Child psychology, I have a few questions

I have a 3 year old nephew. He's been waking up in the middle of the night, sometimes screaming. Ok, so it's night terror and I've read about it.But what's been disturbing me and his parents is this. He kept telling them that something is in the closet and he would not go back to sleep until his parents barricade the closet doors. Sometimes, he'd point to a corner and tell his parents that there was a boy that looked like him but with red eyes there before his parents got to the room. He's also been afraid of looking into mirrors because, according to him, what he sees in the mirror looks too much like that little boy with red eyes.I can understand that kids can have pretty good imagination that fuels their night terrors. But can it be this specific? How the hell did he get these ideas of a little boy with red eyes and the boogey man in the closet?

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People Eating Tasty Animals

I never knew a three year old that could see themselves without a mirror. Must be a pretty smart kid.My advice at the start is not to make a big deal out of it in front of him. A kid will observe the level of "fuss" being made to be able to determine how alarmed he should be about his own issue. Less is better in this case as he will forget about it if no fuss is made. This is not though addressing the cause of the terrors.Closet monsters are everywhere and everyone is afraid of them. =)

My daughter had night terrors too but not as specific as your nephew. She would scream bloody murder at 2 in the morning and would litterally would try to scale the wall or you if you tried to hold her. Her eyes would be wide open, so we believed it was some form of "night terror" syndromn. The best thing we learned to do was just to sit in the room with her and talk to her as her parents to let her know we where there and that she was safe. We did not try to hold her but just moved everything away so she did not hurt herself. Eventually she would "wake-up" but only a few times did she remember specifically what she was seeing/dreaming (it was hard to interpret because of her young age) though I suspect in most she was trying to run away from the "fear" she experienced. She has since grown out of this, but still has the occassional nightmare but not nearly as scary as her previous ones.The brain does really funky things at this age and it is probably some form of self-induced psychosis brought on by the rapid growth of the brain at this age, overstimulation, information overload, and high sugar intake. Kids at this age have few inhibitions to reign in there vivid imaginations.This is why it is so important for parents to police what there kids watch on TV. One episode of a kid with red eyes or the like on TV can fuel the fire so to speak in there imagination which than carries over into there dreams. IMHO, I would not worry to much about it, it is a passing phase of childhood. Just be there, love on them and don't feed the psychosis (i.e. don't talk about it in front of them).Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

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For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Dr. Carl Sagan

It's not just young kids. My wife used to suffer from them. She would "wake up", look at me, and scream the house down, desperately clawing to get away from me. Once the light was on and she had been calmed down, she would explain that I had been turning into a monster. For some minutes afterwards, she wouldn't be wholey convinced that I wasn't a monster...It sounds hilarious, but the sheer terror in her voice and eyes was quite frightening to witness, and there's something slightly odd about having to convince your wife that you're not a doctor-who-esque monster

True.Here is an interesting website I found describing this disorder:
Night Terrors Resource CenterAnd some interesting information: Thankfully we live in modern society where most sane people (religious and nonreligious) do not attribute this disorder to demon possession. 300-400 years ago you and your child would either have been totally ostricized by society in one form or another or tried for witchcraft and possibly burned at the stake.Edited by DevilsAdvocate, : No reason given.

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For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
Dr. Carl Sagan

I remember when I was around 6 or 7 or so, I had anxiety and thought that all sorts of inanimate objects in the house were somehow transformed into monsters at night. Even though Christian, I do not believe that any of this is some sort of devil! Logically, it is some sort of unresolved fear that the young child has in their own lives, and the subconscious turns it into anxiety (undefined fear) which the child then connects to anything his imagination can understand. Kids are more intuitive than adults, yet lack the knowledge to understand their inner emotions. Quite literally, being unable to look in the mirror could translate into insecurity of oneself. The boy feels as if the problems are his fault, he cant face them, yet does not understand why the emotions are there. So his imagination makes up what for him is a logical solution. Kinda like what adult Christians do with blaming "the devil".

