How To Get Rid Of Fear Of The Dark

Avoid ideas like “spray monsters” that just assert in the child’s mind that monsters are real and need to be “squirted away”. Berkley James, child sleep consultant Read: How to get rid of a fear of the dark Seeing the dark is a normal part of development and one of the most common childhood problems for families with school-age children. According to Dr. Jane Sosland, a clinical child and adolescent psychologist, almost 30% of children have sleep problems and sometimes, bedtime battles can last well past midnight. Without a good night’s sleep, children can experience behavioral and mood problems and have trouble concentrating at school. So, how can parents best support a scared child?Discuss fear. Listen to your child carefully, not toying with their fears, to see if you can identify the trigger. Night terrors can be due to a bedtime fairy tale or even a stressful event during the school day. Berkley James, a pediatric sleep consultant, explains: “Just hearing what children are saying helps them feel heard and validated, which can help eliminate irrational fears. “.Be on the lookout for scary images. As kids relax after a busy day and the calm of the night arrives, they may begin to repeat the scary images in their heads they’ve seen in books, movies, video games, or on the news. . Pair those images with the nighttime creaking of the house or a strange shadow on the wall and you’ll have a kid gawking in the middle of the night. Read more: how to remove old tape from wood Limit your exposure to violent imagery and turn off the news when your youngster is around. Exposure to repeated images of terror in the media can negatively affect children’s emotional health, according to a 2016 study published in the journal Frontiers in Pediatrics. These quasi-immediate events can trigger feelings of hopelessness and helplessness, the researchers write. They can also make children feel unsafe. “Children are quite imaginative. They imagine all sorts of things in the dark that aren’t there,” Sosland said. Young children often cannot distinguish between fantasy and reality. If they imagine a monster in a closet, it must be there in their mind.Turn on the light switch. If your kid can only sleep if the ceiling light is on, relax. Over time, the light dims. Gradually transition to a soft and warm light, then a closet light, and finally a yellow or orange night light. “Salt lamps are a great example of subdued colors,” says James. “Avoiding bright or blue lights stimulates the brain to produce cortisol, a wake-up hormone.”Teach breathing techniques. If your child already struggles with anxiety, teach them coping mechanisms during the day that you can also apply at night. For example, let a younger child blow bubbles to calm down. Teach older children to breathe deeply through their belly. Ask them to inhale for five seconds and slowly exhale as if you had a birthday candle in front of them. “But you don’t want to blow it away. You just want the ‘flame’ to go out,” advises Sosland.Given a transition object. Comfort your child with a stuffed animal or a special blanket to help him sleep. If you’ve become your child’s favorite teddy bear, begin to gradually eliminate dependence on you by waking up as soon as your baby is asleep. If he starts to protest, promise you’ll check on him in 5 minutes. Move to a position next to your bed. Finally, move his bed back to his own bedroom. If getting your child to sleep in his or her own bed becomes difficult, set up a token reward system using items like marbles or cashable gold stars as rewards. “You can’t get them to sleep but you can reward them to stay in their room,” says Sosland.Establish an environment that promotes sleep. White noise, fans, sound machines and soothing background music can repel the shrill silence of the night. Also, make sure the child’s bed is comfortable, the room temperature is cool, and place distracting electronic devices. Stick to a bedtime routine. Take time to reminisce about the fun events of the day. Listen to soothing music and avoid electronic devices. Read a soothing, uplifting book together before bed. And help children have positive images when they are falling asleep, like playing with a favorite pet.

The truth about fear of the dark
The fear of the dark usually begins around the age of 2 or 3.
Fear of the dark can continue into early adolescence.
Among kids ages 8 to 12, it’s topqa.infoce the third most popular and the most frustrating: Jane Sosland, Ph.D.