Nightmares in children

CEBU, Philippines - If your child wakes up crying and has trouble getting back to sleep, chances are he has had a nightmare. These scary episodes of dreaming bugs in the bed and monsters in the closet hide meanings that parents should look into.

Nightmares are bad dreams that usually involve imagined danger or threat to the person experiencing it. It may include disturbing images or figures of monsters, ghosts, animals, or bad people running after them. These night terrors are extremely common in children, especially during preschool years. As part of a child's normal development, children begin to imagine and understand things that might hurt them. The level of their fantasy becomes higher and sometimes uncontrollable.

Like most dreams, nightmares occur during the stage of sleep when the brain is active and sorting new information and memories. This part of sleep is known as the rapid eye movement (REM) stage because the eyes are moving beneath closed eyelids. This is why when kids awaken from a bad dream, the vivid images are still fresh and seem real.

There is no clear explanation of why a nightmare occurs. Sometimes the dreams just suddenly come out of the blue. It seems to be the processing of the thoughts, situations, worries, and feelings the kid experiences.

Nightmares have been observed to follow a certain pattern. More commonly, it results from a frightening experience, like being scared of a large barking dog, to seeing scary scenes on TV, to listening to horrifying stories, to going through some traumatic incidents - an accident, earthquake, or injury.

A child's nightmare can also stem from an overload of school work. At the same time, family problems such as separation of his parents and financial challenges can also add up to the emotional burden of the child, to trigger a nightmare. People - even familiar ones - who exhibit behaviors unacceptable to the child are often depicted as "monsters" in the child's dream.

Some nightmares are a carryover of normal experiences that a child goes through during the day - but with an upsetting or scary twist. As with adults, the details of the nightmare may not be remembered, but the experience leaves its mark in the dreamer. And while adults are able to handle it easily, the nightmare experience is emotionally stressful to the child.

It is important, therefore, that parents help the child rise above his nightmares. When the child is shouting in the middle of a deep sleep, parents shall give immediate comfort, look closely into what the child is going through and what causes it. The child's experience shall not be allowed to destroy his capacity for a sound sleep, otherwise it could begin to affect the child both emotionally and physically.

The Ramon Aboitiz Foundation Inc., which advocates Early Child Care and Development, suggests physical reassurance such as hugging the child tight or rubbing his back until he calms down. Then the child shall be encouraged to relate his nightmare, but without pressuring him to do so. Parents may have to wait until daytime before the child will speak about his experience.

Reassuring words can help make the child feel at ease. Parents have to be patient; it may take a while for the child to get over the bad dream. They may even need to be creative; for example, presenting the child's favorite stuffed toy as a security object to make him feel relaxed.

The child's imagination goes quite active when the light is off. It is at this time when he sees imaginary enemies in the corner of his room. A nightlight in the child's bedroom, even if low, is a good way to shield the child from his hidden monsters.

Often, nightmares can result to bedtime struggles and refusal to go back to sleep. The child shall not be left alone while he's still recovering from a bad dream. As he goes back to sleep, he shall be checked in his room from time to time. There is no remedy for a child's nightmares better than the comforting reassurance of the parents.

Parents need to be good listeners, as the child talks about what happened in his dream. The child's relating about his scary and endless running in the woods can help let the experience be off his system. By talking about it - even drawing or writing down the dream - he can gain the power over a bad dream.

Teaching the child some coping techniques to respond to his night terrors is something parents must do. For example, letting the child imagine happy thoughts such as the family time at the beach or when he won his first medal in a sports competition. The terrifying thoughts must be offset by more positive memories.

It also helps to make a peaceful bedtime routine for the kids - a warm bath, a good story, a song, a hot glass of milk. These can calm the kids' senses and help ward off nightmares. Setting limits on their TV viewing, use of computer and other gadgets can also help. Entertainment technologies can actually, albeit often unnoticeably, cause little children some inner disturbance, when they over-think or misunderstand the content.

If anxiety or stress is suspected to be behind the bad dreams, it is good to check the child for what might be bothering her during the daytime.

Nightmares, if not mitigated in time, can lead to sleep deprivation, which in turn can bring on other problems. Also, it must be noted if the child is taking certain medications, like antidepressants, for these too can disrupt his sleep.  If the child's nightmare problem is serious, a doctor or child psychologist shall be sought. Recurring bad dreams can be a sign of an emotional issue that needs immediate intervention.

Every nightmare holds vital information about the emotional challenges a child is going through. Parents, therefore, need to be keenly observant.

(Source: http://kidshealth.org/) (FREEMAN)