You can’t pour honey on a fear, or dress it up, or talk a child out of it. A fear is a feeling, and no logic or trick can pry a feeling out of a child.
I talked about nail biting, how I feel about it, and how I feel about my sons doing it. It felt to me as if nail biting was one of those habits that was almost impossible to shake off. I felt that my sons were doomed to live with the habit for the rest of their lives.