The fear of fruit

What can I say? Kids are weird.

This guy really takes the biscuit though. I mean, I know that all kids have fears... Some are afraid of the dark, or spiders, or strangers, or dogs. But this one is the first I've come across who is scared of - wait for it....fruit.

Yep.

It's not that he doesn't like fruit. He actually has a fear of it. Birthday parties have been turned down because of its presence, and meltdowns have been had due to unauthorised proximity to it.

And it's not just pieces of fruit. It's smoothies, jams, marmalades, fruit yogurts. You name it, if fruit has been within sixty feet of it then it is off the table. Literally.

I'm not sure when exactly it started but I remember very early freak outs if one of his siblings was sitting beside him in the car eating an apple. He has also always refused to sit at the kitchen table for breakfast if anyone is drinking orange juice.

It's fair to say he can be a pain in the arse at times so this weakness was of course pounced upon and ridiculed by his brother and sister. If he pushes one of them just a little too far a banana will be brandished in his face and he will end up weeping on the floor at the other side of a slammed door.

There is also a hierarchy to the fruit fear. Whilst apples are the least offensive, bananas and oranges top the scale. The fear runs deep with those two. 

It's undoubtedly bizarre, but a quick google brings up an actual a real term for it - carpophobia. It's an actual thing.

Not that that helps of course. And, it seems, the problem is getting worse.

Last night his brother ate a banana after football training and before going to bed.

They sleep in the same bed.

There were tears.

Eventually I relented and allowed him to stay in my room, but I was to read his brother a bedtime story first.

'But then he'll be beside you! And then he'll touch you! And then you'll touch me!'

And the wailing began again.

Carpophobia by secondary contact. 

Fruit loop.