Our daughter has a timer-sheep now in her bedroom. The light turns ‘red’ and sheep closes its eyes – with a ferm click sound – at 7:30PM. And the thing opens its eyes, the light turns ‘green’ and sais “meehhh” at 6:15AM.
Last week we placed the thing in her room, and Emily was observing the new form / animal – what is this thing actually? – in her room. Sheep, open eyes, clock-like thing. But it was at 7:29PM sharp when she started observing and, as you can guess, it changed color and clicked hard when it closed its eyes at 7:30PM.
Emily was scared to death. Immediately grabbed me (I was next to her) and started crying hard. Really hard. She was frightened of the sheep from that moment on. But however it was OK with her (after asking multiple times) that it remained in the corner of her bedroom. And from that moment on, we daily observe and investigate the sheep at sleepy times. Bit by bit she dares to come closer.
My point today is the conversations I have had with her at the first shock-moment and the investigation occasions after. We adults tend to say “it’s not scary, see?”. But the thing is: That freaking thing IS scary! It scared her to death! We adults tell ourselves the story that it isn’t scary, but Emily is totally right to tell herself that it is scary.
As an adult, working towards a flexible mindset for her, it’s OK to tell Emily that the sheep IS scary. I tell her that it’s OK to be scared sometimes. And that I’m scared as well sometimes. And that afterwards when the shock is over, it will all be fine. I tell her that the sheep won’t do anything to her. It won’t touch her, it won’t move. But it DOES click every night at bed time, and it DOES click and “meehhh”-s in the morning.
This way I let her know that her feelings exist, are true – so she can trust her feelings – , and that it’s OK to be scared. I hope to raise her a kid that understands and sees her feelings for what they are. In order to become an adult that is scared sometimes, but that’s OK. It’s part of life.