Children are often afraid of fictional creatures. Going to bed, they are capricious, assuring that monsters are hiding in a dark room. As a rule, parents do not pay attention to this or, at best, gently convince the child that there are no monsters. But you should know that sometimes children's nightmares are not at all a play of the imagination and represent a very real danger!
Probably, many readers know the "horror" story by Stephen King about a family where children were afraid of the mysterious Buku. The monster turned out to be a reality and killed them one by one … Something similar happened in India about twenty years ago.
A family lived in one village - a husband, wife and little daughter. When they left for work, the adults left her alone. At first, the girl was not afraid, but then suddenly she began to cry and complain to her parents that when they were not at home, a big frog crawls out from under the stove, jumps on it and tries to bite.
Parents, of course, did not believe her. They knew that frogs are not gigantic in size and cannot live next to people, and even more so - to attack them. But somehow, having returned home, the adults with horror saw a huge, turkey-sized frog, which was dragging the dead body of their child under the stove. Where did the killer frog come from? Such people were not found in their area …
Here's another story, only with a happier ending. It also happened in India. Late in the evening, the parents put the four-year-old child to bed. Even before that, the baby began to sleep poorly at night, cried, he had nightmares. Suddenly, the couple woke up from a child's cry. They rushed to the nursery. Their boy, covered in sweat, sat on the bed, shaking with fear, peering into the darkness with wide eyes. The child whispered that some monster "came again to tear him apart."
The parents turned on the light and searched the entire room, but found no one. At first, they decided that the baby was just having another bad dream, and began to calm him down. But then the father noticed a bloody stain on the sheet wrapped around his son's body. The boy had a deep lacerated wound on his shoulder, inflicted, judging by the shape, by someone's sharp and hooked claws!
This was one of the first incidents associated with the appearance in India of the mysterious "ape man", about which a lot was written in the press. A shaggy creature, the size of a preschool child, but very strong physically, attacked people most often at night, while sleeping, entering open verandas or entering houses through a window.
Dozens of people became victims of the monster. In some cases, right before the eyes of eyewitnesses, the monster dissolved in the air …
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Perhaps it really came from the other world, since many of the children who were attacked said that at first they dreamed about the "ape-man". Despite the efforts of the police and volunteers, the monster was never caught.
What should you do if your child complains about something that scares him at night?
Ask your child about what scares him. Try to look at the situation through the eyes of a child. Turn off the light in his room and ask him to indicate where the "monster" is. Perhaps this is some object that takes on "monstrous" outlines in the dark. Show it to your child - it is possible that after that he will cease to be afraid.
Ask your child to draw what they are afraid of. From the picture, you can determine what psychological problems he has. To do this, you need to show the drawing to a specialist in child psychology. If a child complains that the "monster" is taking aggressive actions against him, ask your child in detail what the aggressor is doing.
If a child is seriously scared, does not sleep well at night, often cries, and even more so if suspicious scratches and bruises appear on his body, this is a cause for serious concern. It is possible that the baby is regularly attacked by some animal that has access to his room, say, through a window or a hole in the wall.
In no case do not leave complaints about night fears unattended, be sure to figure it out! - psychologists advise.
LYUBIMSKAYA DARYA