Bet you didn't know Scentsy sold that :)I told him to have his mom or dad spray it in his room so no aliens could get in. When I talked to Carlye later about it she said he was having her spray for zombies too.
So now Evan has been having nightmares too. About aliens? No. About a monkey in his closet! And no, he has never seen Family Guy.
It actually started because I had put a big gorilla stuffed animal in their closet for them to play with not knowing it would terrify Evan. We took the stuffed gorilla out of the closet and put it in the play room. He found it one day and brought it upstairs screaming "THE MONKEY NEEDS TO GO TO THE ZOO!". He insisted on putting the monkey out on the front porch, so now my neighbors know why we had a monkey on our porch. I had forgotten about it and when Isaac came home he brought the monkey in and put it on the couch. When Evan saw it on the couch he was totally freaked out. We put it back on the porch and later I moved it to the storage room where he won't see it. But he is still having nightmares about the monkey in the closet. First of all I hate waking up in the middle of the night to comfort him and show him there is no monkey but most of all I hate seeing him so scared. He isn't afraid of the closet or anything during the day, its just after a nightmare so I don't think spray would work because he knows there is no monkey. I thought about taking him to the zoo to see the gorillas but I am afraid that might make it worse if he sees one really moving around.
So I thought up another maybe unconventional idea. I thought about letting him watch this Family Guy clip. I really don't like Family Guy (Isaac loves it) and I have never allowed the kids to watch it but I am wondering if this might put the idea in his head that he could beat up the monkey and then he won't be scared anymore. I would like to know your opinion on this.
2 comments:
Brendan used to have nightmares about various things. All I could do was say a 'special prayer' to Heavenly Father that he wouldn't have nightmares and only good dreams. And it had to be a special one- not just your normal nightly one.
There has got to be something he watched or heard that made him afraid... if you can find an underlying cause then you can usually talk it out. Brendan's fears came from watching superhero shows with the bad guys and such. Nightmares are so hard. I'm glad he's out of that stage- except for the fact that we still pray nightly for good dreams. He makes us say it over if we forget. :)
Good luck!
Isn't it crazy how something seemingly harmless can be scary? My parents got Glenn a cute hand puppet of a dinosaur in the egg and he wouldn't look at it or touch it, eventually he warmed up to it. I guess I'm for facing the fear, in general. Like let them be around (if possible and within reason of course) what they're afraid of-with limited time frame if needed. They can learn it is ok. We had a kid hysterical over our cat, (I mean high pitched squealing and jumping onto someone or the couch and he was 5) and I just let him be around the cat for a little while every time he was over, and if it got to be too much we would lock him (the cat) in the bathroom. Eventually he warmed up more to the cat.
Glenn warmed up to the dinosaur as he saw Mere and us playing with it, but I never put it in his face (after realizing it scared him) or forced him to play with it. Maybe you can get that gorilla out and he can learn it's really ok. I definitely wouldn't show that clip-beating something up is NOT a good answer to frustration or problem. Especially since kids seem prone to use physical force to deal with things anyway. Keep us updated :) cute alien spray!
ps mere gets scared of our cat sometimes too (he's pretty wild) so I reason with her a little and move him away when she's worried at night time but I don't shut her bedroom door or put the cat out. I think we all learn that fears have to be faced. sorry that' s so long!
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