Conference moira::parenting_v3

    I too have a four year old boy, and this seems to be the time for some
    quite vivid dreaming.  Oftentimes I wake up to find him in bed beside
    me from a bad dream.  I would reassure him profusely that you are not
    going away from him (through dying) and that he is fine.  Talk about
    dreaming to him.  I often talk about some of the dreams I have had with
    my son, and how I too have scary dreams, ones that frighten me.  I tell
    him that if I am afraid of sleeping and having a scary dream, I try to
    think of soething really happy as I am lying in my bed trying to fall
    asleep.  Something like Santa Claus, or summertime, or your last
    birthday cake.
    
    I don't think it is unusual to have your son quite frightened by his
    bad dreams.  But do reassure him that they are only dreams, that you
    are not going to die, and that you are there for him.  That's what he
    needs to hear from you.
    
    If what the psychologists say is true about dreaming, dreams are the
    way your mind deals with fears that cannot be adequately expressed or
    dealt with in your waking life.  So if he is dreaming about your dying
    he must be going through a phase where he realizes you could.  And that
    is tough for a little guy his age to take.  Perhaps a little extra talk
    time about being afraid of things, what they are, would help.
    

    My daughter is older but she has similar fears.  I haven't "cured" it,
    but here are some things we did that seem to help.
    
    As -1 said, share some of your own childhood fears with him.  My
    daughter seems to appreciate that i.e. I am still here to talk about
    them and we can even giggle over some of them.  Laughing dispells fear
    like no other remedy.
    
    Play games recognizing noises.  My daughter is skittish about them too.
    So we try to guess "what makes that noise ?" with a large variety of
    possible solutions.  We debate why we agree/disagree that this or that
    noise could be made by this or that "thing".  He hopefully might feel
    better is the noise is recognized as familiar and harmless.
    
    About your (Mom) dying... I have this one too...!  I am lucky in that I
    have excellent health and my family members (Dad's side) all lived VERY
    old - in excellent shape.  So I tell her "dying young" doesn't run in
    the family (I can't promise not to die, because I eventually will) but
    I try to build on "feasibility" in the family.  I also emphasize what I
    am doing to stay healthy and fit.  She has pushed the question to the
    point of "but you will die some day" to which I say "yes, but not soon
    (using the above arguments) I added that even if I did I would always
    be with her in her heart and as her guardian angel - agin in the
    unlikely event this should happen in the near future.  This might sound
    a bit morbid, but I am a single mother and have had to take legal steps
    to ensure her well-being "just in case".  We have discussed this
    together and she helped choose the family that she would like to live
    with in this event.  (FYI I had a serious car accident 1 year ago - on
    my way to pick her up after school) I came out OK, but these fears, and
    thing had to be discussed openly... So I did the best I could.
    
    I hope you find some of these suggestions helpful.  Above all be
    patient and show/give all the love and reassurance you can.
    
    P.S. We have also strung up our "personal" burglar alarm in case anyone
    should try to break in the door while we are sleeping... A string of
    small cowbells - that would wake the dead, and that you CANNOT avoid
    when coming through the door !

    I don't envy you on this one. My heart would be breaking thinking that
    I couldn't ease his fears. 
    
    A couple suggestions....
    
    Explain dreams like the previous note said. He might need to talk out 
    that first nightmare some more.
    
    I assume that he must go to school or daycare. Explain the concept of
    being away and ask if he worries about you while you are seperated
    during this time. He may just need an indication that you can come and
    go and he remains in a familiar environment. This leads into the next
    suggestion.
    
    If tv is a comfort to him, use the time he is watching tv to expand you
    "leaving" him. Does he follow you into the bathroom when he is watching
    tv? If he doesn't, maybe try to do the things that you need to do while
    he is watching tv? You can talk to him from other parts of the house so
    he knows you are still with him, despite the fact that he cannot see
    you. He seems so scared now that easing him into realizing that you are
    not going away (you will not disappear if you go into the laundry room)
    just because you are out of sight.
    
    If he is trailing you all over, maybe ask him to go get something you
    need. Ensure him you will continue doing what you are doing and see how
    it goes.  
    
    Hope some of these might work (I'm no dreams/fear expert). Best of luck. 
    Andrea
                                                               

    Wow, you could be describing Steven at age 3!  It was a really
    rough stage while it lasted.  Which was most of two years. 
    
    For starters, this is a stage that most kids go to between 3 and
    4.  It has to do with reaching another stage of mental development
    that allows them to conceive of the possibilty of a world without
    Mother in it.  
    
    When he tells you he's afraid of being alone, that really is what
    he's afraid of. He's afraid you're going to go away and leave him
    and never come back.
    
    "Comfort objects" might help -- something of yours that he can
    keep and transfer his feeling for.  In our case I let Steven
    "borrow" some of my stuffed animals.  (Note that giving them to
    him didn't do the trick, because then they were his, not mine, and
    they didn't magially attach me to him.) 
    
    Explaining to him where you're going and exactly how long you're
    going to be gone, and then being extremely punctual, can help.
    
    Quite by accident we discovered that Steven was comforted by what
    I thought was a rather heartless discussion of what would happen
    if Neil and I died -- funerals, wills, who he'd live with and
    where the money would come from.  He seemed quite comforted to
    know that his big strong smart parents had already thought of that
    and planned to take care of him even if we weren't around any
    more.
    
