No Monsters Allowed
This entry was posted on 10/9/2007 6:13 AM and is filed under Children,Tips,Family.
A friend of mine mentioned yesterday that her daughter was dealing with the fear of monsters when she goes to bed. It reminded me of when my daughter was that age and had the same fear. I thought I'd share what worked for us in case others have the same problem and can adapt from it to suit their needs.
We made up signs that said, "No Monsters Allowed!" We hung them on the outside of her bedroom door. She added some along the way on her closet door and on our front and back doors to the house. See the thing about monster is, that they
always follow the rules. So if you put a rule out, they have to follow it - or else...
Then since I had this recipe for Anti-Monster spray
, we pulled that out and whipped up a batch in an empty non-aerosol spray bottle. She called it Monster Spray since the Anti- had no meaning to her and colored a label with a mailing label sticker. The recipe I remember had water and vanilla in it and other things that aren't coming to mind, but the point was that monsters do not like things that smell good, so the recipe should contain a nice scent.
We had a ritual then before she went to bed where she would take the spray and spray it where she just knew the monsters lived or she had seen them. The whole house was a target at first, then just starting at the front door down and then throughout her room, and eventually she forgot about it/them. It was never my initiative. She had to remember and do it on her own (with me by her side for protection, of course), but I never did it for her. Even when she'd wake up in the middle of the night and say she'd forgotten or the spray had worn off, I'd go back to her room with her, let her spray it, and then tuck her back in her bed.
Then one day I noticed the signs were down from all doors except her bedroom, and about a month later that came down, too. The whole process was probably about 6 months, but only the first couple weeks were actually any 'work'.
On about the 3rd batch, though, we were out of vanilla and by now she knew vanilla was in the recipe, it was a little nerve wrecking until we found a neighbor at 9pm that would borrow us a tsp.
I'm just going to say use common sense with ingredients, I hate all the "you are really a dumb-a**" warning labels that are out there. Be smart. And Good Luck!!
