Bedtime fears
Our children have such vivid imaginations that can sometimes run off on them, even when they are nearing school age and can understand the differences between reality and fantasy. As a parent myself, I’ve always used fears at bedtime as an opportunity to teach my children to be more in control of their own mind.
I always taught my kids that our minds are very strong and that we can change what we want to think at any given time. We would chant “NO! I’m the boss of my mind and I’m not going to think about those things!” and then we’d rattle of a list of positive things they could think of and focus on instead. Christmas, Birthdays, Happy memories and things they are looking forward to etc.
So recently, When I came across Dr Dan Siegel’s concept of “the wheel of awareness”, this really resonated with what approach I had always taken and probably explains it so much better than I do. Picturing our mind as a bicycle wheel. The rim representing the things we pay attention to or become aware of - our thoughts, feelings, dreams, desires, memories, perceptions of the outer world and the sensations from our body.
The inner hub is our awareness/our prefrontal cortex which helps integrate our whole brain. From the hub, is where we can center and focus on the various points of the wheel. The spoke points to which ever spot we are focusing on and can move accordingly to where we are spending most of our thoughts.
When our children are going through a period of feeling fearfulness, their focusing on a set of fearful rim points. Which might be monsters, thunder etc. When we can explain this Wheel of Awareness to our children (and don’t underestimate how much sense they will make of this concept) or even draw something to give them insight into how they have control over where their "spoke" points, they will better have control over the thoughts.
Talking about the wheel of awareness with our children. Maybe giving them examples of times you were focusing on crappy rim points and how you turned it around etc, will allow them to see what’s happening in their own mind and gives them the control to focus on any other rim point that they CHOOSE to.
