Children and Night Terrors, Part I

SUMites, Lynn here. Let’s pick up from our last post: Honor your child and take a posture to monitor what their exposure to frightful images and sounds. Children under the age of seven are unable to distinguish what is real and what’s not.

What does it mean to honor your child’s fears?

Don’t dismiss their fears as insignificant, ridiculous, or dumb.

Your kid is afraid. Bend down and say, “Baby girl, tell mama what has scared you?”

Listen intently and don’t make facial responses that bring them shame or show exasperation. They are truly afraid and only have you, mom and dad, to help them process their fear and come out of it in wholeness.

Okay we’ve reached the place where Mom and Dad, we need to talk. You can’t assure your child about anything until you understand that some of the stuff your kids see at night, IS NOT IMAGINARY!

Gather yourselves because we need to have a straight talk, a real talk.

Ready?

The demonic world is real. The angelic is real. And often children are very sensitive to see and perceive both. They haven’t been fed a regular diet of doubt and religion to convince them it’s not real. Now I’m not trying to frighten anyone because there are times kids are perceiving something as real when it is not. But the more I speak with parents and through my own experiences with my kids, there are times our kids are dealing with something truly frightening and we are ill equipped to help.

BUT not any longer.

I want to share a conversation I had with Caitie, who at the time was very young. I think she was under six-years-old. And I’m giving you my best recollection of this event. And it was very real. My daughter and I have spoken about it several times throughout her growing up years. If you asked her today, she would affirm what I’m about to share.

When she was small she would be frightened and sometimes in the night she would run to our room to climb in bed with mom and dad. I believe we should comfort our kids and there are occasions when they run into your room and you invite them to stay and then there are times to face their fears with them.

My memory of this particular night was followed by conversation the next day. I asked Caitie what did you see that scared you? She replied that she could see red eyes glowing at her from within her stuffed animals. Now gang, here is where it becomes challenging. Are you brave enough to believe what your kid is seeing is a legitimate “something” in the room?

In that moment, I chose to believe her. I’ve seen enough of the spirit realm, even back then, to understand there are spirit beings, angels and demons that are in and among us. It’s in the Bible. Read it….

I immediately assured her that she wasn’t wrong to be afraid but instead of dismissing her fears and telling her that it’s imaginary, I affirmed and THEN EQUIPED her to conquer her fears. And better than that, I taught her how to evict any scary spirit from her room.

“Caitie, when you see something like those eyes or hear something that scares you, I want you to speak out loud; ‘In Jesus name, I command you to leave my room right now.’ Keep saying it and because you have Jesus in your heart, it will eventually go. It must go because you are strong in Jesus. Be persistent.”

I also would bless her room before she sent to sleep as I was tucking her in. I would pray, out loud, so she could hear me and anything else that might be lurking, that this room was off limits. I would instruct angels to stand guard at her door and window with swords drawn and ready than then pray that she had good dreams from Jesus.

These efforts, over time, equipped her to stop living terrified in fear and to start sleeping at night. And she used them!

In my next post I want to share the four weapons we have available to equip our children to fight off the demonic realm. And you can teach your kids to use them. And by-the-way, you are equipping them to become powerful adults with this knowledge.

So, how many of you have heard similar stories from your kids? What did you tell them? Is this topic helpful to anyone? Talk to me in the comments. Be blessed, Lynn