Dealing with Monsters in their Bedroom
We have to listen and show them we care ...
Q: Your 3-year-old tells you they’re frightened because there's a monster in their bedroom. Do you dismiss it, or feed into it by asking them to describe the monster?
Listening to a child tell you about a monster in their room is not feeding into it — it’s showing them you care!
In a child's imagination, monsters really DO exist. Let’s try looking at things from their point of view:
The streetlight shining through the curtains allows monsters to dance on the ceiling.
Monsters whisper and chatter through heating vents in the floor from the furnace room in the basement.
Monsters tap and claw at their bedroom window. They’re trying to get inside from the branches of the big apple tree beside the house.
Active imaginations convince children that monsters live under their bed and, if they need to get to the bathroom, they had better hit the floor in a dead run.
On their return, they have to leap back into bed, otherwise, monsters will grab their ankles and drag them under the bed with them.
Like adults, children need to have their feelings and fears validated. That’s very important in raising a mentally healthy, happy child —-it doesn’t matter how insignificant it may seem to us.
Here’s what worked at my house. I tucked my daughters in, read them a bedtime story, helped them say their prayers, and after a goodnight kiss, I announced:
“Okay, monsters, story time is over and it’s time to go home. Your mothers wonder where you are. Your friends have to sleep now.
Night-night. We love you.”
It worked every night …
Poet/Writer/Author of 5 books.
Quora Top Writer 2018.
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