Isn’t it odd how children develop a sort of fear from nothing? Like a fear of the dark when you have never had any kind of scary experience.
Evolutionary terms suggest that we are built to fear the dark, after all, if it was dark and we were exposed, we would almost certainly be killed by something or our own careless footing. I have never had a problem with Reuben and the dark, in fact quite the opposite, I will often tell him off because he will plonk himself on the toilet with his iPad and sit in the darkness, quietly playing or watching. I mean, who does that at four? I suspect someone is mirroring Daddy, who seems to take the same amount of time to ‘nip to the loo’ as the average person would take to run a mini marathon.
Toby is a different creature altogether, and it seems centred around the toilet.
I don’t know why but recently Toby is refusing to go to the toilet on his own, especially if the light isn’t on. He knows how to switch it on, and can reach, but he seems to fear even putting his little mitt into the room without the light. Worse still, he’s started doing it at preschool and has got to the point were he would rather wet himself than actually go to the loo.
I find it really upsetting to be honest, I’m not a fan of the dark myself, but I hate to see him afraid, especially when I can’t pin point the reason, it’s not like he’s ever been shut in there by accident, or had a negative experience, and he hasn’t had one at preschool either (although his beastly big brother HAS turned the light off on him upon occasion, though that was forever ago and it bothered him at the time but not afterwards). He also has (and always has had) and unbelievable fear of being left. When he has a temper tantrum, all I have to do is say, “Right Toby, see you later” and BOOM he’s hollaring at me not to leave and running after me. It’s something that I use almost daily if he is dragging his heals or being deliberately defiant, yes I’m a bitch – take it to the sanctimummy forum. That one I can rationalise though, he’s never been left and has NEVER been on his own – he’s such a social being that it makes sense for him to hate being alone. Deep down he knows I would never truly leave him, and when he has really tested the theory he has won out because I’ve had to haul ass back to him and scoop him up.
It’s this fear of the toilet and darkness that is really baffling me!
Does anyone else have problems with the dark? He doesn’t seem to mind it at bedtime and we’ve never had a nightlight, so that is another conundrum! Either this will develop into a full blown fear of the dark, with night lights and everything, or it could be more about potty training regression, whatever the outcome, I hate to see my baby sad or scared.
Any tips?
H x
