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Hi, ladies. This is not a home schooling topic or about curriculum, but I know many of you have several children in your homes so I thought you would be good 'advisors' in this area. I hope it's okay to post this here.

My third child, 5 yo (six in June) son, is having some major sleep issues and problems with fear in general. We have dealt with this before but never as bad. He is afraid to go into rooms alone whether it's daytime or dark, even if there is someone in the next room, he can hear us talking, etc. He won't go into the basement alone without a fight (it's a finished basement and his job is to feed the cats who live down there). We have spent several nights placing him back into his room after tucking him in because he comes running downstairs screaming that he's scared. He is afraid of monsters and also fire. We all watched Firehouse Dog in March or April and although it is supposed to be a family movie (I don't recall the rating) it scared him. There was a scene where the boy was trapped in a building that was on fire, and although he got out safely I think that is what my son is remembering and worrying about. We have prayed with him, reassured him that monsters do not exist, that Mommy and Daddy are here to watch over him, that God is always watching, etc. Nothing has helped. I spent about and hour and a half last night walking back and forth from his room to the stairway and back to put him in his room again because he kept following me out, trying to race past me to get downstairs. I tell you, it was heartbreaking and frustrating all at the same time. I felt like on of those families you see on Supernanny because he was screaming all of the same kinds of things you hear those kids yell out. It was so hard, and I don't know if I can do it again....will it work, how long will it last? KWIM? I had to take him and his older brother to the doctor today and I mentioned this to the Dr. while we were there. His solution was to make "monster juice" and spray it in my son's closet and under his bed every night. He assured my son it works, and told me it works. I don't really have a problem with things like that, just like others doing Santa and such is okay if they want to do that. However, I want my son to learn to trust in God and in us as his parents, and not in some made up 'juice' that gets rid of monsters that I've already told him do not exist. So, I'm not sure how to handle that and I kind of wish I had not mentioned it to the Dr. As far as the fire issue, he suggested we come up with an evacuation plan (which we need anyway) and thought that would help my son feel better. So, we will be doing that. I guess my reason for coming to you all is just for some encouragement, and any words of wisdom that you have for me. I want to be sensitive to my son's fears....I understand being afraid of things to the point that it can paralyze you.....but I also want him to be obedient and stay in his bed when it's bedtime without having to make deals and promises, etc. Something else I should mention is that he shares a room with his big brother, but his brother goes to bed later than he does. His sister goes to bed when he does, and is right across the hall, so he's never up there alone. However, it doesn't help. He still screams and runs downstairs. He wants to have someone in the room with him. What can we do to help him? I am at a loss. It is affecting the relationship he has with my husband and my relationship with my husband as well. We cannot come to an agreement about how to handle it. And one more thing to add in is the new baby...she'll be 3 months on Sunday. I feel a lot of this has to do with her birth and the fact that we have less time for my 5 yo than we did before. He is struggling with where he fits in the family now, I think, but I have no idea what to do. I try to spend time playing with him and reading to him when I can, but it seems like he's always in trouble because he is being disobedient. He often refuses to obey simple commands, is always talking back, etc. Our oldest two do this often, so I'm sure he picked it up from them. We're just pretty much in chaos around here much of the time. Any suggestions?

Individual story time and prayer with Dad before bed would be very helpful. If not Dad then you. Please continue to be honest about fears and monsters (demons do exist, but tiny compared to angels and nats compared to God) and PRAY. Pray over his room and fears with and without him. Play Christian music in his room. We have taught our kids to pray about nightmares, fears . . .that God would protect them, help them have good sleep, and "whatever fear is" would go away in Jesus name.
He might get some extra help in his place in the family if he could be the gopher for the year (a great 5 year old job: get me a diaper please, throw this away please, get out the silverware, etc. . .with a baby there is no end to the desire of having four hands and legs instead of two). Then consider praise and allowance for doing his job. We set an age to gopher duty so our oldest child would not continue doing more and more every year instead of rotating jobs down to the next person.
Father, please flood her with Your peace, presence and power.

