If, as I was, you are battling your child’s bedtime fears, here are ten helpful tips that I have learnt from my dual roles as a Child Psychiatrist and as an experienced monster-battling mother: It was only after many months of this that we realized that her fear of sleep was a result of the monsters who visited her in her dreams, threatening to devour her. Or does your little one start to panic as you tuck them in under the covers? Maybe you have a regular night-time visitor clambering up into your bed? My oldest child who was aged two at the time would wake screaming in the middle of every night. Perhaps your child has become an expert in delaying tactics as bedtime approaches.
The ways in which your child might express their night-time fears will depend on how often they’re frightened and on their age and language skills. Children’s brains have adapted to modern times though so instead of saber-tooth tigers it is now monsters which haunt our young children at night since these are the threatening figures that our little ones are exposed to in books and television shows.
These nightmares affect 50% of children and occur most often in the 3-6 year age group. Apparently it’s an evolutionary advantage to have had a few practice runs before being chased by a real saber-tooth tiger. I once heard that young children are hardwired to dream about frightening, child-eating creatures.
0 kommentar(er)
