“There’s a monster under my bed!” Or “I saw a fairy today!” Fantasies and imaginations run wild with small children. Even the young toddler may start to tell grand “tales” and have nightmares and fantasies. Our first inclination as parents may be to reprimand our child and try to get him to understand that his fantasies and imaginings are not “real”—but what is real and obvious to us may not be the same “real” that our child is experiencing.
Common advice for a parent who is dealing with a three-year-old who has developed a fear of “imaginary” ghosts is to tell the child that it is “not real.” Remembering my own children’s fears, fantasies and imaginations, I know that as far as they were concerned, it was very real to them and I was the kooky one who was either too insensitive or too blind to see what was really going on when I left the room or they were asleep! As an adult, I also know how much people spend to have their dreams analyzed and get in touch with their subconscious. Obviously, what is going on in our imaginations is important and influential enough to warrant shelves and shelves at the library and bookstore, so how can we tell our children that their fantasies and imaginings don’t matter?
Instead of getting into a pointless power struggle over what is “real” and what is “imagined” it might make more sense to help our children develop coping skills and learn how to discern for themselves what is “factual real” and what is “imaginary real.” For a young child, waking from a very scary, very detailed, and very lucid dream can seem absolutely real and when we try to tell them otherwise, they may feel as though we are untrustworthy and don’t understand. Instead, we can try to “work from within,” using empathy and understanding. The same goes for arguing about whether imaginary friends are real or other fantasies—children will eventually outgrow these fantasies and if we can give them the coping skills they can learn how to quiet their own fears and differentiate between “dreaming” and awake.
Help Your Child Triumph over Irrational Fears