This is some advise I got from my kid's dr. when my son was 4 and we had a new baby. Ignore some of the "attention" behavior. Not if he hits or bites or something like that, but tantrums screaming, etc. Praise the good behavior. That way he is only getting attention for good behavior. If he backtalks or is disrespectful, just plainly say we don't talk like that and move on no big, long discussion about it. The more you obsess and fret the more he knows he is getting attention. Bad attention, but attention from Mommy and Daddy.
Now for the fears. I have an 8 year old daughter that does this. She is bad about watching seemingly harmless things on tv and then being petrified for weeks on end. I had to check the shower forever after her watching a documentary on mummies, and even now she doesn't want to close the bathroom door when she showers. I have no idea what the shower has to do with mummies. Compromise. If Daddy and brothers aren't home, I don't make her close the door when she showers. Don't make up monster juice and other silly things that just make a worse problem. Do let them go with you to pick out a special night light or toy to sleep with that comforts them. Not protects them, but comforts them. Sometimes reverse psychology works. Saying, You need to make "toy" feel brave. He is scared. Can you help him stay in bed and sleep and be brave? You are such a big boy and "toy" wants to be such a big, brave boy like you. The idea about music is good. Classical music is really good to go to sleep with.
Also, have you tried moving his bedtime to later so that he will be more tired and less likely to keep getting up. Maybe have him go to sleep with the older brother if it isn't a huge gap in their bed times.
Here is a Veggie Tales video that may help and will show from a christian point of view. There are links to books from Veggie Tales on it too. My 6 yr old son is very big on Veggie Tales. You may could run the video at bedtime to make him feel more secure. It is called Where's God when I am S-Scared?
https://bigidea.com/products/shows/show ... px?pid=675
I hope this helps and I am praying for you and your family. Sometimes it just takes time and maturity though and patience on our part.
Val

I totally relate to your post. I think it can also just be their age. My daughter is five as well and struggles immensely with fear. I am off to a spa party but I will be back later to post. I am praying for you and your son....I am in the trenches right now, so I know what you are dealing with to a great extent. Be back later.

My ds will be 8 this summer, and he still goes through spurts of this behavior. The advice you have gotten has been good. There was a really cute activity in the Beyond guide, week 25 that might apply to your situation. After reading the Bible passage about the armor of God, we made the pieces of armor using gray construction paper, labeled them, and taped them to a stuffed animal. If you did something like that and placed the stuffed animal on his nightstand, he could look at it and be reminded, in a tangible way, of God's protection of us and the power we have in Christ. Another idea would be to sew a little cuddle pillow for him. Let him stuff it and include a little paper heart that says, "God watches over me," or something like that. Then sew up the side. He could cuddle with it each night and remember the saying or Bible verse that is hidden inside.
hth,
Laura

Ok, my five year old daughter is much the same way. She will not even enter the hallway which is attached to our living room and very wide without first turning on the light. She will not go into any room by herself without lights on. And usually she'll ask me to come with her or convince her little brother to go with her. My daughter also has nightmares usually about me dying. This happens frequently. She dreams horrible things that we have no clue where she comes up with it like the most recent one was that I was being eaten by a bear and she was watching it. No clue where that came from. When she is like this it is hard to get her to go back to sleep and very often impossible until from sheer exhaustion hours later she succumbs.

I start off understanding and calming her down. I show her that there is nothing to be afraid of and I'll pray with her. If she starts in again, I go in and calm her down and remind her to talk to God. If she starts in again, which she usually does, I get very firm and tell her that is enough. She knows nothing is wrong and I will not keep doing this. She will stop right now. She is usually hysterical at this point, to which I'll get close to her and say that she is done. No more. I then tell her that she doesn't have to sleep if she doesn't want to but she does have to be quiet out of respect for her brother who is trying to sleep in the same room. I'll even let her get a stuffed animal or doll to sleep with and that typically helps. I then tell her that if she continues screaming and throwing fits, I will come in and spank her bottom. I know that sounds harsh but let me just say that the initial fear is gone once I acknowledge it and we pray about it the first time. There may be a hint of it when I leave the room which is why I go back in with understanding. But beyond that it is a ploy to get me in there because she doesn't want to be alone and she is afraid to sleep. That is not a good reason for those kinds of fits. I let her know I am not playing that game with her in no uncertain terms. I know some don't advocate spanking but I issue it as a last resort. It comes down to who is in control. If that means taking toys or privileges away for continued behavior...then do it. If it means spanking...then do it.

For the monster issue: my daughter used to have a fear of monsters because of the shadows in her room. Every night before bed, I'd hand her our giant flashlight and tell her to look all around the room for monsters. She'd look under her bed, behind the curtains, in her dresser drawers, in the closet, etc. When she couldn't find one I'd remind her that that is because they are not real. We just proved there is nothing to be afraid of in her own room. Flashlights do wonders because they are such novelties anyway.

