Momma Sandy Says - Nightmares

Momma Sandy Says

Nightmares

   Nightmares are universal.  Everyone has them at one time or another.  How we handle them and how we teach out children how to handle them is my topic here.

As I was thinking about this topic it occurred to me that how we train our children is often related to how we were trained.  I think it is a good idea to evaluate how you were taught to handle nightmares.  Did you think it was good?  If not, why not?

   My own childhood is an example.  Both of my parents were raised in households where emotions were not to be shown publicly.  Nightmares were a personal, private thing.  To be handled by the individual without disturbing the rest of the household.  Especially in my dad's family, the adults exhibited a lot of selfishness.  When I was very small, they would comfort me when I had nightmares, but the older I got, the more I was expected to deal with my own fears.  If I couldn't, I could come to them, preferable the next morning.

   For an imaginative, sensitive child like me, this was not the best approach.  I still remember times of terror when I would wake up from a nightmare and not be able to overcome my fears for a very long time.  When I had my own children I wanted to avoid that for them.

  How are you going to teach your children how to deal with nightmares?  Remember, both parents should have a united front.  There is a wide range of options.  Everything from fully available for every bad dream your child ever has, to unavailable.  Both extremes have their issues.

   Being there for every bad dream, while helping them to recover from the dream as quickly as possible, does not build character.  They can grow up thinking they will always be comforted.  That they do not have to "tough it out" sometimes.  I think that's a disservice to the children.  Also, the continual comfort can play into Control struggles between parent and child.  Do you really want your kids in your bed every night?

   The other end, without comfort, can contribute to night terrors, which can become a lifelong problem.  And also leave children with the feeling that they cannot rely on their parents to help them when they really need them.

   I recommend a balance between the two extremes.  Be loving and comforting.  Yet set limits and teach them practical steps to recover from nightmares.  You might have to walk them through those steps a few times, but it's worth it.  You will have taught them viable methods that they can use the rest of their lives.

   Time to talk about the nightmares.  As smart folks have figured out, there are lots of causes for nightmares.  They can be the result of traumatic events.  It can be the mind working through issues.  And it can be outside stuff that can become triggers.

    It seems like every child has a trigger, something that tends to cause nightmares.  It might be certain movies.  The Chucky horror movie series was a trigger for a lot of kids.  It might be a normally harmless image.  It might be a smell or a sound.  For me, it was hearing horror movies (usually B or lower grade) late at night.  I was fine watching them, but with my imagination, just the sounds were often a trigger.  One example was the horrid movie, "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman."  Hearing it from the other room gave me nightmares for several nights.  I've watched it since-not scary at all.

   If you discover something that triggers nightmares for your child-do your best to avoid them being exposed to it.  Your kid has problem with the Chucky series, don't let him or her see them.  Change the channel.  The good news is that kids often outgrow these childhood triggers.

   As we know from our own lives, our minds are often still processing information when we're sleeping.  And thinking about problems and causes of stress.  How many people have had the dream of being naked while giving a speech?  The dream of not being prepared?

   As these kinds of dreams occur, help your children to understand them for what they are.  Your children need to prepare as well as they can.  You can tell them not to worry, but teaching them how to separate themselves from the worry is a useful skill to learn.  Encourage your children to talk about these dreams.  It helps you to understand your child's minds.  You should tell them your own stories..

   Lastly, trauma based dreams.  These are the hard ones to have and to help with.  Again, this is a case of your brain processing information/events.  The more traumatic the event or image, the more your child will need to talk about the event and the dreams.  To understand that they are now free from the initial trauma, but their brains just haven't caught up yet.  If the event is traumatic enough, professional help may be needed.

   The underlying trauma can be from a wide range of things.  And the trauma may also be effecting you.  Grief due to death can fall in this.

  Sometimes nightmares go beyond simple bad dreams.  They can be reoccurring.  It can include abrupt, almost violent awakening, crying, even sleepwalking.  The key is vivid, realistic, dreams that are hard to shake and reoccurring.  These kind of nightmares can impair your child's sleep, and ultimately his health and/or his mental state.  Get professional help-starting with the primary care physician.  There could be a physical cause.

   If your child is able to talk about these dreams, look for reoccurring themes.  What fears seem to be underlying it?  Any information you can glean about the causes will be useful.

  I have a story from my own childhood about this.  When I was around 4 years old (before starting regular school) there was a wild, brush fire in the hills somewhat close to my home.  We were safe, but we could see the flames at night.  Even as a child that young I understood the destructive power of those flames.  I had a nightmare.  A strong, scary one about fire.

   My parents calmed me down after I woke up screaming.  I did better the second night-no screaming, but still waking up terrified from the fire dreams.  This continued even after the fire was out.  Then I started sleepwalking while having the fire nightmares.  That scared my parents.  I had never done that before (I haven't since either).

   So, my parents took me to our family doctor.  Luckily he was a wise man and I probably wasn't the only patient with the problem.  The doctor reasoned that the continuing smell of smoke and the ashes that were still on everything were probably serving as triggers to convince my mind that there was still danger.  His recommendation?  Get me out of town for a few days-away from the smell triggers.

   My parents followed his recommendation.  My mom and I joined some friends who were traveling out of town to visit relatives.  About a 6-8 hour drive away.  With the change of scenery my nightmare about fire went away.  It and the sleep walking did not return, even when we returned home.

   The episode was not completely over though.  I would continue to have fire nightmares for many years, though never as severe.  I found that watching television coverage of brush fires could be a trigger.  As could the smoke smell when they were close again.  I've largely outgrown those triggers, but I still avoid watching tv coverage of fires for very long.