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Parenting Advice: My Child Is Afraid To Go On Sleep-Overs

By: Dr. Noel Swanson.

By and large, children love to go on sleep-overs, whether to camps or other special events for kids. This gives them the opportunity to be with friends day and night. However, some children develop a fear of sleeping away from home. They refuse to go and they miss out on all the fun. If your child is struggling with such a fear, you may find the following tips useful.

First of all, recognize the fact that it is a problem and most probably your child wants to get rid of it even more than you may want. So, ridiculing him by saying things like, ‘don't be such a baby,’ will only aggravate the problem. This is the time your child needs all your support and understanding. You will need to come up with a well-defined strategy to help your child overcome his fear. You may take help of experts through books or on the internet, if you can’t think of a plan yourself.

You need to use the gradual process of desensitization to help your child overcome the fear. The problem may not be just sleeping away from home, but, perhaps, sleeping away from the mother. Children are sometimes scared to go to their own beds also.

Regardless of the degree of the problem, you have to begin by identifying your child’s comfort levels. If your child wants to be near you, he will prefer to sleep on the floor in your room rather than be comfortably tucked-in in his bed in his room. May be he is comfortable in his room if you keep the door open. There will be some children who don’t mind going over to stay with people they are familiar with, such as grandparents or uncles and aunts. So, this is where you must make a careful study and identify the problem.

Then it is time to speak to your child and offer various options plus some incentives. Find out what he would really like to do and encourage him to go ahead with it. If the child expresses enthusiasm, make a note of it. When the opportunity arises, you may pick that option to begin with.

Now work backwards from the goal to the present. E.g. In order to be able to go to camp for 5 nights, you first need to be able to sleep away at the Easter camp for 2 nights. In order to do that, you need to be able to sleep at your friends house for two nights. Before you do that, you need to be able to do one night at your friend's, and before you can do that, you need to be able to manage your own room with the door shut.... And so on.

Obviously you will need to tailor this to your own circumstances. Once you have a rough layout for this, then go to the present and look at the very first step. If necessary, break this down even further. Start with what she is currently comfortable with doing, and ask, what is the very first step? It might be as small as moving from the floor next to your bed, to the floor in the hallway just outside your bedroom door.

Decide on a starting date. Decide also on how you will celebrate success. Remember, make each step an easy one. Consolidate each step until she is ready and willing to move on to the next one (enticed, if necessary, by the promise of rewards earnt).

In the beginning you might have to face failure in the sense that after a few days your child may crawl back to your room in the middle of the night. This only means that you need to go back to the first step and spend some more time on it. Think of greater rewards and more encouragement, but don’t give up. Give lots of love and appreciation but remain firm. Try again, you will succeed one day.

Above all, remember to give sufficient time to your child. Trying to rush him will get you nowhere. However, if you go about your plan slowly and systematically, and wrap it up with plenty of encouragement and rewards, you should be able to get there.

Article Source: http://www.simplepetcare.com/pet-articles

Dr. Noel Swanson's website provides free expert parenting tips & advice - you will also find a free chapter to his highly acclaimed book, the GOOD CHILD Guide. Why not discuss parenting issues with other parents on a parenting forum?
Click here to get your own unique version of this article.

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