A couple of months ago my daughter started reporting the presence of people in her bedroom at night.  She referred to them mostly as pictures, but was insistent that she sees a ghost, and most importantly a witch.  She is afraid.  She expels genuine tears, which are prompted by the knowledge that once I leave the room her visitors will appear to her.  At a loss I probed her with questions such as “where do you see them”, “have you seen them before on TV or in a book” and “are you talking about dreams while you are sleeping?”

She is insistent that she has never seen them before (still, my immediate response is to curse myself for letting her watch that damn Snow White), and she is certain she is awake.  Despite one questionable experience I have had in my home thus far, I am inclined to shy away from suggestion of paranormal activity, and choose instead to dive a little deeper into the mind and eyes of my four year old child. 

While there are specific areas of the room where the ghost and witch appear, she has also reported the presence of faces in her headboard.  This is where it became all too clear for me.  As I ran my fingers over the wood, trying to find the patterns, I had a flash of memory.

Lying in my bedroom in my childhood home, I was crying and pleading with my mother to make the faces go away.  “Look at the faces, they are right there!” I called out from my little twin bed.  I watched my mother run her fingers along the new paneling, trying in earnest to see what she could not.  In the end, my father had to paint the paneling a lovely shade of blue.  I’m not sure if I ever told them, but even with the paint I could still see the faces.  They were, however, less pronounced and I was able to sleep at night without feeling watched.

I saw no pattern in my daughter’s my headboard, but I do not doubt that for her the faces exist.  So here we are in yet another phase of childhood development that I probably should have anticipated, but haven’t bothered to educate myself upon yet beyond memories of my own personal experience.  Thus far my encouragement has been to think happy thoughts, to not look at them, reassurance that they are not real, and to trust in that I am never far away.

I can’t help but wonder if the night light is the problem.  She is too afraid of the dark to go without one, but for this little imaginative child, I believe the shadows from the light are causing more harm than the darkness.  My next steps will involve lying with her before sleep, dissecting the room, giving names to the objects in the shadows, and attempting to bring what is real to the forefront while banishing away the fallacies the mind can create.

I would love to hear if you have experienced this problem with your children, and what were your methods to combat the nighttime fears of preschoolers?  As I reflect upon my task ahead, I am reminded of an old Suzanne Vega song:

I could shelter you

Keep you in light

But I can only teach you

Night vision