How does your husband want to handle it? You said you are not on the same page and obviously from the sounds of it you are trying to handle it right now. Why not let your husband handle it his way for a week and see if there is any improvement. Sometimes a fresh face (sterner dad) and a new approach can do wonders for a child's willingness to be obedient. If the problems still persist then you need to have a team meeting and figure it out together.

I am not an expert because my daughter still has some overwhelming fears but monsters and bedtime are ones we are actively working on or are already passed. She is still terribly afraid of dogs, being alone, being left in the house for even a second while I take something outside, if I don't tell her goodbye by waving numerous times and blowing kisses until I am down the street, if I am not there to tuck her in, etc. So, just know I am there too.

I'm no expert. My son was afraid of the little red light on the smoke detector in his bedroom from the time he was 2 till he was 5. We had to put duct tape over it. My daughter sleeps with a small lamp on.

I would suggest however that you switch out the feeding the cats chore with one that doesn't involve the basement for now. Our basement is made of rock walls and unfinished, it is a bit scary. My son wouldn't go down there alone until about a month ago (he's almost 9). Basements can feel scary even when finished.

We've always allowed the kids to get into bed with us if they had a scary dream until recently. Must be the pregnancy hormones, but I can't stand anyone touching me in my sleep now.

I'm sorry but I don't have any other advice to offer . I sure hope you figure something out, you need your downtime too.

Thanks so much for the replies ladies, I really appreciate it. I just want to answer a couple of questions that were asked.

My husband and I are having trouble agreeing how to handle the situation. I thought we had agreed to just keep placing ds back into his bed when he does this; it was actually my dh's idea...to use the technique used on Supernanny for this particular problem. We both do agree that after the first couple of times it's not so much fear as stubbornness. However, the night I was trying to do this my husband came and took over and did not stick with the 'plan'. He ended up using threats (to close ds door), trying to make deals (sister will come up when he's quiet), etc. I felt what I had been doing for a half hour was wasted time and I had to start all over once dh's method did not work. So, I guess to answer the question about what dh wants to do...I don't know. He did not stick to what he said. We really need to discuss it again and then stick to what we decide!

As far as spanking, we have tried that and it does not work with this issue. He will actually start yelling that he wants a spanking because he'd rather face that than bed or the basement or whatever else it might be. So, not sure what to do there.

I will say that he went to sleep last night without a fight. I thank God for that. His sister was in her room across the hall and I had prayed with him and talked to him about God's protection. He was quiet the entire time until his brother went upstairs. He told me when I went to tuck in his brother that he was quiet because he did not want his brother to be up late and be really tired the next day...which is nice, but it also shows me that it has been more of a power struggle than fear and that's disappointing. I'm glad that he may not be as afraid as I thought but a little sad that we have to go through this battle...life is full of them though, right? I made sure that I told him I was very proud of him for being quiet and staying in his bed.

Any more suggestions are welcome. Maybe you could pm me so we don't take up too much time on this on the board...I don't want to take away from others who have curriculum questions, etc. Thanks again for all the suggestions and encouraging words. I appreciate the willingness of everyone here to be so helpful.

We have dealt with similar things since my dd was 3 (almost 6 now). Right before my ds turned 1, my dd fell into the campfire when we were camping, she was almost 3.5. The daddies who were there grabbed her, threw her into the dirt rolling her, took her clothes off to inspect and poured cold water all over her. It was pretty frightening for all involved. Long story short, she had trouble sleeping. A good friend of mine, who is also a child psychologist, suggested a couple of things:

1. Create a "reward" system for staying in bed. We created tickets and gave her 4. She could call us 4 times (for anything, silly or not)without penalty, and anytime she called after that it was up to our descretion whether it was valid or not. Like, going to the bathroom was ok, but wanting another animal to sleep with was not.

2. We initally allowed her to sleep with us after the fall, but we grew tired of that quickly. (She tosses and turns when she sleeps, so daddy didn't get the sleep he needed for work, and me with a 1yr old who also wasn't sleeping through the night meant pretty much no sleep for me.) So, we bought her a sleeping bag that I kept next to my side of the bed. If she had a bad dream, she could come in and sleep on the floor next to me, but she had to wake me and tell me about the dream so we could talk/pray about it before going back to sleep. She still comes in sometimes. (We also have started doing this with my ds, and he seems to be going through a bad dream stage, and it is working pretty well.)