My son had a bout of night terrors at about the same age as your nephew, around 3 years old. They lasted approximately 4 months and he would have at least one, but commonly two night terrors per week.Same thing, screaming bloody murder, eyes wide open, talking, babbling, crying, and he would not wake up even with me talking to him or holding him. It was very scary to watch. The next morning he would tell me about his bad dreams, which consisted mostly of monsters chasing him. It was also after this that he wanted all closets closed before he went to sleep and insisted sleeping against a wall -- because of monsters under the bed.All we did was comfort him and lay with him for a little bit. About 4 months after they started, they stopped and haven't been back since.One thing I have realized since becoming a parent is that children are far more aware of their surroundings that we give them credit for. They are observational machines from the minute they are born. My son had a photographic memory as a 2 to 3 year old. The only reason I recognized it was because we had taken a 4 hour trip twice within a few months of each other. The second time, that kid knew when all the tunnels were coming up before they were even visible, at least a mile or two ahead of time.At around this age, I think their creativity, imagination, and the real world are starting to mesh, so night terrors are fairly common. All my nephews had them at around the same age as well.

I know all too well about sleeping disorder. I suffer from sleep paralysis on a regular basis! Just a couple hundred years ago, this would have been attributed to witch craft and such. I've even seen hosts and aliens during these episodes.The only thing that worries and puzzles me about my nephew is how specific his dreams were.

Hmmmmmm....? I doubt any of us on the forum have enough information or training to be able make any kind of decent diagnosis, but what you are describing for a 3-year old sounds very disconcerting.Has there been any emotional, physical or psychological trauma that you are aware of?I only ask because while night terrors are fairly common in school age children with overactive imaginations, it sounds uncommon for someone his age to be able to even conceptualize beings that look like himself hiding in the closet.Sure, every kid at some point has some kind of a boogeyman experience, where their unreasoned fear manifests itself, but this sounds a little bit different.I don't think it would hurt to get him evaluated by a professional child psychologist.But you know, his parents may be unintentionally feeding the monster, so to speak. They may be enabling him to certain degree by, in a roundabout way, admitting to him that there are demon children in his closet, but that they aren't there now. By giving in and barricading the closet doors, isn't that sending the child a message; that maybe there really are demon children hiding in there?When my kids did the whole, "there's something in my closet" routine, my wife and I would just casually say, "nope, there's no such thing," and then distract their minds on something else. I think in this case by our minimizing their fears, we didn't give it a chance to fester.Sometimes you see parents who check for monsters and say, "no, no monster here." Why even allow them to believe such things would exist? Of course the parents are just trying to be sensitive to their child. Nothing wrong with that. But I think even tacitly suggesting even the possibility is worse than stating simply that is an impossibility.It worked for me, so I figure it might be some good information to run by your brother/sister and brother/sister-in-law. Edited by Hyroglyphx, : ABE

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"Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear." Thomas Jefferson

I used to suffer the same thing as a young child. I was convinced that there was something under the bed.It was a skinny humanoid wolf who would reach up in the night to the end of the bed and try to grab my feet. The visulisation of this beast was very graphic (although I accept I can only go on what I remember some 30 years ago-it always felt very real).Consequently I would sleep curled up (untill I was about 10 years only infact).I'm convinced that this kind of 'intrusive thought' is connected to an anxiety disorder in myself (GAD). In my work with patients with anxiety disorders many of them have were nervous children who were afraid of different 'monsters' etc.As an aside I remember reading that boys were more afraid of monsters on the same horizontal plane as themselves where as girls were more afraid of mosters on the same verical plane. This could stem back to the threats we were primed to be vigilant for in our prehistoric past where males would face threats on the ground and females would face threats from bellow (hidding in trees?).These thoughts/images could be a result of negative automatic thoughts that lead to rumination (about the negative automatic thought) which lead to and increase in the detail of the negative thought.For my self it was not untill my twenties when I figured out where the Wolf came from: it was a cartoon with an evil humanoid skinny wolf that I had seen and forgotten.Could be an explanation for the lads clear image of a red eyed figure.I was also terrified of looking out windows at night because of the reflections. It meant there could be something looking at me that I could not see. I used to closed my eyes and close the curtains by touch rather than look out.ABE: just thinking about the red eyes bit: has the lad ever looked at a photo taken with a flash? That's one way he could have seen that image.Edited by Larni, : Red eye point.

Which catoon? if you don't reply, I'll just assume you don't know

Space Sentinels (I think).I believe it was some ancient Egyptian theranthropic god.Or radiation (by the magic of 'somehow').