to the height of the individual. The taller the person, the more frightening he/she seems. In addition, children are more fearful of a stranger when they are standing in close proximity to them, while their caregiver is farther away or completely out of their sight. The gender of the stranger contributes to the level of anxiety a child experiences. When in the presence of a male, the child feels more anxious then in front of a female.

The anxiety a child feels when facing a stranger is based on various fears that arise in them. A few of these are based on the actions the stranger could unexpectedly take. For example, the child worries he/she can be taken away from his/her caregiver or harmed. The fear of the unknown elicits the anxiety. Although anxiety can go away in few minutes, it could also last a long time. As children reach the age of 2, their feelings of anxiety in the presence of strangers are nearly gone. However, some children can still experience apprehension up until the age of 4. It is less probable for toddlers to experience anxiety in the presence of a stranger if a figure they trust, such as their caregivers, perform positive interactions with this person. For example, they employ a calm tone of voice, they smile and hug the stranger. This enables the child to feel a certain reassurance seeing that their caregiver does not show any sign of fear in the presence of this individual.