My son is afraid of sleeping alone: ​​what do I do?

Fear is a potentially adaptive response that we experience when faced with stimuli, situations and objects that can harm us, thus threatening our survival. In this order of ideas, Fear allows children (and adults) to react to danger and acquire the relevant skills to face threatening situations.

Like any other emotion, Fear manifests itself at three levels of response: cognitive, physiological and behavioral.. At the cognitive level, negative thoughts, subjective sensations of danger and threat, thought blocks, loss of confidence, and feelings of helplessness are distinguished (Pérez, 2000). At a physiological level, body changes are identified (acceleration of heart and respiratory rate, sweating, tremors, etc.). At the behavioral level, flight or avoidance, screaming, and motor agitation can be observed.

Fear in childhood can be described in three groups: 1) fear of physical harm, 2) fear of psychological discomfort, such as perplexity, academic failure, or social ineptitude, and 3) fear of natural and supernatural dangers, such as lightning, thunder, trains, animals, witches, ghosts and the like (Ollendick, 1986).

How to act when your child is afraid to sleep alone

Many children are afraid of sleeping alone for different reasons, the most common being the perception of supernatural danger, such as ghosts, witches, demons, etc. We can only notice this fear of sleeping when it is time to go to bed and the child resists doing so..

Does it sound familiar to you? Is your child afraid of sleeping alone? Next, we show you what you can do.

It is important to talk to children about what they fear at bedtime.

1. Understand your fear of sleeping alone

Allow your child to express what he or she feels; encourage him to talk about what scares him at bedtime. Pay attention to him, don’t listen to him like someone who plays the radio in the background while doing another task.

Be empathetic and try to put yourself in your child’s shoes. Avoid labeling him as a “coward”; At the same time, he escapes the temptation to minimize what he feels.

If your child doesn’t want to talk about his fear, don’t force him to.. It is not uncommon for children to have difficulty talking about their emotions, their brain is developing and, furthermore, no one may have taught them.

2. Help him feel meaningful

If your child protests because he doesn’t want to go to sleep, and the reason is fear, or if he wakes you up during the night crying, try to connect with his emotion, with what he is feeling. This will allow you to help him deal with his fear more effectively.

How can you achieve this connection? Siegel and Bryson (2015) offer the following recommendations:

Convey comfort: By standing below your child’s eye level, lightly touching him, nodding your head, or giving him a sympathetic look, you often quickly defuse a tense situation.Validate: Even if you don’t like the behavior, recognize and even accept the feelings that sparked it.Talk less and listen: If your child’s emotions are running high, don’t explain, lecture, or try to divert his or her attention from his or her feelings. Just listen, looking for the meaning and emotions your child is communicating.Reflect what you hear: When he has finished speaking, repeat in your own words what he has said. This way, you will make sure that you have understood him.

3. Don’t reinforce their fear

As a parent you can have the best of intentions, but if you’re not careful, you can start feeding their fear. For example, if your child tells you that he is afraid of the monster in the closet, he does not use the broom to scare away the monster or the “anti-monster spray.”

These actions can make your child believe that you think that what he fears really exists. Rather Help him look inside the closet so he can see that there is nothing strange. Tell him that when he is afraid, he can do the same, and he will see that there is nothing. In this sense, it reinforces their coping responses, and not avoidance responses, such as sleeping on the couch.

4. Provides security

Sometimes the child’s fear may be due to the darkness (which is why it is important to understand his fear) and everything he imagines may happen during that moment. It’s helpful if you can provide your child with a nightlight, even if he or she isn’t afraid of the dark.. But be careful, the light should not interfere with the beginning of the child’s sleep, a dim light at bedtime can be effective.

Leaving the door open with the certainty that he will be heard if he calls you is another strategy you can use to create a feeling of comfort, relief, and security. On the other hand, do not allow your child to be exposed to television programs or horror stories that could increase his fear of sleeping alone and his insecurity.

Leaving a light on can help children not be afraid to sleep alone.

5. Don’t encourage your child to get out of bed

The goal is that you can help your child overcome their fear. If you can stay in bed and feel that everything is okay, you will learn to trust that your bed or room is a safe place. too, just like yours.

By allowing him to sleep in your room or that of another family member (a brother or sister), you are reinforcing the idea that his room is not safe. Remember what we said before about avoidance responses.

If your child is scared and can’t tolerate being alone in his room, you can accompany him for a few minutes. Now, he tries to keep this from happening. The idea is that he is aware of how his anxiety rises and falls, because deep down there is no monster hidden in his room.

If you have the habit of telling them a story before going to sleep and the fear we talked about exists, make sure there are no characters that could scare them in your stories.

To end, Childhood fears are very common and usually disappear with age. If your child’s fear is causing serious sleep problems, it is recommended that you see a health professional.

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