Tips Parents Should Do In Teaching Children Not To Be Afraid Of The Dark

Illustration (Jonathan Borba/Pexels)

JAKARTA - It is normal for preschoolers to be afraid of the dark. After the age of 3 years, children's imagination does develop and will subside by itself with age.

After the child is 5 years old, he is expected to be able to distinguish between what is imaginary and what is real. When past the age of toddlers, the child's fear is still so strong, parents need to help the child overcome his fear.

In the dark or when the child is in the dark, the child will imagine scary things, such as ghosts, monsters, dragons, and even thieves. The more developed his imagination power, the higher the level of fear. Factors that help strengthen children's imagination power, including watching movies, reading scary books, or often being intimidated. This will make the child's imagination develop in a negative direction. For those of you who often scare children, from now on get rid of that habit.

Take concrete action to understand your child's fears by empathizing. Teach children how to relax. Either by storytelling or even invite him to play hide and seek in the dark. When playing usually children will forget their scary imagination. It could also be because they are used to playing in the dark, the child is not afraid of the dark anymore.

Children who are still automatically learning, through games can reduce their fear of the dark. For example, invite children to play with shadows from objects around, for example dolls. It could be that the shadow of the doll is very ugly, the child guessed it wrong, now after the original doll is removed, the child will know it is the shadow of the doll. It wasn't something as scary as he thought.

To be sure, never blame the child or scold him if he is afraid of the dark. If this is done, the children will be even more afraid. With the methods above, hopefully the child will slowly not be afraid of the dark anymore.