He, She & Wemdu Pea

Irrational Fears?!?

Of all my daughter's irrational fears (and she has quite a few), the one that is bugging us the most right now is the fear of wolves living in our house. You see...our house has many "scary" things about it. It is an older home with scary old house sounds. We have a small basement with low ceilings that is cemented but not finished. She HATES going down there. She will make Bud go with her. We also have an attic she is convinced is full of scary creatures (which is probably true). We also have a big dog out back in a neighbor's yard that barks at the kids constantly. And a scary old wooden shed. She is afraid of all these things.

Well, my friends daughter came over to play once and ended up telling her all about her "wolf friends" and how she trained a wolf to live with her. The little girl told Bug the wolves would be coming to visit her and they enter our house through her closet! Seriously!?!

Well...that just freaked my daughter out beyond repair I fear. She will not go to sleep in her room unless I am laying with her. She refuses to go into any space without full light and a hand to hold. She won't even go potty if she REALLY has to alone because of her fears. I've tried reassurance, positive reinforcement, bribery, coercion, and even threats...to NO AVAIL!

I realized that she is not going to loose the image of the wolf in her closet...So...why not make it a nice wolf...and see if that will help. So I hopped on Netflix and found the Journey of Natty Gann. I LOVED this movie as a kid. My hope again is to have my daughter view the wolf in her closet as a nice wolf and therefore...not be so afraid to go to bed alone.

Well....I think it helped a little. She now thinks wolves can be nice, but not the ones in our house. She is still overly afraid of the dark and going to sleep alone. I think she may need therapy. Are there therapists who specialize in irrational fears of wolves living in the closets of children under eight? Anyone have any other suggestions.