My 6yr son has lots of bad dreams at night. He watches this series called Bibleman and on one dvd there is this green man who is the bad guy. He is not that scary looking just has on green face paint bubba teeth and a funky hair yet he has lots of dreams about him and sometimes snakes. I put those movies up a long time ago. He has always had very realistic dreams. I have very real like dreams sometimes and when i wake up i have a hard time trying to figure out whats dream and whats not. My husband says he never dreams or either he does not remember them. I want to know if it can be hereditary. We are VERY picky about what he can watch on tv. Any advice on what to do would be great!! Thanks!!!!
First of all thanks for all of the advice. I talked with my son and we prayed with him before bed every night and so far no more bad dreams. My husband and i pray with both our sons before bed so that was not anything new but talking with him about his fears and helping him to see that their not real seemed to have helped. We have not had any extra little people in our bed so thanks for all the advice.
Hi M.,
I had the same thing happen to my youngest daughter, and this is what WE did. It may sound silly, but it worked! We would "blow" the bad dreams away. We would blow into the air (like blowing out a candle) and it would blow all the bad dreams away...it worked like a charm the first night. My daughter is now 10 and ocasionally still asks me to "blow" away the bad dreams
Good Luck
I have a daughter who was having the same problem. She would get so anxious about having a nightmare that around 7pm she would start the meltdown of going to bed. So i started telling her stories of WHAT she would dream of. She gets in bed and we review all of the fun things she/we did today. I then tell her of all the fun things she will do tomorrow. For example, I say tonight you are going to dream of Lacy going to see the horses....and go into a long story about going to the barn, seeing if the horses have been fed, grooming them - you get the point. Then I made up that her favorite animal - butterflies - will come and help her out of any scary situation, if she calls for them. Right before I leave the room, I kiss her goodnight and I tell her if she has any problems what so ever, to call on the butterflies to take her to a safe place. These tactics have been going strong for us for the last 3 months AND they worked immediately.....good luck!
Potassium can trigger the part of the brain that creates nightmares to work overtime. Make sure your not giving him anything with a lot of potassium, like a banana, after dinner. Try that. Let us know. good luck!
Try reading him a really good book before going to bed. Maybe sing some nice songs. This may help his mind to dwell on something sweet to sleep on.
Hi M.,
My son was having a problem recently with bad dreams, so I told him that he could talk to his bad dreams and he could either change them or make them go away. I also told him that no one really looked like "that" (whatever it happened to be) (For example, "Have you ever seen anyone with a green face, hair that looked like that and those teeth at the store?") I reminded him that people dressed up like silly stuff for halloween sometimes, but those are just costumes. I also told him that monsters are just something big kids make up to scare little kids.
The next night before he went to sleep, I reminded him that if he didn't like his dream, he should say, "Go away yucky dream because I want to dream about ice cream!" (or whatever your child chooses.) It worked! We haven't had a bad dream since. I think it gave him a sense of empowerment -- that he was in control. Good luck, I hope it helps!
Well, one thing to do is pray to God that he stops your sons bad dreams. Have your son pray with you as well. Another thing you could do is since it's subconscience, is put a dreamcatcher in his window and tell him its for catching bad dreams, I know it sounds funny but he will think it does and therefore it works. In his subconscience he thinks that the dreamcatcher will catch his bad dreams and in result it does. It worked with my nephew so it's another idea. Good Luck.
dreams are a lot of time the idea or thoughts that we are thinking about right before we go to sleep and they keep mulling around in our head when we are out and they manifest in dreams and sometimes dreams are very lifelike and other times they are blurs that we cannot remember. Everyone dreams just some people remember them and other don't. If they are scaring him, I would put away the tapes, it may not look bad, but for some reason he is concerned and that is carrying over into his dreams. And it doesn't always have to be scary to have a bad dream it can be something very mild and it will still trigger a memory or a thought and can develop into a bad dream. I don't think that dreaming is heredity. But I wonder if you are creative and have a good imagination. I know when I sit down and read a book, I can put myself in the book and imagine everything that is going on, and there are times I have very realistic dreams that scare me, but other times I don't remember dreaming at all. People who have good imaginations seem to dream better than others, we expand the idea and let it grow in our minds. I would definitely talk to him and just let him know that the greenman is not someone to be afraid of, and that you are going to put the tapes away again and you want him to stop thinking about them. I would also pray with him before he goes to bed and ask Jesus to keep him safe and give him sweet dreams.
Dear M.,
It is hard to be discerning about what to let our kids watch and even then we can't always predict how they will receive them. My son watches Bibleman too and I really like them. I think the best thing you can do is to remind him that God is protecting him AND just like in the video, God is stronger and more powerful than anything else. Pray with your son when he has bad dreams and ask God to protect him and to take away his bad dreams, point your child to passages in the Bible that tell him that God watches over us and protects us. Even show him in the Bible where we are instructed to put on the full armor of God. Even as adults fear can sneak in and try to over-power us - but God really is the answer.
Hope this helps and I will be praying for you as well.
Blessings,
D.
With my 8 year old son, I've always went in after he's awaken from a scary dream, and had him flip over his pillow in order to make the bad dream go away - and to invite a nice new one!!! Good luck!