    In your case, your son may feel Daddy is already gone -- I don't
    know what kind of contact his father has with him while he's away,
    but maybe some more contact, like a phone call at bedtime, would
    help.  If you can't afford that many phone calls on top 
    of law school pressures, commitments, and bills, you might try a
    postcard every day.  Cheap and quick to write, and if it has nice
    pictures of what Daddy's doing and where he lives, they might have
    the effect of a comfort object from Daddy. 
    
    Also, your son might think he did something bad that made his
    father leave.  I'm sure he doesn't see it as a wonderful
    opportunity for Daddy but rather as some kind of dreadful
    punishment.
    
    Did someone he knows die recently?  A  person, a pet, or even a
    stuffed animal or other toy?  Did someone around him use a
    careless euphemism for death that he took literally, like
    "Grandpa's gone" or "Kitty is asleep"? 
    
    Unfortunately there isn't much you can do for a child facing the
    realization that people do go away and don't come back -- it's
    something he has to come to terms with on his own.  
    
    --bonnie

    The fears described (abandonment, burglers, scary noises, the dark) are
    indeed fairly common at this age.  But it sounds as if they have come
    to dominate Jordan's life to a degree that is abnormal.  I think he
    needs help talking through these fears, so that he can recognize them
    and live with them.  Preferably soon, before they get even more
    thoroughly repressed.  It may be difficult or impossible for a parent
    to accomplish this alone, since you are doubtless at the center of the
    fear.  Possibly a skilled and sensitive teacher of his could do this,
    but perhaps a session or two with a child psychology type or child
    oriented social worker is called for.  Not that he needs "Treatment"
    beyond the talk, but training and experience can make it much easier
    for an adult to draw him out, and the "neutrality" of a non-family
    member may be helpful, too.  If you choose to try this, your
    pediatrician, pre-school, or school system (even though he is
    pre-school) could refer you to local resources.
    
    		- Bruce

    Are your son's fears connected to your husband's absence during the
    week?  Did the bad dreams start when your husband started his studies? 
    Do you see any difference when your husband is at home?
    
    It sounds like part of  your son's fears are "normal" for his age, but
    it also appears that something else is going on.
    
    You might try asking him to draw pictures or act out his feelings with
    puppets.  This may help him express some of his fears.
    
    
    Take care,
    Judi
    

    re: .5, and the situation in general
    
    Normally I agree that getting an outside mediator in a situation
    like this can be very helpful, but in this case I think I'd
    hesitate -- a child in the thrall of this kind of fear isn't
    likely to want to talk to anyone he doesn't know.  For a while,
    from about 3.25 to 3.5, Steven would go completely hysterical at
    the sight of a stranger.  I couldn't even take him to a two-hour
    playschool.
    
    My experience is that the waves of panic and extreme anxiety will
    come and go.  They'll usually last three or four days, sometimes
    as long as a week.  During the phase of extreme worry, I just did
    whatever I could to comfort him and get him through the night. 
    Once he calmed down, then we could talk about it.  When the next
    phase of worry came up, we could tell whether wht we'd said was
    helping by how he reacted.  
    
    He strongly preferred his father when he was feeling most scared. 
    I don't know if it's because Neil's better at conveying
    reassurance, or because Steven was always more of Daddy's little
    boy, or a combination. 
    
    --bonnie
    

    My son Stephen age 3.5, is having a problem being alone.  He doesn't
    want to be in any room that I'm not in. So if we are in the kitchen and
    he has to go to the bathroom I have to go with him.  This is
    frustrating for me because obviously I don't have the fears he has.  
    All of the rooms in our house are on one level and very close so you
    can talk to anyone in any room.
    
    Many times he will play by himself in his room without realizing he is 
    alone and he has a great time.  Other times he whines and cries
    everytime I change rooms and follows me.  It sounds like from the
    previous replies that this is the age for a vivid imagination.  He has
    also been waking up 1 or 2 nights a week with bad dreams, and I have to
    sit next to him until he falls asleep again.  The dreams are usually
    about some "bad guy" chasing him.
    
    Any support and suggestions?
    
    Karin

Hi, Karin.

I guess I would talk with Stephen, ask him about his fears.  See if there
was anything happening that I should know about.  Perhaps the fears are
*because* of the dreams, or perhaps the dreams are because of something
that happened while he was awake.  It could be a movie he saw, or a preview
for a movie, or something someone said...anything. 

At the same time, I would indulge him for a while in his need to have me near.
I think this will pass eventually, and this is something that you may need
to remind yourself from time to time.

Please let us know how it goes.

       Carol

    Hi Karen, I agree with the previous reply - I spoke with my son about
    his fear of being alone and after lots of encouragement it turned out
    that he had seen a scary movie and the vivid pictures got his
    imagination going.  Took alot of work to convince him that Hollywood
    makes things up even thoe what he saw really looked real.
    
    David

    Thanks for the encouragement.  I will try to have more patience with
    Stephen.  I have noticed he almost always has bad dreams at night-time
    if he has played with his friend Brandon.  The play imagination games
    where they are chasing bad guys and they have all the necessary swords
    etc. to battle them.  
    
    He does have an excellent imagination.
    
    Karin