Parenting Article: Fight Back Against Nightmares

Sometimes children have nightmares. But if your child is losing sleep by frequently waking up with them you need to find out the root of the problem. And do something about it. Death. Divorce. Parents who frequently argue. Instability in the home. School bullies. All can cause stress. Stress can manifest itself in nightmares. If your child has serious stress I urge you to see your family doctor.

Simple help for night frights. If your child wakes up with a bad dream go to them. Reassure them you're there and they are safe. Do not ever yell at your child because they woke you up. Try this: Give your child a reassuring hug and ask them what's wrong. Their answer might or might not make sense. Either way you can say something like, "Boy, that seems to have upset you." You are giving them comfort by understanding they are upset. Even if the dream doesn't seem scary to you it was to them so you need to empathize. You can say, "That does seem like a scary dream." After you comfort them, get your child to focus on something else. Ask them if they would like to get a glass of water or go to the bathroom. If your child keeps crying you can tell them a funny story that happened that day; Or something funny the dog did last week. The intention is to get them to stop thinking about the nightmare so they can go back to sleep. You can talk more about their nightmare the next day when they are more awake and have gotten some sleep.

Reoccurring bad dreams. During a quiet moment, at breakfast or after school, ask your child questions about their latest nightmare. If they say a big hairy gorilla ran up to them, picked them up and yelled "Scram!" think about this. Did you child watch a gorilla movie on T.V. two days ago? It might have been too scary for them. This gives you the heads up on what your child can deal with. Monitor what they watch. No more scary movies. And be proactive. Ask, "How do you think you can stop having bad dreams?" They might not know. Or they might know. Deep down inside they might know they shouldn't be watching scary movies. Or they might give you a revelation. "The gorilla looked like dad." Does your husband scream at your child for not doing his homework, or for being late for dinner? This could be scaring your child.

To combat bad dreams. When your child goes to bed get them to think happy thoughts. Anything from vacations, their dog, making a triple hitter, etc. The sky's the limit. Also, let them read a funny story before going to sleep so that's the last thing they remember. If your child is young tell them, or read to them, a happy or funny story. Also try this: During the day, get your child to think of ways to stop a dream if it starts going bad. If a gorilla runs after them again in a dream, they should firmly think, "He can't hurt me!" Have them see in their mind's eye a big feather. With this feather they should tickle the gorilla to make it laugh. As the gorilla laughs he grows smaller and smaller until he disappears. Now your child is safe.

Please be proactive. Some parents tend to think, less said soonest mended. I believe this is not true with reoccurring nightmares. Acknowledge there is a problem and set out to try to solve it. If you don't teach your children how to solve a problem, how will they ever learn to solve problems? Ignoring a problem doesn't make it magically disappear. And I believe it can cause further problems down the road.

The case of Mr. Boney. One little three-year-old I knew kept having nightmares of a boney man who would lean over her bed and scare her. This happened about a week after Halloween. Her parent and I were inclined to think it started due to seeing a child dressed up as a skeleton on Halloween night. The three-year-old was asked what might help make Mr. Boney go away. She wasn't sure. It was suggested that putting up many signs around her room saying, "Mr. Boney STAY AWAY!" might help. This was done and it helped. The nightmares lessened and gradually went away. Lesson to be learned: Try to find the cause. Then take action against the nightmare.