I’m not a parent, but going by pop culture, it seems like literally every child has the same fears.
In pre-modern times, I imagine that they’d be sleeping in the same room as the parents, but if modern notions of privacy don’t permit that, seems we could at least design an enclosed capsule or something.
Eliminate closets?
Anyway no, not every child has these fears. Mine don’t. They sleep in pitch darkness and have never complained.
But you deal with a lot of weird fears and hang ups with kids. Not by accommodating them but by helping the kid grow out of them.
One of the ways one can grow out of a fear is by accommodating it enough in a passive way that it’s forgotten about. Lighting up the back of a closet or under a bed for even a couple of months with a battery-powered nightlight (if there is no outlet available) could easily be enough for a kid to overcome it. Not in every situation, of course, but I think in enough that it could be worth a try.
I do agree that changing the entire space like that is too much though.
Let’s put a void in every dark corner. I’m never scared with cats around.
Having cats around makes random noises much less scary.
If it wasn’t those, it would be something else. There’s always something that will cause fear and it won’t help anything to remove everything that upsets them, especially in preparation for the real world. We see how it doesn’t work very well with overprotective parents who try to “protect” their children from everything. Those kids usually grow up maladaptive to the real world.
But if it’s not under the bed or a closet, it’ll be the jacket on the chair in the darkness or the tree limb in the dark outside of the window.
What happens if the kid goes to a friend’s house who doesn’t abide by these same rules? What happens if something happens to you and the kid has to be put in foster care or with a relative who doesn’t practice the same?
Similar goes for picky eating. Few things are tasty by default, but most tastes are acquired by repeated exposure to new cuisine.
I’m still getting used to clams, snails, slugs, and calamari. Went from gag reflex and unable to swallow to capable of eating but not savouring in a few months time.
And again with fears, it’s not that dark voids have become less dangerous or fearful, it’s just that I have checked enough voids to not be immediately alarmed.
I can’t speak to closets, but I’ve heard of Montessori beds being placed directly on the floor. That’d at least eliminate monsters under the bed. I say that as a parent of a child with a bed raised above the floor…
For me, we need the space under the bed for clothing storage. One of the drawbacks of having 2 adults and 2 children in a 2 bedroom home. We need all of the closet and storage space we can get.
Edit: I went off on a tangent there. Definitely get what you’re suggesting.
What about putting the bed on the floor and a shelf above it? Feel like that would be cozy to a child and leave only one direction for threats to come from.
Fair point. It’s a bunk bed for my two kids. I’m sure there is still a way, but it’d probably require some engineering.
I’m really scared of my shoddy workmanship (or an earthquake, bad dream, etc) causing the shelf and any heavy items on it to come crashing down on me in the night.
Because we are free to design the space and most peopoe don’t design rooms with that in mind.
Kids are afraid of being alone in the dark. The monster under the bed or in the closet is just how they communicate their fear.
I had a room similar to what you suggested. No big closets and an elevated bed. But I still got scared sometimes. And the only things that helped were being in a well lit room and or not being alone.
Same with me. Even when the room was brightly lit I would get anxious and would ask a parent to sleep with me just because I was alone, not being able to sleep.
That makes sense.
Maybe we don’t need to round every sharp corner we can find. I doubt anyone is traumatized for life because there was a closet in the room as a child.
Much more are traumatized by being forced into the closet. Let’s fix that instead.
We did for my daughter. She then got scared of door knobs because they “had eyes”. They find something else lol
Haha this is pretty cute not gonna lie.
I read OP’s question and was like 🤔 waaait a minute this is brilliant! The I read your comment and was like ahh… shit… 🤣
But do we really need door knobs though 😋
Kid: I’m afraid of Vegetables.
I think fear is an important part of our development, and sanitizing children’s upbringings is rarely the best approach. I love when my child communicates that they’re afraid of something because that gives me an opportunity to guide them through how to encounter and process that fear, and how to continue functioning in life when fear is present (which is always for a lot of people).
