Opinions please. Our son (4 year old) was a confident lad up until about maybe 2 weeks ago, when very suddenly, he now gets terrified if one of us is not in the same room as him. He's taken to waking us up in the middle of the night crying and screaming, he wont go upstairs to the toilet unless one of us stands at the bottom of the stairs. If its just me and him or his mam and him in the living room, and we pop to the kitchen, he will stop what he's doing and follow us. I've tried several times to find out what's happened. All I can get is that he had a bad dream, and it involves fire. Other than that, he just freezes up when I tried to get him to tell me. So I came up with an idea. Maybe he is too young to articulate what's bothering him, maybe a picture will help, so I asked him to draw me a picture of what was bothering him. He set to work, and I was surprised when he reported he was finished after just a few seconds. He brought me his felt tip picture. Just orange flames. I don't know what to do or what to think.
Ask him where the flames are or what is behind the flames. Set his mind to 'moving' the thoughts about to start to shift the focus. Make sure he's calm and feels safe when you do this. I'd be freaked out also. I wonder what put the thought into his head to set him dreaming like that (if it was indeed a dream)? What topics are they teaching at school at the moment? He's obviously quite scared about it.
I think they've done a bit at school recently about what to do if there's a fire. When I spoke to him about it, he brightened up at one point and said "I know, if there's a fire, we all get out". It could be all sorts of things though. Its crossed my mind that the hot weather might be interrupting his sleep and messing with his dreams, or maybe with barbecue weather he's smelled smoke, or maybe its nothing to do with fire at all. He seems to have freaked a bit since I quit my job. Part of me wonders if in his young mind, he associates my imminent change of job with going away or something. Wife is also in the very late stages of pregnancy, so part of me wonders if he's insecure about that too. The only thing I am sure of is that I'm out of my depth on this one.
My son, who is over 40 now, went through a spell where I struggled to get him into the bath, he was convinced he was going to go down the plug hole, I had to get a toy and demonstrate how that would not go down , so he had no chance. Just keep giving him lots of hugs and reassurance and stressing how the danger of fire, whilst very real, is also unlikely to happen in your home, but it`s good he knows what to do, and how mommy and daddy need to know, he knows that everyone has to get out, especially with a new baby coming, as the baby will need help and him being the big brother is old enough to get himself safe. Try to make him feel secure and cared for is all I can suggest.
How about you and James drawing a fire engine by the flames and a strong jet of powerful blue water devouring all the flames and putting the fire out? Do you do BBQ? Can you show him how a small pile of burning sticks can be put out very easily? Maybe take some down the beach and have him fill his bucket with sea water to put out the flames. It's what big strong firemen do. Are you changing jobs Clue - ie going back out to work? Jenny
I'm in agreement with Jenny's suggestions. However, before I had even completed reading your post, my thoughts were swinging towards: changes! And that will be tied in with your forthcoming new baby. He's had you to himself for all his little life, he knows things are changing but doesn't have any concept of just *how* they are going to change. In some ways, it would appear that he has it spot on e.g. he is going to "lose" both of you (to an extent) when the baby comes. Not in a sense us adults think of, but, in a way only a child of a young age can think off. Because, even with the greatest will on this earth, a new baby in the family will take a bit of time away from him, a bit of focus away from him and he now has to come to terms with ... sharing! Now, if he has also had a talk recently about fire safety at his school, his imagination is going to assimilate these concepts into one thing his mind can cope with. He doesn't understand about babies and losing some of his parents attention, even though he may have a sense of it, but not a whole concept; but he has been taught about fire and how that can separate people. Maybe his mind is just marrying the two somehow and he's fretting in his dreams about what *might* be? At his age, his imagination is on over drive! That is how he is making sense of his world: the good, the bad and the ugly. It is also how concepts become a little bit overlapped and confused. My advice would be: don't "buy into it" too heavily - if you feed fear/anxiety it really can grow like a forest fire! Equally, the fire thing could just be a parallel for the fears he may be experiencing (and not able to compute!) about the impending birth of your next child. It's a fine line to draw to determine the exact root of it. This is where parents intuition comes into the fore.
Got to agree with most of the advice here - sounds like the wee fella has latched onto the lessons about fire at school, and that coupled with possible anxieties about changes at home might be making his wee imagination go overtime. What about taking Jenny's idea a wee bit further - you can pick up firemen costumes for kids not overly expensive nowadays, so maybe get him one and then set a wee camp fire in the back garden and let him use the garden hose to be the hero and put it out?
I may be wrong, but, with night terrors, isn't it the case that the child would have no memory of the bad dream? Whereas, in clue's son's case, he does have an inkling that it is linked to fire ergo a fear of his parent/s missing/lost/gone?
I wonder if he's heard people talking to his mam about when she goes in. Today, wife's friend said to us both that when labour starts, I'm to just knock on her door, day or night, and 'dump Jamesy there'. The lad wasn't there when she said that (he was at school) but if he's heard anything like that from anyone, I can bet that would scare the hell out of him.
His little mind is trying to make sense of all the changes, new baby, all the changes to his life that`s making already, you`re at home for a while, mommy visiting hospital, going to stay there to get the baby, I think you must not stress to him what he`s doing, just carry on as normal, perhaps with the babies arrival he will be distracted enough to forget about it.
Just a thought, but you've not said something like now I've quit my job, they can't fire me have you?
Now you could have appoint there Zigs. A little one that age can get so many random remarks confused into one.. A child's mind is complex yet simple. I am sure you will b Get to the bottom of it..
I don't think so. Oh, no. The day I quit, our latest student got fired. As there were only 2 of us in the office that day, I got the job of escorting her from the premises and taking her ID and key cards. Now you mention it, I'm pretty sure that I came home from work and made some joke about how in one day, one person resigned and one 'got fired'.
