Night Monsters

SillyBilly has been saying lately that he's scared of monsters. This comes up at bedtime, usuallly after the rituals have been completed: story told or read, talking about the day, talking about tomorrow, talking about dreamland and visiting our guardian angels in our sleep.

I can see this partly as a normal develomental stage, and partly as a delay tactic for bedtime. The problem I've had is, I don't want to pooh-pooh his belief in monsters. I want him to be imaginative and to process his fears in his own way. So what to do?

I tell him that monsters would never come to our house. We work hard to make our house pretty, our yard and neighborhood are beautiful, and we are surrounded by loving friends and family.

Monsters hate that stuff. They hate beauty and love. So, they will never NEVER come to our house.

I think he bought it. Tonight after we told each other I love you, SillyBilly said, "Mama, we love each other so much, the monsters would see all that hugging and kissing and love, and they would run far away."