Wyatt, my three-year-old son, is one hundred percent certain that monsters lurk
in the world. We spend hours stalking our yard, armed with water guns, to dispatch with these beasts. “C’mon, Mommy. A Purple Volcano Monster! Get it!” Sometimes I’m not entirely sure what we are shooting at—but Wyatt is, as we hide behind trees and give chase to unsuspecting bunnies.
Bedtime routine is a breeze…until the monsters emerge at lights-out. Usually, as
I leave Wyatt’s room, he whimpers an inaudible concern into the dark and then drags every blanket he owns up over his head, no matter the room temperature. The scene always reminds me of that Calvin and Hobbes cartoon strip where
Calvin leans over the bed to ask: “Any monsters?” Only to hear an alarming response: “No, go to bed.”
Sometimes Wyatt’s fear is less about the imaged and more about the unknown.
Thanks to the pandemic, Wyatt is a little light on the rules of life: playdates, museum etiquette, shopping. One day, when I took him to buy a new coat, he
panicked: “But I like my coat. I want my coat!” On a sales floor stuffed with new merchandise, it seemed like I was replacing his favorite coat with some randomly selected garment.
Helping Wyatt manage his fears turns out to be an odd chicken/egg exercise exploring the interplay between experience and expression. “I’m a little serious,” he once informed me when asked why he was afraid to use the potty. My face
wrinkled in confusion. “Then I’m lonely?” he guessed again. We need a clear
vocabulary to help pinpoint the particulars of each feeling before we decipher between the rational and irrational—and quite honestly, that entire system is influx.
Ultimately, the goal is to help Wyatt distinguish real fear (on-coming traffic!) from
fantastical fear (dragons!). A process that makes the world less awesomelyimprobably-magical and more predictably-manageably-dull. It’s a trade-off—but worth it (I think).
MONSTER IN THE CLOSET by Director of College Counseling Corie McDermott-Fazzino PAGE 20
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P O RT S M O U T H A BBE Y S CH O O L
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