spiders & snakes

[mommysboy]

My 5 year old son, who still sleeps in bed with his parents is going through a really hard time at bed time. whenever it is time for him to go to sleep he becomes so scared that someone is going to come ino our home. He helps chek the locks before we go to bed.he also thinks that there are spiders and sakes on him. he will take all of his cloths off and have me check him.

[mrsozzy]

I posted elsewhere on a similar post about my son.  We would spray air freshner all over his room and tell him that it was bug spray before bed.  That would work for the bugs.  Also, try making a dream catcher with him.  There are some great resources on the web, including some old indian lore about dream catchers and how they keep evil spirits away, etc.  I used this with my daughter to keep bad dreams/ ghosts, etc. away at night.  We also got a guardian angel statue with a nice little poem about how it watches over her.  Kids are very impressionable and if you believe in these things working, they will too.  Hope this helps.

[mommysboy]

Thank You for the great advise. I have reassured him that there are no spiders on him. i even put some vanella scented water in a spray bottle and together we went to each room and sprayed to keep the snakes and spiders away. as a mom as you know we are here to protect our children from anything in our power. i have even pulled to the side of the road on our way to school and removed his shirt and shook it out so that he would know there were no spiders on him throughout his school day. i ask him often what makes him so afraid of them and he says he just is that no one has ever talked about it to him. his silly coment was "My brain just tells me that thery are on me. And they make me itch." I just want him to be secure in his own home. I have and will do whatever it takes to protect him from this. The only problem is that i am trying to protect him from somthing that does not exist.

[uvlvrebel]

did he have a nightmare recently about it?  maybe an experience at kindergarten with a story that was read or another child might have scared him with some kind of boogeyman story, or a tv/movie? regardless, if it were my child, I'd keep checking him, reassuring him that he's safe and telling him, "mommy would never let anyone come inhere to hurt us Or let any spider/snakes stay on you."  I had to tell my (now age 6) then age 5 yr old something similar to help her through a rough patch. she was scared of monsters. real people ones, not the under the bed ones- mommy had been attacked and she was scared she would be too.  i let her know mommy would never allow her to be attacked. just think it's good to have a child that is conscious about the locks.LOL