Are imaginary stories bad for children?
During my custody trial, one of the things I was questioned and criticized about was a bedtime ritual I had with my son that I had written about on my blog. I tried to explain my beliefs about encouraging creativity, stimulating a child's imagination, and finding ways to make them feel safe, even if it includes an imaginary story. However, it seemed to fall on deaf ears because it sounded too much like "magic" or "witchcraft."Like many children, my son was afraid of the dark, fearful of things in his room or going to sleep and something "getting him" while he slept. I asked for advice, read books and tried to find ways to make him feel secure, but nothing worked. Since I tend to live inside my head a lot and make up stories, I drew from that and created a story for him. I told him that every night before bed, your finger turns into a magic wand. Little light fairies light up the wand and give it power. If you take that magic wand and draw a circle around yourself, it creates a force field that protects you while you sleep. My son, ever the realist, asked me what happens if he wakes up during the night and needs to leave the force field quickly. "How will I get out, Mom?" he asked me.
I explained to him that the force field was to keep people out, not to prevent him from leaving. He was able to leave the force field any time he chose, but once he created the circle, no one would be able to get inside. He was a very curious child, and asked so many questions that I ended up writing a whole story about the force field, the circle, and all the fairies that fly around the circle all night, protecting him while he slept. I created a song to go with the circle, and we would sing it together every night while holding hands with our index fingers extended, drawing the circular force field:
We make this circle round and round
From the sky to the ground.
Little fairies bring your light
And protect us through the night.
We sang that song every night for years. After my custody trial, my son was not allowed to sing the song or talk about the circle at his dad's house. There seemed to be some worry that I was teaching my son evil things. My son was worried about how he would sleep and be protected from the nightmares. I reassured him that the force field can be activated just by thinking about it and if he sang the song to himself when he went to sleep, it would still work. It broke my heart that such a simple, harmless bedtime ritual could be turned into something bad. Didn't we all read fairy tales and learn about magic when we were kids? I have always believed that stimulating and encouraging a child's imagination is a good thing. I think if all fiction writers had their creativity squashed like this when they were children, the world would have a lot fewer books for us to enjoy and none of us would know about a little wizard named Harry Potter.
How do you help your child deal with nighttime fears? Do you feel that it's wrong to make up a story?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
ninainindia 12-20-2007 @ 10:21AM
I think that's a great bedtime ritual you created for your son. The custody battle sounds so hard, I don't understand how custody was even questioned as he had been living with you for his whole life.
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Jenn D 12-20-2007 @ 11:04AM
You're kidding me. Witchcraft? Sorcery?
I'm positive you aren't posting here to get this sort of reaction, but I am so sorry that you had to go through what you did. I can't imagine having my relationship with my children looked at through a nasty microscope in search of what I'm doing wrong.
No, there is NOTHING wrong with making up stories at bedtime. There is NOTHING wrong with small rituals that make your children feel safe. There is absolutely nothing wrong with encouraging your child's creativity and imagination.
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Ann Adams 12-20-2007 @ 11:43AM
It must have been horrible for you.
And no, you didn't do anything wrong.
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SKL 12-20-2007 @ 11:49AM
Personally I think it is strange and even neglectful if you don't foster your children's imaginitive play and development of fantasy. They don't know what is / isn't "possible" (and even we only know this partway), but that shouldn't stop them from practicing their developing planning / problem solving abilities from infancy. Besides, a child has so very little control over anything affecting him, naturally it is scary. Giving your child imaginary superpowers is a normal and positive solution.
When I was a little girl and got scared about something that looked like a monster in my closet, my big strong dad went in there, checked for monsters, and then convinced me that what I'd seen was just a shadow or whatever. Your little boy's dad ought to be ashamed that he not only wasn't there to get rid of the monsters, but that he used your method of helping your son against you.
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Jennifer 12-20-2007 @ 1:00PM
What a wonderful way to calm nighttime fears. I believe that as a parent it is your job to foster your child's imagination. Too many children today have very little imagination.
How disgusting that it was used against you in court. If that judge is a parent he/she should be ashamed of him/herself.
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Meagan 12-20-2007 @ 1:08PM
The story and ritual you created for your son is lovely. I find it extremely depressing that this was something you were criticized for.
I'm no longer a Christian, but when I was younger I went to an overnight Bible camp, and many of the children there had sudden fear issues when the lights went out. One of the councilors told us we should close our eyes and ask God to make an invisible bubble around us, and know that God was protecting us inside that bubble, and while we slept nothing could harm us inside that bubble. She took us through a whole visualization routine with it, imagining how hard the bubble was and how far out it went.
I don't see this as any different from your story, and I think both are excellent ways to deal with nighttime fears. I wonder if the court would have less of a problem if your force field was from God instead of faeries.
The more I read your posts, the more I realize that custody battle ends up being a trial of your ability to parent. I guess that's obvious, but I just can't imagine sitting on the witness stand and being badgered about every choice I've made with my child. I applaud your resourcefulness with this story, and applaud you for getting through the ordeal.
