How Soom Till the Monsters Go Away?

We had a big, giant stuffed dog. It is as long (nose to tail) as their twin bed is wide! I told mine that if a monster, or anything else, came into their room the dog would bark and scare the creature away. It would also wake up mom and dad and we would come to get you. My son still sleeps with it but I think he uses it more like a pillow now and not a "moster attacker". We also did the whole mosters arent real speach but some children have such a vivid imagination that to them, mosters are every bit as real as people. So while it wasnt "encouraged" per say I didnt dismiss them or their feelings about it. Good luck with it! Try to remember they are only little once and this kind of stuff goes away all too soon and you will just be sharing stories of when he was afraid of monsters! I try to think of that every day when my children are doing something that is so obviously ridiculous!
SZ

Try the movie Monster's Inc. My kids love it. When ever they start the monster stuff I ask them if they have ever seen one. They always tell me no and I tell them that is because they are not real. I remind them they are pretend like on their monsters movie. That normally works, sometimes I have to remind them a few times and sometimes I give them a stuffed animal or something "special" for comfort.

It's kind of tricky. You could do the spray and the hunt, but then that's kind of telling your kids that there ARE in fact monsters to battle.

4 years old is usually the age where those fears surface and they are truly real for children.

We've gotten around it by kind of redirecting her thoughts to quiet playing. We do our routine; bath, books, etc. Then we put our daughter down in bed and she decides whether or not to lie down and go to sleep. We've got her lamp on a timer and we tell her when she's ready she needs to lay back and close her eyes. Until then, she can read some more books, draw on a doodlepad, play with some dolls. But she can't get out of bed. This seems to work pretty good because it's not very long that she's up playing before she konks out. It kind of empowers her a little ... "Honey, you don't have to go to sleep, you can play with Barbie, but you have to do it quietly in your bed"

It *crosses fingers* seem to work so far for us.

Good luck,
J.

I believe that playing along with it by using the monster spray is a horrible idea. A child's imagination is wild, and if we don't give it to them straight, it will only encourage their thoughts of these types of fears.

When my daughter and son first talked about being afraid of monsters I said exactly this, "Well, that's silly, why would you be afraid of something that isn't real?" They both admitted that they didn't know why they were afraid, and they both understood that they weren't real. So, it took a handful of times before they let it go, but in the meantime, I would say "Now that's enough....I told you there's no such thing as monsters." I actually never played into their stories, and instead took an approach of saying to them their madeup fear was disrupting the nighttime bedroom procedure that they followed every night (once in bed, stay in bed). So, without actually punishing them, and without encouraging them, they came around on their own.