How to Help Kids Overcome Fear of Monsters

The way parents do or do not react determines if the fear goes away or not. Children have an intense need to be heard and a keen ability to sense when they are not. So first and foremost set down relax, be quiet and just listen till they get it all out.

Let’s face it our kids are exposed to much more information than we were as kids. The scope of their fear is far reaching than that of ours as a child. The playing ground is completely different and more complicated.  Kids today are exposed to so many frightening images on television, it can happen so fast leaving you with the question, how to erase those fears? 

Helpful Tip to Quiet Fears

If your child sees something scary on TV set down with them and watch Mrs. Doubtfire, this movie proves to a child how TV can transform real people into something they are not! This proves your theory that it’s only make believe!

Help build strong imaginations that over power fears troubling them.

1. Encourage your child to talk out loud about what they fear and imagine it happening right now. Story telling can help you to help them change the outcome.
2. Next help them to visualize themselves approaching what they fear and without anything bad happening but something good instead.
3. Help them to make up situations that are positive such as them defeating the bad thoughts, dreams or villains. Your child can and will learn to be their own super hero and be empowered by their own abilities.
4. If your child is afraid of bugs, spiders or snakes read about them. There’s nothing better than the truth. Reading about animals and their real life is knowledge that stamps out fears.

5. Animals are small, hungry, sleepy and curious just like your child building a relationship of common traits helps reduce fear. This tactic works with anything, storms, water and characters.

   Note: Reading about facts desensitizes kids and brings fears back to reality which makes sense and calms fears. This practice allows your child to come to terms with the fact that these things are not scary or don’t exist on their own terms.

Truly overcoming fear of monsters, ghost and the dark is a simple case of seeing is believing. A child will come to believe it when they have the tools needed to prove it. Kids won't take a quick response claiming it's not real.

Fear is real and overwhelming and must be dealt with accordingly. Give them power to control their fears by arming them with a flashlight. Regardless of what we discuss and learn nighttime is the time to really reinforce the truth and knowledge with a little magic of our own.

Helpful Tools to Eliminate a Child's Fear

• A flash light gives kids a sense of control over the truth allowing them the tool to prove to themselves nothings there and everything is okay.
• White noise sound machines also calm the room and block out sudden squeaks and sounds heard in the house at nighttime.

Filtering out the normal things that go bump in the night is a major factor in delivering a calm and restful sleep.

Fitful sleep can make a child feel tension and stress while preparing for bedtime.  This is harmful to their otherwise healthy development. Sleeping peacefully and without fearful waking repeatedly will enable your child to wake rested and over joyed with the breaking day.  Childhood fears are perfectly normal and can easily be eliminated with a little attention to detail and a good listening ear.  Sweet Dreams!