

In addition, make sure to identify his strengths, “part of the problem is that you have a great imagination, you are just imagining the wrong things”. You could say, “once you have had a bad experience like that sometimes you wake with bad dreams or believe the character is in the wardrobe – even though you know it is not true, it can feel like it is true”.Īs you listen to your son, it is important to also express a strong belief that he will get through this problem, “though it might take time, your fears will fade and you will get through it”. It is helpful if you make it okay for him to freely share the details of his irrational fears as these are better expressed to an understanding listener than repressed. For example you might say, “lots of children would be freaked out by the image you saw” or “it would be normal to find it hard to sleep”. The important thing is to communicate that it is completely understandable how he feels and to encourage him to be patient and compassionate with himself. Progress can appear slow with lots of setbacks and it is easy for both you and your son to get frustrated. When helping a child with anxiety you have to be patient and understanding.
#Saw the game scary moments movie
In your own situation, seeing the scary character from the movie has so badly affected your son that it has interrupted his sleep and caused him to irrationally worry that the character is coming to get him in the middle of night. There is also the pressure among peers to engage in computer games designed for older children. This is increasingly harder to do given how universal access to the internet is – if not in your home then in other children’s homes. For all these reasons, it is very important to protect young children as much as possible from frightening images and games. This is especially the case if they witness the scary images alone or with peers and without a parent who can comfort and distract them while explaining what is happening. Also, at a young age they might feel fear more intensely when faced with powerful images and it is much harder for them to put things into context. Despite what their parents say, they might still feel the character or movie is real. Part of this is due to their age and developmental stage, when they might be less clear about what is real and what is imaginary. Some children are badly affected by watching horror movies or seeing scary images. We would be so grateful for any advice you could give. We are feeling very upset about this as we are very careful parents as to what he watches at home – he has no internet access without our supervision. We have spoken to him about real and pretend and he understands but in the middle of the night he worries this character is coming to get him and I can hear him checking behind his door and in the wardrobe.
#Saw the game scary moments professional
We are unsure whether this is the right thing or should we be getting him some professional help? Is this a normal reaction or is it more serious? He will wake up continuously through the night and want to sleep in our bed or for us to sleep with him which we do on occasion out of desperation. He knows he was wrong to search for them online and wishes he hadn’t seen them.Īt night now he will go to sleep in his bed on the promise that we check on him in five minutes – which we do and he is asleep. He has not slept properly since and we are very worried about him and the lack of progress in overcoming this. Later, he googled pictures of the character.

Five weeks ago in school, my eight-year-old son was introduced to a character from an over-18 s movie by two of his peers.
