For the second night in a row Nature Girl has come out of her room scared because of cartoon she has seen. Both nights I was already asleep. The first night I told her I would lay on the couch until she went to asleep. Far as I know that worked.
Last night I kind of figured out that we needed to try something a little different because I really didn't want a night number three of being woken up and sleeping on the couch ;)
So, NG and I started to talk. I asked her what was the frightening part and she explained. She went on to say that no matter how hard she tried she couldn't keep the scene out of her mind. (I didn't think the cartoon was really all that scary. It was Garfield and the other kids didn't seem to be bothered by it. But, it just goes to show how different each child is.) Anyway, life lesson number one that we talked about was how I felt it was part of my responsibily to "filter" what they watch and listen to. Because once an image or a word is seen or heard, it is permanetly in your head and can be very hard to forget.
Nature Girl responds to stories much better than "lectures." She loves to hear how daddy and I handled things when we were little (whether handled well or not.) So, I told her when I was just a little bit older than her, I had seen a couple of movies that scared me for many nights. And that even to this day I remember the names of those movies.
Then we started talking about solutions to her current problem. I, again, told her a story about me from a couple of years ago. Although the problem was a little different, I felt a possible solution was the same.
I told her after Boop was born I would lay awake a night worring and thinking about all the things that I needed to do. It was impossible for me to go to sleep because my mind would just not shut down. This went on for a long, long time. One day, it came to my mind to pray at night before I went to sleep. So, the next few nights, when I started to worry and think, I immediately started to pray. I told her I talked with God about all kinds of things, thanking him, praising him, asking him for things, praying for friends and family. At first I would have time to pray about a lot of things. After a time, I would barely get out the words "Dear Lord" and I would be asleep.
She giggled and repeated the words "Dear Lord" and then acted like she was asleep. Who knows what she did when she got back in her bed but she did fall asleep pretty quick. She did come to my room after daddy went to work and asked if she could get in. She told me she wasn't scared, she just wanted to sleep with me in our bed.
I can't blame her, it really is like sleeping on a cloud . . .
No comments:
Post a Comment