During class one of the kids in my class told me about a nightmare she had. It was a monster that had been chasing her, and how scared she was now to sleep in her bed.  Another boy in the class tells her that he also sees monsters, hence leading the entire class to share their scary dreams.

We discussed the difference between what is real and what is in our imagination.  This topic consumed the entire class. They all started comparing who had the scariest monster.

As a teacher, I don’t tell a child their imagination is wrong.  The goal is to teach them ways to change their scary thoughts into something happier.

Through books, we can help a child face many fears, adding laughter and silliness. Today we read “Go Away Green Monster“.

The book is made up of cutaway-style pages when you open the first page you see scary eyes. Each page thereafter builds the monster up. Eyes, hair, sharp teeth, etc.  Then together as a class, we use our imagination to tell the monster to go away!

In the next part of the book, we watch as we are able to page by page make the monster lose all its scary features until it is gone.

In the end, we all loudly said, “AND DONT COME BACK”.

We must have read this book at least five times in a row, laughing harder each time. By the end of the day, there was no more talk about bad dreams and scary monsters.

As our child’s brain is growing scary things become real. A bad dream that used to go away, can now be remembered for a longer time. Giving our children tools like empowering their imagination are so important.

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