Dream empowerment.
The power of the imagination is amazing. Positive suggestions can certainly be taken up by the mind - you can actually dream about a pre-chosen subject. In dream empowerment, you suggest to your child that she will dream positively and will always be the winner in the dream, no matter what kinds of upsets occur in it.

The instant replay.
Another good technique, if your child has a bad dream or scary thought, is to ask him to replay the dream or thought in his mind, only this time to make it turn out with himself as the hero, the brave one, the winner. For example:
If there is a monster trying to get the child, he could pull its pants down! Monsters hate to have their bottoms bared in public and an embarrassed monster will always run away.

With videos freely available, it can be difficult for parents to monitor what children see. Once when I was on holidays and my parents were looking after my children they somehow got to watch The Hunchback of Notre Dame. When I came home I was amazed to find them talking about a creature called Quasimodo. At first I was not at all pleased that they had seen the film,
but I changed my mind when I saw how they handled it. They talked about it a lot, trying to understand why people laughed at the hunchback.

On another occasion they got hold of The Witches of Eastwick. I didn't know that they had been watching it, and when I put them to bed they started to cry and didn't want to sleep apart.

'Why didn't you turn it off if it was scary?' I asked.

Of course, neither they nor I know why they didn't. Why don't I put down a Stephen King book when it's scaring me?

To fix those scary witches we had to start thinking about what we could do with witches if we were the boss. Robin said that he would pull the witch's nose off and Pamela said that she would stick the witch's broom up her nostrils - we fixed that witch 'real good'! By talking about it the children felt in control.

Below are some good ideas for helping your child use her imagination to conquer the witches, goblins, wolves and monsters that can loom large in her fears and dreams.

Getting rid of witches.
If you were scared of witches you could imagine that a big witch was coming at you just like in Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz. (Have you ever seen that movie? If not, ask Mum and Dad to let you watch it).

In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy had to kill the witch and she didn't know how to. In desperation she threw a bucket of water over her and - wouldn't you know it - that was the one trick that worked. The witch melted away.

Getting rid of goblins.
Well, goblins don't like to be tickled. You could imagine that when you start to tickle the goblin, he crumples up with laughter. He keeps crumpling and crumpling until in the end, you can flatten him out with your foot and stamp him down just as if he were a bit of paper.

Getting rid of wolves.
Wolves don't like fire, so all you need to do is light a great big fire and just stay next to it until it is morning. Make sure you've got plenty of wood.

Getting rid of monsters.
You can make any scary monster thing go away. All you need to do is just stand up to it and tell it off. Tell it that it's not welcome in your dream. It's not welcome in your space. You tell it to just go away.