3. As far as the monsters go, my Dr. told us to do the same thing with "monster" spray, i.e. water bottle. The thing with us, is that she heard him say it and the first time we "tried" it, she said, "Mommy that's just water." So much for that! Our exterminator came later that same week, and he was explaining to her that he was spraying for yucky crawling bugs and spiders. She said, "Oh, do you spray for monsters too?" Without missing a beat, he said "I sure do." So that took care of the monster issue for us. He only sprays the outside of the house, so he has continued the ruse by explaining that since he sprays around the outside of the house, the monsters don't even get close. She has explained that to several of her friends and her brother when they say they are scared of monsters. I think she's starting to catch on that they aren't real, but I think it's pretty hard for kids to understand that concept.

Good luck...we will be praying for you here!

oooh I like the ticket idea!!!!!!!!! Thanks!!!

I was like this as a child. I also had a lot of nightmares and slept walk. One thing that I can tell you for sure is getting them to tough it out does not teach them good coping skills. I think praying with them and teaching them how to pray specifically about their fears is a good thing. Creating some compromise situations, a small light on etc. I also agree with the previous poster that said if he is afraid of the basement then I would not make his chore include going down there. That kind of thing really I think perpetuates the fear rather then helps them deal with it. Really it can be very traumatic to make them face a fear like that. My unprofessional but BTDT myself advice would be to treat it as a very real thing because to the child it is real and try to work with helping them to cope and find a place that is a comfortable medium. And in that teach them to turn to God as the source of comfort and protection. Above all else pray for him. Fear is a hard stronghold. Praying for you. I know this can be very trying for the parent as well. We have a couple that have some fear issues and end up at the foot of our bed some night. For our kids we do a lot of positive enforcement and try to work on routine. I am bad at that right now. My dh works until 9:30 so I tend to let the kids stay up to spend time with him. It is not good for the problem because tired kids on a routine that struggle with fear are not helped by all that chaos. As much as possible though I strive for routine and calm evenings with a lot of confirmation of God's protection before bedtime. And sometimes we do rewards (very small and usually not costing money rewards) for them really trying to overcome. I try to put it up to God and also in their hands rather than me forcing it as much as possible. I have found that brings the best results. Praying you find the best solution for your child!

water2wine wrote: One thing that I can tell you for sure is getting them to tough it out does not teach them good coping skills.

To an extent I agree with you but at some point in life they have to deal with what is problematic for them. It comes with a good dose of prayer and a lot of facing those fears. Yes, God can take them away but you have to face what fears you to overcome it with support. I am trying to teach my children to trust God.

I'd say instead of changing that job of feeding the cats in the basement....do the chore with him. He still has to do the actual chore but he isn't alone. As he sees that going down there isn't so hard, over time he can take it over without the gnawing fear. You are providing him security while still telling him that this is his job and he must do it. If you can't always go down have the older siblings or your husband go down with him.

So, we've had two night in a row with absolutely no problems with my ds...we did pray and talk about how monsters don't exist and we talked about how to get out of the house in the case of a fire. We did not do monster juice....however, I'm keeping the idea about the flashlight in my back pocket. That was a great idea. My son informed me that he is no longer afraid of fires or monsters. What does that tell you? I'm thinking it was a fear initially but then he started using it to get more attention? It worked, getting us to keep coming upstairs. I'm wondering if he decided it wasn't worth it after me spending 1.5 hours putting him back into his bed every time on Sunday night. He got no talking from me or anything, just putting him back where he belonged...anyway, I'm glad not to have had a struggle for two nights, and I've gotten some great advice and ideas if he starts up again. Thanks again for all the wonderful suggestions!

This is a small idea, but it's one thing we did....

Ds4 has a "build-a-bear" that he sleeps with. We took him back to the store and he had a big "roar" sound sewn into him (they will open an old bear up to do this). Now, when he gets scared, he lets the bear scare the "monster" or whatever off. I will add, though, that we also talk and pray with him constantly about how God protects us and how to pray when he is scared. Both have helped!

We used to have one of those tiger flashlights that roared, but he kept playing with it and shining the light in his eyes. I think the "light therapy" kept him from going to sleep!!

YAY!!!!! Two nights of no problems at bed. That is just wonderful.