There are many reasons why children can start to have nightmares. I have two children, both of whom at various stages of their lives wake up crying and upset.
My young son started to have nightmares after watching the film Lord Of The Rings. He really enjoyed watching the film and wanted to watch it on a regular basis and would even re-inact the battles. The film itself is quite long and he would normally be watching it by himself as his mother and I would be busy doing other things.
I thought about why he may have started to have these type of dreams and believed it was due to this film. I decided to make the time and watched the film with my son. Whenever a person was killed I re-assured him that the people were only acting and had not really died in real life etc. Even though it was not particularly humorous I made sure that I laughed when there were the more violent scenes and would state something like “as if that is realistic”.
Children who stress
My daughter at one point started to stress because she was not in any of the top groups in the different subjects she was taking at school. She felt like she was a failure and that we would not be proud of her. I advised her that we knew she was giving it her all at school and that as long as she continued to try her best that we would always be proud of her. But it is a bit like where I work at a company selling composite doors, we can not all be the chairman To put it in rather simple terms not every person can find themselves in the top set.
She did have a real issue to stress about – stuttering. For whatever reason she developed the speech impediment when she was a young child and as you may well imagine it had a negative affect on her self-esteem. I searched high and low for ways to help her to stop stuttering and I am pleased to report that she has now managed to achieve fluency. She is now working as business cost reduction specialist.
I am confident that with the right motivation that other people will also be able to learn how to achieve fluency.