Monday, 12 December 2011
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Two and Terrified
My 2.5 year old is afraid of a monkey that she claims is in our house. We don't have any scary monkey statues or stuffed animals, and to the best of my knowledge she hasn't watched any scary monkey movies lately. Of course there have been a lot Planet of the Apes commercials on TV recently, so her dad and I think that might have been the scary monkey but we aren't sure.
I've asked her if the monkey was in her bedroom, the living room, the kitchen, and every other room in the house and she tells me no but the only room she feels safe in is my bedroom and only if the bedroom door is shut. She says she can't tell me where it is and says that it is not in the TV.
Her fear popped up out of no where after spending the weekend with her dad at his house. If the bedroom door is not closed she is hysterically crying and hiding underneath my covers, and last night she hid under there so long she was literally drenched in sweat. I thought the problem would dissipate in the daylight, but now it's 11 am and we are still locked away in my bedroom. She is terrified to leave my room and terrified for me to leave my room. If I step out of the room for any reason, she hides under the covers again and asks me to shut the door behind me and tells me to watch out for the monkey.
She is very clingy and scared, and although she has been afraid of things before I have never seen her like this. I'm both concerned and confused. I can't seem to talk her out of it, I don't know what's triggered it, I can't get her to tell me where it is, I can't get her to believe that I sent it away.
HELP!
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- From: MuggleLouise@xanga
- Name: MuggleLouise
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Comments (25)
My son went through this (though not as severe) after watching Tarzan (the Disney animated one).
I know several other children who have been through similar monkey-related fears after going to the Zoo, watching Jumanji and watching George of the Jungle. (My goddaughter was terrified of Lemurs for years after watching a show on Animal Planet)
So, while i do not know how to help you I wanted to let you know you are not alone.. Hopefully others can be more helpful =)
with a fear this severe you should contact her doctor. The best advice I can offer, having never experienced this situation before, is just to keep reassuring her that there is no monkey anywhere nearby that could hurt her.
How about you guys go on a monkey fighting mission? Get some "weapons" and search the house, killing all of the bad monkeys. Be absolutely ridiculous about it!
The last thing she needs to hear is "there are no monkeys, your fears are unfounded, you are hallucinating."
@LupusInvictus: That's a really good idea. Thank you! I ended up calling her father and she went to his house for a few hours to kind of refresh. When I pick her up, I will try and use this technique if she brings it up again.
She is only scared at your house and not her dad's? since I do not know the whole story, I can only give thoughts on what you have said, so I do not mean to insult anyone, but here are my thoughts.
1. Is it possible, that her father, told her something so that she would spend more time with him and not you? is he that kind of person?
2. I know you said that you had no scary monkey statues or paintings or anything, but since she is 2.5 does the word monkey mean the same thing to her as it does you? meaning does she know what a monkey really is and is not confusing it with another animal that you may have in the house?
3. has something changed in the routine? have you or dad had to go back to work or something and she is doing this to spend more time with you or her father?
I agree with a PP and say you should do something creative. Kids are very literal-minded and creative, even if their understanding (and/or communication skills) are under-developed bc of their age.
Tell her the monkey was just hungry and give her a couple of bananas to leave in a certain spot while she naps. While she's asleep, hide the bananas and when she wakes up, tell her the monkey ate the bananas, was very happy, and went back to its jungle home.
Or make something up, like that, that you think will satisfy her fears. I like the monkey-fighting idea; you could use a bubble gun or some other pretend gun. Or you can create a "magical monkey repellant sparkle dust" that you sprinkle at the doorway of every room, so monkeys cannot enter the room. Or make her a special red T-shirt that keeps monkeys away. Tell her you called the monkey king on the phone and he told you that monkeys hate the color red, and when she wears the special T-shirt, monkeys will be afraid of HER.
Help her find a way to feel powerful in the face of her fears. The solution doesn't have to make sense to you, it only has to be believable to her. Along the same lines, when you come up with something to try, make sure you sound 100% confident when you present your solution. Good luck!
@ProudToBeAChristianFruitcake@xanga - Those are all valid questions. Yes, she is only scared at my house and not at her dad's. I'll answer your questions in the same order that you've asked them.
1. Yes, he is that kind of person. This past Thanksgiving he threatened to take me back to court before Christmas for sticking to the custody agreement in which it states (as he wanted it to) that he does all the transportation for his parenting time. In short, because I was spending Thanksgiving with my boyfriend's family this year (and with my daughter too, of course) he did not want to pick her up at my boyfriend's home and demanded I meet him in the middle. I said no and he was furious.
2. This is a trickier question to answer, but yes. My daughter knows that a monkey is an animal and can easily identify a monkey. However, my family originates from the southern states in the US and any female in my family for at least five generations or more grew up calling their vagina their monkey. I guess because it sounds nicer. This thought did cross my mind when she kept saying that there was a bad monkey in our house. She and I are the only people who live in our home and we were the only people here last night and this morning. I am not sure who was at her father's house this past weekend. He lives with his parents and two of his brothers (both have daughters.) She would not allow me to change her diaper today, but she did go pee on the potty and allowed me to wipe her. Nothing looked out of the ordinary or suspicious.
