Teenagers Today's Health Advisory Panel Answers: Should I force my daughter to fly even though she is very scared?

By Chris Crutcher Author Licensed Child and Family Therapist

Question:

My 16-year-old has developed a terrible fear of flying. She has flown many times as a child, but around the time of 9/11, we took more than a year’s pause from traveling. We now have a wedding to attend across the country, and she is refusing to go. She is not being rude or terrible about it – which might make it easier – rather she is simply distraught. When we talk about it, she literally has physical symptoms like nausea, sweats and chills. I have told her that she can skip the wedding, but my sister thinks that I should get her counseling and make her come. Should I force my daughter to fly even though she is very scared?

Answer:

Probably both you and your sister are right. Tell her she doesn't need to go and it's no big deal, and let her have counseling about it if she wants it. From the way you stated it, I'm assuming you took a year’s pause from traveling because of 9/11, or at least that was her assumption. If that's true, you probably helped draw the parameters around her fear.

No big deal. Lots of people had bad reactions. Now she gets to get over it in a way that fits for her. There will come a time when she feels the need to travel, like say a vacation to Mexico or a rendezvous with a boyfriend who lives far away, and that will be motivation to take care of this, or she won't get over it and will be forced to become fabulously wealthy enough to move about the country in a huge bus, ala John Madden.