When do you seek help for a child with nightmares?!?

Question

My younger brother is 9 years old and until now has nightmares and fears going to bed. This isnt a new problem, he's always had nightmares but when he was younger my mom figured it was normal. I'm starting to think something is wrong. He literally cries, fights, and screams because of how scared he is to go to sleep. The strange thing is that his fears seem to come out of nowhere... For example today his big fear is vampires. That's ridiculous because he has never seen a vampire movie he only knows what it is because of a reference in a cartoon. What makes it even more ridiculous is that he hasnt seen anything recently where a vampire is mentioned... Every week there's a new fear and many of them seem very foolish. Another example is the pirate on Spongebob Squarepants. We tried once to keep him from watching tv but he began to have nightmares about other things like robbers and thiefs. Please help

Answer 1

this is normal. i had nightmares about those things when i was a little girl... i eventually grew out of it. The majority of reasons we have nightmares is something troubling us. our body is trying to tell us something. Something such as robbers could be because he doesnt feel safe in the house. try setting the alarm and showing him what it does. set it every night and even teach him how to set it. Monitor what he watches on tv. anouther reason for nightmares is our insecurities in ourselves. sometimes a therapist is necessary. most likely it will all work out. i still have night mares today, but most of them arent being able to see or not being able to do something correctly, like dialing a phone. its so frustrating cause in my dream i have to dial over and over and over and over and over and over... and its usually the middle or last number i mes up on.. its awful.  

Answer 2

he is not having night mares it sounds like night terrors that he is having. get him help. usually terrors are from something like a death or a trauma. that he went through. when you find the problem you can help him deal with it. also if someone can talk to him and snap him out of it then get that persons voice and say whatever you say to him to snap him out of it and put it on a CD so it will repeat but only turn it on after he goes to sleep. a persons voice can usually help.  

Answer 3

Get help when his nightmares impact his daily functioning and health.  If he's not sleeping well, wetting the bed, losing weight, poor peer relationships ect, its time to seek help.  Children's fears are often irrational but may be based on earlier emotional traumas or insecurity.

A therapist might suggest methods to build his self confidence by letting him achieve something that's important to him, which requires effort and is within his capability.  Praise and reinforce his achievement and have him talk about what he liked about his efforts, what he wants to change next time he tries and allow him to work on it until he's successful.  Another approach may be for him to draw pictures about his fears(like vampires), explain them, talk about them, make up plays about them and change the outcomes where he becomes the hero for destorying the bad guys (vampires).  He may even chose to destory the pictures he's made and talk about how he's better or stronger than the bad guys.

Who knows, maybe even a pair of superman or batman underwear may give him some confidence on 'his special identity or who he really is'.

Good luck

Answer 4

i suggest you take him to a theapist. things like this, arent normal. i used to do that ALL the time. it scared me to death, but shen my mom took me too a therapist, she really helped me. hope i get best answer! :)