3. No, to my knowledge nothing has really changed in her routine with me or with her father. I do know that he has a new girlfriend that he is crazy in love with after dating for a month or two, and this is not the first girlfriend he has introduced her to. His previous girlfriend (and her son who is around my daughter's age) moved in with him after dating for two or three months and then moved out after cheating on him after dating for 8 months.
UPDATE: Earlier today I called my daughter's father in the hopes that he could talk to her about this bad monkey business, because I was getting absolutely no where with it. My daughter finally told me that it was in the kitchen. He came over and didn't get any farther than I did, then took her back to his house for a couple of hours. She spent time with his mom, she took a nap, and when I picked her up and brought her home she was fine and hasn't mentioned that damn monkey since. I fully expect the monkey to reappear in the kitchen when it's time to go to bed tonight, but we'll see I guess.
Irrational fears at this age are VERY common. This is because her prefrontal cortex is not very developed and the part of the brain that children this age use is the amygdala which regulates fear and anger. The ages 2-6 toddlers typically have temper tandems and fears. Just let your child sleep in you bedroom with the door closed, you have to just humor her. Let her tell you where and how she feels safe and do your best to accommodate her. She will grow out of this stage, but right now she is literally incapable of understanding that she has nothing to fear. (I'm a psychologist major and this is what we learned in our developmental psychology course). If her fear is really getting in the way of her falling and staying asleep and gets to the point where it is a huge problem talk to her pediatrician and he or she will probably have more pointers.
When I was young and I had nighttime fears, my mother told me that she made a "monster be gone" spay. She basically dressed up a plastic spray bottle with glitter and pretty writing and filled it with water and she sprayed it around the house. She told me that is would keep away monsters. I believed her and it worked.Hope this helps!We have a magic word "oompadoomp" that makes all monsters go away in our house. We even make up silly bedtime story fairy tales where the her/heroine says oompadoomp and the monster runs away never to be seen again.
I know some people probably think that's encouraging their irrational behavior, but seriously - it works! Good luck!
Do you or does her Dad watch Family Guy? This sounds a whole lot like a skit from that show where Chris sees an evil monkey in his closet that points at him...
Even if not, hopefully she will get over it soon! I agree with some of the other posters' ideas about literal, tangible ways you can get rid of this imaginary scary monkey. I think the "monkey spray" was a good idea, you can have her spray it whenever she gets scared even when she's by herself in her room at night.
Good Luck :)
You sure this monkey is not in her closet?
Family guy reference :S lol
Please let us know what happens!
PS My dad and I went on "Polar Bear Hunts" when I was little. Really we were just following dog tracks on the beach, but being in a position of power against large, scary animals, at night, no less, did wonders for my confidence. That spilled over into other areas. So, maybe do some confidence-building stuff in general :D
My mamaw used to take me on snipe hunts when I was little. Maybe you and she could have a hunt of your own.
Show her that there aren't monkeys. Search the entire house together.
similar thing is happening with my nephew .but only with ghosts & doesnt like the dark right now. we still have yet to figure it out but we bought a night light .
I know this has been already sort of been said, but you may want to try putting water in a spray bottle and give one to your daughter and one for you. Tell her that the bottle has a "potion" that makes scary monkeys disapper. Give her the power to defeat the monkey. She can keep the bottle by her bed. Each night before she gets tucked in, go around the house together to spray the doorways "to keep the monkeys from coming inside and make the monkeys go away. Just a thought. Good Luck!!
I don't know what I should tell you, but I do know what Freud would say.............I hope it's getting better, since she seems to have calmed down.
LupusInvictus@xanga - sounds like a good plan - monkey hunting.
i hope everything gets better for you both soon.
Did she watch family guy at her dads?
I've a wee bit of experience with this from work. I had a child who was terrified that a monkey would come off the monkey bars and take him away. Despite every effort from both children, staff, and parents this child refused to go out on the playground with the monkey bars. At last, after a year of dealing with the issue, we came up with this solution:
We got a stuffed lion, and told him that lions eat monkeys sometimes (he really liked this) and we set the lion loose in the school one weekend. Before he got there we replaced some of the chairs with some of the older, torn up chairs and also we scratched some of the posts outside. When he got there we walked him around the school and showed him where the lion battled with the monkeys, and then we showed him the lion sitting on the monkey bars, triumphant! It worked, and we've not had an issue since.
My daughter has decided that she's afraid of monsters. So one afternoon after vacuuming her room, I gave her the bottle of febreeze spray and told her it was "Magic Monster Spray, Keeps Monsters Away!" and let her spray everywhere she felt monsters hid. Her fears were eased and my house smelled great.
@greene_lily@xanga - ahahaha wow that's adorable <3
Thank you for the advice everyone.
I think that a lot of her issues with being afraid of my home is due to things her father may be saying when she is in his care. I have no proof of this and I am not sure what he could possibly be saying to her, but I do know that she is not afraid of these things in any other place (daycare, his home, etc.) except for my home and both she and he have said some things lately that raise a few red flags for me. He has told me flat-out that he badmouths me to her. It is a really unfortunate situation, but I am going to try and work through it.