Any Ideas To Help Chase Away Bad Image

[SueFinanceManager]

Hi all

 

Wondered if anyone had any ideas to help my friends little boy. My friend was whisked away for the weekend to celebrate her 40th birthday and her mother-in-law came and looked after her 2 boys, aged 10 & 6.

 

Saturday night she was watching 'The Others' Nicole Kidman film and the boys came down and she allowed them to watch some of it. Ever since the little one keeps saying he can she the image of the little girl in the film whose face ages until it crumble and it is completely freaking him out. He keeps bursting into tears and doesn't seem to be himself atall.

 

They have talked about fantasy and fact and how it was just a story etc. He loves to draw and so I suggested he drew a picture and then ceremoniously destroyed it and he did that this morning and seemed ok but at lunch time broke down again.

 

Any ideas from those of you with more experience than me would be gratefully recieved, maybe something from a child protection course might be useful.

 

Hope you can help but in the meantime my friend is dishing out cuddles and a sympathetic ear to her liilte lad.

 

Thanks

Sue

[Guest]

Oh the poor boy! Even I wont watch that film because its looks scary!

I can't really suggest anything but hope someone does as I watched Steven King's IT when I was about 9 or 10 and it REALLY freaked me out (watched it at a friends house who had older brothers and sisters!) and I still can't watch it and I still have a fear of clowns.

[apple]

Hi Sue

aahhh what on earth was the mother in law thinking of ... I do hope your friend has told her what a dreadful impact this has had upon the little ones!

I did hear of an idea that when children are scared of monsters the parent came into the bedroom with the child and they swept the monsters away and left behinf the friendly monsters (like scully in Monsters Inc). Could something like this 'sweeping away' work?

The other thing is to try and show the characters in the film as actors and find pictures of actors rehearsing/getting make up on/ the set etc (will google images have some?) This is a little like your idea about fantasy and fact. The other idea is to find something he loves doing visiting and filling his time so much with fund things connected to what he loves that he may forget the bad?

I do hope your friend finds a sloution for her little boy

[Guest]

I've not seen this film but the image must be very scary. This young boy appears to have a very visual imagination too, which is why he keeps seeing the image.

We all know that his fears are irrational, fact & fantasy, but to him the fear feeling is real because the images are still in his mind. As a young girl I used to imagine a witches face at my bedroom window and when I think about it I can still recall that image now as vivid as it was then.

 

I'm guessing that part of his upset is that he can't stop this image appearing, so he feels out of control. It's good that he can express his feelings ( feels secure enough to cry without being made to feel silly) but now needs a "tactic" to control this image when it appears. Talk to him about how he thinks he can do this. A mantra might help ie: When the image appears he could recite, go away, go away, don't come back another day. or he may decide to consciously change the image to a happy one. Ask him what happy image he thinks he could change it to. Or maybe you could remind him he saw it on telly, so all he has to do in his mind is switch the telly off to make it go away. Anything that helps him feel more in control.

 

This is all just off the top of my head, I don't know if it would work, it really depends on the childs character, is there anything else worrying him that this episode has triggered and enabled his ability to show tearful feelings?

 

I hope his fears fade very soon.

 

Peggy

[bubblejack]

How about making a magic wand and a spell to go with it.

[Guest]

Agreeing that it must be very scary for him and that it is very normal fr him to be feeling like he does may help. Tell him about a similar experience you have had or his mum and dad have had and that it,s okay because his mum and dad know about how he feels and they understand and they are going to try to help him get over this problem. In my experience when children are afraid or anxious they need masses of reassurance that they are not alone in their fears and that familiar adults know all about it. They need someone to talk to on their level. Hope that helps abit but I expect his parents have already done most of what I've mentioned.

Please let us know how he gets on

Trudiex

[Alison]

I remember a few years ago working in a summer play scheme with 8-14 year olds and we made dream catchers to hang in our bedrooms to help catch bad dreams it was a fun activity and it got the children talking about their dreams and stuff but if you boy is seeing and thinking about the image during the day thats probably not much help....

 

Peggy's idea about visualising the image on a TV is a good one if the child has a favourite program/ film visualise changing the channel to another program that was funny and happy.

 

I'd heard a similar idea last week as part of a behaviour managment training day to help change moods by encouraging the person to think of a happy memory... when a situation arose think of the happy memory rather than the situation, the training was refering to dealing with difficult children not difficult memories but I dont see why it shouldnt work to some degree

 

 

I hope you find a solution soon