Children and Fears

He was a little bit more then three at that time. Went to bed, but couldn’t fall asleep.

If you only saw this fear on his face. His whole body trembled. “Mum, she is there, he said. She is hiding there”. He pointed out to the room thermometer. Who is there, I asked. “The evil lady, she is there hiding,  when you go away she will grab me and take me away from here.” He started to cry and cuddled into my chest….  What was I suppose to say?  My little boy was so afraid and I did not see what was he so afraid of. Evil lady? thermometer?  What was it all about?

I said: you are going through fears. They seem very real and really, really frightening.
I kissed his forehead and smiled gently.   I had to go, he clung to me and did not want to let me go. I kissed his forehead again, cuddled him  and swung “you are growing, and your fears  tell me that. It is not easy to be growing.” I kissed his forehead again and left. He seemed little bit reassured, cuddled into Lola, his teddy bear.

He cried in the night time, I had to come and remind him that it is not easy to go through this.  Some nights were more difficult, some less. Sometimes he woke up screaming and he seemed to see this evil person and wanted to fight her. How could I help this little boy?   I was his mother but this was him growing, so I stayed by him.I had to wait.

This lasted, long, longer then I thought and longer then I would hope it lasted.

One Monday morning, sometime closer to his  forth birthday  he woke up different.

“Mum, he said, this evil lady will not come to me again” Will she not? How come? What happened?  He was so proud. ” This was a quiz. I had to guess where is she from!” I could not follow, but he explained. ” I had to find out where is she from and now I know, she is part of my soul. ”  And we walked to school. Day like any other days.