Validating Feelings and being afraid of the dark and monsters

[MarineWife]

My almost 4yo ds is afraid of the dark and afraid of being alone in a room even when it's light out. Even though we all sleep in the same bed and we all go to bed together, he still says he's scared in bed with me. I'm not too concerned about his fearfulness. I figure it's a stage he's going through, possibly a little more pronounced than usual because his dad is deployed and has been gone a long time. When asked, he says he's not scared when daddy is home.

What I need help with is validating his feelings about being afraid without making them worse or dismissing them. Anyone have any ideas?

[Calvin'sMummy]

I look forward to replies as I am going through the same thing with my 4 year old DS. We co-sleep too and even with DH here, he is still afraid of monsters and the dark.

We asked what would help and one night he said more nightlights. So we did go to IKEA and pick up these cute night lights that are long, round and oval shapes with happy faces on them and each one is a different color, green, blue and red. DS even named them mom, dad and his own name. They charge up and he can turn them on and place them around his bed area and that has helped on quite a few nights. But not all nights......

Another night he wanted his play sword and he slept with that. A few nights, he slept with a reindeer from our Christmas decorations. But some nights, he says nothing will help at all and I just end up holding him and eventually he falls asleep. I am not sure what to say or do on these nights.

[dillonandmarasmom]

I'll join in on the wait for helpful advice.

DS is 4.5 and goes in and out of being afraid of being alone in a room, going to the bathroom alone, being in the backyard alone, etc.

[angie3096]

I just say, "I'm sorry you are scared. You don't need to worry because mommy is RIGHT HERE to protect you."
I don't even try to get into the debate about the existence of monsters or the probablility of something hiding in the dark bathroom. I just keep repeating, "I'm right here." And give lots of hugs!
If she's especially panicked we break out the monster spray (a plant mister with water in it). It's very effective at getting rid of monsters.
AND I've learned to sleep with a night light on.

[MarineWife]

Originally Posted by dillonandmarasmom

I'll join in on the wait for helpful advice.

DS is 4.5 and goes in and out of being afraid of being alone in a room, going to the bathroom alone, being in the backyard alone, etc.

My ds is afraid of all these things, too.

I do say that I'm there with him and won't leave him. I don't say he doesn't have to worry because I'm there. That would dismiss or negate his feelings, which is precisely what I want to avoid doing. He is afraid. It's not up to me to tell him whether or not that's a valid feeling.

I wanted to add I cross posted this in the general Parenting board because I was initially not getting any answers here. There may be more answers on that thread. http://www.mothering.com/discussions...55#post9848055

[laoxinat]

When my dd was 4 and transitioning to her own bed, by choice she would occasionally be afraid of closet monsters. I put some patchouli oil into a sparitzer and spritzed those lil mofos into oblivion. It seemed to soothe her fears wonderfully. FWIW!

[MarineWife]

I picked up a book at the library entitled, Seven Scary Monsters. DS really wanted to read it and even had me read it to him at the library before we got it. After we read it at home a couple of times my ds said he didn't like it because it scared him so we stopped reading it. Then this morning he picked it up and read it to himself (he can't really read but he repeated what he remembered). Later he told me he wasn't afraid of monsters anymore. Tonight when we went to bed he only asked me once if a noise was a monster. He never once said he was scared like he usually does.

[theretohere]

My 3.5 year old DD was having trouble with this. I ended up holding the baby towards the areas DD indicated had monsters and had DD2 'eat' the monsters. The baby thought it was funny and DD1 was no longer afraid. :

[unfrozncavegrl]

When my 5yo was 3 we sprayed the monsters away with lavander water.

I burn sage daily (for various reasons) and we talk about how sage keeps away things we do not like. I also give the power to him by having him say "monsters are not welcome here". We discuss how our house is so full of love that monsters would not like it.

Hmmm what else....I taught them a meditation in which when they are worried/scared they picture an egg of protection around their body. They picked out the color for their egg during the meditation.

We have read some books about kind monsters. We just purchased "Leonardo the Terrible Monster" by Mo Willems and it is great. It is about a monster that is not good at being scary and eventually befriends a little boy. Fabulous!

HTH!

[ewe+lamb]

I had this problem with dd now 5, so what I did was walk her through her fear, by this I mean, we held hands and she walked to and looked into all the places she thought there were monsters, witches etc, dh stood by the door and switched the light on and off to show her that when the lights were off there were still no monsters - we did this throughout the flat and it worked really well - we've not had a problem since. I also found a book in the library roughly translated is called Go Away Big Green Monster - a great book I think it was originally in english.

[Mom2lilpeeps]

Originally Posted by angie3096

I just say, "I'm sorry you are scared. You don't need to worry because mommy is RIGHT HERE to protect you."
I don't even try to get into the debate about the existence of monsters or the probablility of something hiding in the dark bathroom. I just keep repeating, "I'm right here." And give lots of hugs!
If she's especially panicked we break out the monster spray (a plant mister with water in it). It's very effective at getting rid of monsters.
AND I've learned to sleep with a night light on.

I love this... I wonder if "monster spray" will work on dinosaurs

[~Nikki~]

We use monster spray with our 4 year old, as well. Letting her take control seems to help. We tried showing her in the closet, and under the bed to prove that there were no monsters there, but as we all know, monsters are sneaky little critters and climb back out from their hiding places after Mom and Dad leave the room. So we did the monster spray thing, and it worked wonderfully.

We used a similar method for bad dreams. We taught her how to pull all of her bad dreams up, crumple them into a ball, and throw them out the window at the beginning of the night. Then we give her "sprinkle dust" for good dreams (basically just wiggling our fingers over her face). This has cut down drastically on the amount of nightmares she has. Fight imagination with imagination.

[P-chan]

I explain to him that I'm not afraid. For dogs, it looks like this:

Son: Mama, look! A dog!
Me: I see it too. You know what, I'm not worried about that dog. It's on the other side of the street, and a grown-up is holding onto that leash....there it goes. Bye dog!

I'm not telling him that he can't be afraid---but he does get the double benefit of a) knowing that I'm calm and b) learning how to assess a situation.