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BigGUM 12-20-2007 @ 2:32PM
I can barely comment on this without using ALL CAPS so you will know how strongly I feel when I say: That's INsANe! (Well, I almost resisted!)
Imagination and wonder are the cornerstones of a healthy mind.
My mom told stories to me (about tramps and streakers - big in the seventies) and my dad read to me fairy stories from all over the world.
I tell my son ongoing stories about a wizard and his two apprentices as well as reading to him all manner of stories about giants and magic and you-name-it.
Keep on keepin' on, mama!
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pbhj 12-20-2007 @ 5:55PM
>>> "Since I tend to live inside my head a lot and make up stories, I drew from that and created a story for him. "
She _sounds_ delusional. If that's the way you put it to court it's a wonder you're not in a padded cell. No, no I'm not saying you should be just that you could have worded it better.
So long as he realises it's just a story it seems fine - but it sounds like you've told him this is the truth. That there are really fairies and they are really protecting him?
If his (and your) defence mechanism is to create a vivid fantasy (ie be delusional) about reality and live as if that's true rather than facing up to the nature of reality and learning to live with it and comprehend it, then yes I find that disturbing.
If he was worried about "be[ing] protected from nightmares" shouldn't you say that dreams aren't real, rather than saying it's OK the fairies will come and protect you? When he stops believing in fairies then he's still going to have nightmares. What are you going to say then ... oh yeah, that fairy guff was just a heap of lies?
I don't think you should be so swift to judge the father for wanting to tackle nightmares without recourse to delusional fantasy. That way he'll be able to tackle nightmares for the rest of his life.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delusional
Meagan 12-21-2007 @ 1:11PM
A wonderful section from Stephen King's The Shining: "You know, schizoid behavior is a pretty common thing in children. It's accepted, because all we adults have this unspoken agreement that children are lunatics. They have invisible friends. They may go and sit in the closet when they're depressed, withdrawing from the world. They attach talismanic importance to a special blanket, or a teddy bear, or a stuffed tiger. They suck their thumbs. When an adult sees things that aren't there, we consider him ready for the rubber room. When a child says he's seen a troll in his bedroom or a vampire outside the window, we simply smile indulgently. We have a one sentence explanation that explains the whole range of such phenomena in children- ...He'll grow out of it."
I realize Stephen King is not a child psychology expert, but I think he's got it right on the head here. Fantasies, what you're calling delusions pbhj, are a normal part of childhood. If you respond by telling them that "your dreams aren't real" you're minimizing their fears and generating more fear rather than helping them deal with their fear. In fact someone on parent dish posted about this very thing recently: http://www.parentdish.com/2006/10/26/ways-to-help-children-to-cope-with-fear/
"
One expert shies away from "monster traps" and "monster sprays," saying it makes it seem like the parent also believes in monsters. Instead, you can teach your child to deal with the scary things using her imagination."
According to Rachel, and I didn't exactly check her sources but it seems reasonable to me, you're doing EXACTLY the right thing Trish.
WonderMom 12-20-2007 @ 7:16PM
pbhj you are an asshole
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Jenn D 12-20-2007 @ 7:46PM
Here here, WonderMom.
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Nyx 12-20-2007 @ 11:12PM
Good god... I hope pbhj isn't actually procreating. It's more than a little cruel to expect children to be tiny adults, complete with a full set of rational faculties and full-blown critical, analytical capacity.
But maybe they're of the strict French style of child-rearing, where one slaps the child for asking questions and forces a toddling baby to keep up at the adult's pace.
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SKL 12-21-2007 @ 1:53AM
Wow, pbhj is delusional. You don't have to teach a child to believe things that aren't real. That is a normal part of being a child. Otherwise they would not be afraid of their nightmares in the first place.
I think pbhj needs a shrink. And also a few courses in child development, if he/she is a parent.
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Joy 12-21-2007 @ 2:34PM
Here's one more vote AGAINST pbhj. Jerk is right! (Using a pc word!!)
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SKL 12-21-2007 @ 3:26PM
Another comment on pbhj's comment. The suggestion that squelching fantasy at an early age will help people to deal with nightmares in later life is just silly. Once a child is old enough to cognitively figure out that his positive fantasies aren't real, why would he still believe just as strongly in his negative fantasies? How many adults do you know that come to work shivering because the monsters come after them in their dreams? If there is any correlation between a rich fantasy life in childhood and being successful in adulthood, I'd bet money that the correlation is positive, not negative.
I hate to ask what pbhj would say about my upbringing, which included my dad telling us really scary bedtime stories that actually prompted nightmares. For that matter, I am probably scarring my 14-month-old for life by pretending to be a growling beast and "get" her and "eat" her (at her request) all the time.
I wonder if pbhj actually remembers anything about his/her childhood. It's hard to imagine it was devoid of fantasy, but if it was, that might actually explain some of his/her posts.
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