How to deal with childrens nightmares?
There are two types of ‘nightmares’: a nightmare itself, from which a child awakens, distressed and which is often related to worries and anxiety that s/he is experiencing. This stress may be caused by something major or seemingly minor. Helping to resolve the stress will alleviate this type of nightmare. The second type is known as a ‘night terror’ and although the child is equally distressed, s/he may seem to remain asleep and unrousable. These terrors are unrelated to stress or anxiety and are described as part of normal development in some children – they will eventually be outgrown and disappear. One suggestion for dealing with this is to awaken the child 15 minutes or so before the time the nightmares usually occur, and to do this for two weeks. This will help to break the pattern and may resolve things.