Zack is my first child that has a lot of fear of imaginary things. My bigger boys were scared of things, sure, but it was more of real things (mostly dogs). Zack's fear of monsters has me baffled. He doesn't watch scary tv. He's never seen Monster's Inc. So where in the world did he come up with this stuff? It has left me unsure how to deal with it. Do I say "monsters aren't real" or "we don't let monsters come in our house." I've actually said both and gotten better results with the latter. But I wonder if it's good to let him think it is a real concern. Much worse the inconsistency of the two arguments must leave him confused.
The thing that helps the very best is to give him a favorite toy (and this changes day to day) and say "dinosaur will keep you safe." He smiles and snuggles in to go to sleep. He still wakes up once or twice a night terrified though. Last night it was at 10 and 3. At 3 he was crying and coming down the stairs saying "I scared momma, I scared." I took him into his room to see what was scary. He went to his window and lifted up the blinds. I could see the reflection of the blinds in the window and told him "it's just a shadow baby, there's nothing out there." To which he replied "shadow scary." Poor boy. I feel so bad for him that he's scared but there is a big part of me that is just annoyed to be up at 3 AM. He, after being reassured that there was nothing scary outside his window, snuggled in with his monster truck (don't most kids like to sleep with SOFT things??) and closed his eyes.
I wonder how long this stage will last. I hope it's a sign of a good imagination and creativity. I hope he can learn the difference between pretend things and reality. I hope at some point he will sleep with his light off (even the little lamp we got him is scary.) I hope someday I can sleep through the night on a regular basis. I hope I'm handling this right and not making mistakes that will increase his fear.
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Ugg- I hate getting up in the night! I have read a lot of parenting books that say to combat imagination with imagination- since he is scared of things that aren't real, use non-real things to protect him (water in a sprayer can be magic monster spray) or the toy protection is good too. Sometimes we tell our boys that the lion outside is nice, he wants to be your friend. That works sometimes.
Oh, and ours sleep with monster trucks too!
My boys also sleep with non-soft things! But when Bailey was young she was really scared of Monsters and we LET her watch Monsters, Inc and it really helped combat that fear. I think it was because it showed that Monsters werent really scary - they were pretending and they were actually (most of them) nice guys..... Good luck.
We do Monster repellent (spray bottle of water)... it has worked for some, not for others.
On occassion, I get a whole night's sleep, so in just a few years, you might too?!
Thanks everyone. I think I'll try the monster spray. :)
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