Nightmares

The following is a selection from the book Raising Children Who Think For Themselves by Dr. Eisa Medhus. From the chapter titled "Specific Child Rearing Challenges - How to Handle Them to Encourage Self-Direction", the following introduction is offered.

"The best way to make children good is to make them happy." - Oscar Wilde

Here are some inner-directed suggestions that will help with some of the most trying child-rearing difficulties we may stumble upon. All of these approaches are designed to preserve your children's ability to rely on internal dialogue instead of external influences to assess and correct their behavior. Using this section as a ready reference will help you raise a self-directed child, even if it means carrying the book, tattered and tear-stained, to the market, in the car, or at home. There are some challenges that, I hope you will never have to face, but others will be as inevitable as a pimple on prom night.

To get to self-direction, there are a few universal caveats for every one of the situations that follow. First, our children need to understand and agree with both the need for the furl and the consequence for breaking it. Only when they come to agree with our rules, through their own internal dialogue, will they become self-directed. Second, look to your own parenting strategy as the possible source of some of the problem. Are you over-controlling or over-protective? Either trait can elicit an externally directed response, as your children react to an unhealthy situation. Third, remember for all these parenting challenges how important it is for you as parents, to model the right behavior. If you're expecting your children to act one way and you act another, the double standard will throw a monkey wrench into their whole internal dialogue machinery.

And lastly, don't forget to laugh.

Why they do it

Since children are learning new things, making new realizations about life, and undertaking new skills, they tend to have anxieties that will be vented in their dreams.

Logical consequences

They shouldn't suffer any consequences, because this isn't considered a punishable "offense."

Solutions toward self-direction

Teach your children strategies for breaking a recurrent nightmare. For instance, if your children have one about a great white shark, have them close their eyes in bed and make happy changes in their dream before they fall asleep. Maybe they can pretend that the shark turns into a ballerina and starts to dance with them. It's important to have some component of the change include your children interacting with the source of fear so that they can feel they have control over it.

Acknowledge the fears that arise from their bad dreams. And when they're lucid enough, discuss these dreams and any related issues that might be plaguing them in the present. This discussion will help them develop the internal dialogue necessary to tackle their fears in life.