Kids constantly tell us they are frightened and often we are too quick to say stop it and just get back to bed. Next time we do this we may like to take a moment to really listen to our child. We can’t stop a child’s imagination and why would we, however, we can help them. Maybe telling them a story of when we were young and scared and how the problem was solved.
A typical scenario:
“Mummy, Mummy I heard a noise,” Sally said in her loud voice at about 3.43am!
“Oh Sally, Mummy can’t do this anymore, just stop saying there are noises and stay in bed,” Mum said in a stern voice as she tucked Sally in and went back to her own bed.
The best thing to do the next day is talk to Sally about the incident and plan what to do next time.
“What did you hear in the night Sally?”
“A scary noise,” said Sally.
“Well there are lots of noises at night – a house makes a lot of noise. I just want you to think of it like the house is sleeping and moves a bit to get comfortable – just like we do!” said Mum.
If we just don’t dismiss kid’s concerns, but give them the time to discuss them we may save a lot of roaming around at night!! What we say does depend on the child’s age; the older the child the more detailed we can be.
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