When Your Child Wakes Up Terrified!

It is truly only a dream, but your child believes it is real. So do you know what must be done when your son rises from his sleep screaming?

"Mother, help me — it's eating me!" So screamed Sami, waking his parents in the middle of the night. He was sitting up in his bed, trembling with fear, his tears rolling down his cheeks. His mother came near slowly, turned on the lamp, and said, taking his hand between her palms: "Calm yourself, my darling; there is nothing to fear. You were dreaming. Wipe away your tears and go back to sleep." The child swallowed hard and began to stare at the room, at his mother, at the toys; then he smiled and murmured, "It's a dream." Two minutes later he was fast asleep, and in the morning he had forgotten everything.

Little ones dream very often, and whether they wake depends on the "weight" of the dream and the depth of sleep. In fact the dream is quickly forgotten, but it seems real at the moment it happens. It is a hard trial; if you scold the child, you are not only wrong but cruel, for he needs to feel his parents' strength. You must have patience and understanding, however tiring that may seem at night; a gentle word, or lighting the lamp, or a glass of water you offer him, will dispel these phantoms from him. Some parents think that going into the child's room in such a case breeds a bad habit in him. They are mistaken: he needs help and the bolstering of his confidence, and he may not go back to sleep until he has seen them.

The desire to sleep at night is a natural thing, but the desire to stay with one's parents outweighs it. So if the boy takes the dream as a means of drawing his parents to him, that means his need runs deeper — the need to be reassured about himself; there may be within him a doubt that wakes only at night. The parents must be alert to this and take counsel on his behalf, and they will usually get help. The child passes through different stages of growth, and a change comes over him whose presence is sometimes confirmed in his imagining of these dreams. So long as the child is surrounded with complete care, he passes through it as through all the other stages of his development.

The first period of growth comes in the middle of the second year — that is, the age of "I won't" — when even the quietest of children turns contrary. The dreams are the complement of this war raging within the child's soul and with the surroundings about him.

This question has puzzled parents and scientists for generations, and at last they have managed to shed some light on this truth. One physician specializing in children has proved that wild animals and beasts play an important part in these dreams, and that is how the child of today, who opens his eyes upon the modern inventions, has come through this stage.

There is a kind of dream connected with the subconscious mind and its wishes or whims, and this we tame in our lives. "Freud" spoke of how we use the subconscious mind to express things we dare not disclose in a state of full consciousness. These feelings gather by day in inner corners of the mind, where they lie still; and when we sleep, they crawl out of their hiding place and take shape in the form of a dream. The oddest of them are those a person forgets the moment he wakes, which means that the subconscious mind has drawn those thoughts back to their original storehouse. Your child needs your hand to help him, and your smile to strengthen his resolve and assure him that he will anger no one, whatever he may think in his dream.

Here is Samir, screaming in his sleep. He starts up suddenly to see his mother, and is comforted by her presence — but he turned his face away when he caught sight of his father. The father understood that the dream concerned him, so he left the room without pressing him. In the morning the father began his inquiry, holding the child on his lap, and asked him playfully: "Samir was frightened last night." The boy thought a moment and then said: "He was frightened? Of what? You know." And the father began listing his suggestions: "Was he frightened of the tiger? Or the wolf? No — I know: he was afraid because he is a naughty boy." Yes, that was what frightened him: he had been mischievous, and had dreamed that he fired a shot at his father. To set his thoughts at rest, the father said: "Listen, my dear: if you do that in a dream, it frightens no one and harms no one, so do not be afraid. You are a good boy. Go now and play with your friends." Samir threw his arms around his father's neck and then bounded off to join his companions. Parents must be skillful enough not to be wounded by such a dream; more than that, they must strengthen the child's confidence in himself and convince him that he is a good boy and that his dream is natural. No doubt it is hard for parents to accept such fancies — yet that is exactly what they must learn if they want their children to grow up without fear: to help the child accept all these feelings so that his spirit does not shrink into itself, to give him freedom, and then to surround him with affection and understanding in full measure!