Scary Night Visitors: A Story for Children With Bedtime Fears

Scary Night Visitors: A Story for Children With Bedtime Fears by Marcus, Irene Wineman. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780945354253.

Many children have bedtime fears, starting as young as two years old and sometimes lasting several years. Scary Night Visitors helps parents explain the origins of these fears to their children. Instead of describing monsters as clothes on a chair or ghosts as wind in the trees, this lively story presents them as projections of a childs own anger and jealousy. Davey—and through him the reader—learns that thoughts and wishes are not as powerful as he fears, so he can feel safe enough to let himself experience his emotions directly without imagining scary creatures. Parents and mental health professionals will find this book an engaging tool for ameliorating this common but troubling childhood problem. From the Introduction for Parents: This story shows the scary visitors to be the childs own unacceptable angry feelings, disowned and projected onto the outside world. The anger, which in this story is directed toward the younger sister (although it could be the mother, the father, or anyone the child loves), is unacceptable because of the childs worry and fear that the bad wishes could come true. They feeling that wishes and thoughts will actually happen is common to us all at some point. Children, particularly, feel that they are powerful and magic enough to make things come true. By realizing that the wishes are not all powerful, children can feel safe enough to be angry. By experiencing their own anger safely, they will feel less need to disown and project it, and can thus gain control over their scary visitors.