Also, for kids who are scared of their closet or under their bed at night, if you remove those triggers I would be surprised if other triggers did not arise. It could easily turn into a never ending game of whack a mole.
“Bran thought about it. ‘Can a man still be brave if he’s afraid?’ ‘That is the only time a man can be brave,’ his father told him.”
I recognise this. Where’s it from?
This is from page 26 of A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin.
It’s from game of thrones, but I don’t know if the quote originated there. I’ve seen it in different wordings all over the place.
Not a psychologist or anything but isnt it healthy for a child to overcome a fear and not just avoid it
Also not a psychologist, but I would say that’s only true if the fear keeps them from enjoying life
As adults, we design our living spaces to be comfortable to us. We don’t intentionally make them scary so we can overcome.
Dealing with ones fear should be learned at an early age. I didn’t start dealing with my fears until I was 17.
What stopped you from doing so prior to that?
My parents build a room where I didn’t have to face my fears
And you never left there until you were 17?
(I know you’re not OP, but still.)
Whoosh
Fears are a tough thing to face.
Who intended for the closet to be a scary void?
Same dude who put a bucket of truth outside the master bathroom
The people who think not having it be one means children are avoiding rather than overcoming their fears
It may not have been intended as such originally, but if you defend the design on that basis, it becomes intentional.
Comfort ya. But we do not succumb to irrational fears either. Our more to the point, it may not be healthy to say place ten locks on our doors because we think someone is trying to break in always.
Speak for yourself. My home is entirely sharp angles and unsecured towers of broken glass and rubbing alcohol suspended in petroleum jelly that also slicks the floor. I will brook no weakness in my home.
If your kid can’t overcome a closet you’ve got bigger issues. I’m sorry but this entire thought process is too much.
I don’t have kids, but the way I was raised is by letting me experiment with stuff. My parents would let me bump my head or get my fingers stuck into stuff, because then I would learn to not put my fingers into random stuff. Now of course they told me don’t do it but they didn’t prevent me from learning from my mistakes. And look at that: I’m not dead yet and I don’t run in places with things hanging off the ceiling!
And they also did that for fears, the kid needs to overcome their fears the same way they learn from their mistakes, by doing it themselves.
Kind of unrelated one thing my mom told me she did with me and my brother was for example when we fell off our bicycles, instead of running and crying and acting all shocked and scared, she would just say “Wow! That was a COOL fall! You were so badass with all the dust going everywhere!!” And that would prevent us from crying and making a whole case about it. She told me that kids will cry when they feel like it will bring them attention, especially if they are not badly/truly hurt
That’s great that it worked for you, but I won’t be doing that with my kids. Statistically, there was always the chance you lose a finger or hand from sticking it where it didn’t belong. And while yes, it’s unlikely, it doesn’t really matter anymore how likely it is once it actually happens.
Well I mean they wouldn’t let me kill myself or let me lose a part of myself, what I mean is they let me experiment by letting me use a real knife to cut fruit etc, and I did cut my fingers once and I’ve been very careful ever since, but they would never let me play with the knife so I didn’t swallow it for example
I think for some children that’s the best way to overcome fear. Not for all children, though, people are built different.
I was afraid that I’d die in my sleep. Not like from health issues. Monsters or something unknown that only existed when I was alone in the dark. To a later age than I’d prefer to share.
Fuck, all right, I got over it last week. /s but the rest was true.
I wasn’t afraid of my closet, I was afraid of stretching my legs out towards the end of the bed, because claw monsters might get them.
I did actually the opposite, unintentionally. But worked. My daughter never had a problem with a dark void somewhere. She loved to hide there.
maybe she IS the monster?
*M Night Shyamalan taking notes
I used to love the dark, felt safer there.
I found my monster
The human animals are the most deadly, and they can’t see in the dark.
An enclosed capsule just brings on another fear: fear of closed spaces. Too open and it’s fear of open spaces.
