Fear of the dark in children: words and stories that reassure

This article is not medical advice; if your child’s fear is intense, lasting or getting in the way of sleep, your GP or health visitor is the right person to talk to. What follows is the everyday, parent-to-parent kind of help: words, routines and stories that many families find make the dark a little smaller.

Why the dark gets frightening

Around the age of three, imagination takes off. A child who can now picture a dragon in a story can also picture one behind the curtain, and does not yet have a firm line between the two. The dark removes the reassuring shapes of the room and leaves imagination to fill the gap. Add tiredness, and a day with a lot in it, and you have the recipe.

None of this means something is wrong. It usually means your child’s mind is growing faster than their sense of what is real, which sorts itself out with time and patience.

Words that help, and words that do not

• Take the fear seriously without agreeing with it: “I can see you’re scared. The room is safe, and I’m right here.”
• Avoid “don’t be silly” and “there’s nothing there”. To the child, there is.
• Avoid checking under the bed in a way that suggests there might be something. Check once, calmly, together, and say what you saw: shoes, a sock, dust.
• Name the things in the dark room: “that’s your dressing gown, that’s the chair, that’s the light from the street”.
• Give them something to do: a torch to hold, a job of “guarding” the teddy.

Read a real bedtime story, calm and gentle, with no account needed

Small changes to the room and the routine

• A night light, warm and dim, or the door left ajar with the landing light on.
• The same bedtime routine every night, so that the dark arrives at a predictable moment. Our article on the bedtime routine goes into this.
• A calm last half hour: no screens, no rough play, a bath, a story.
• A “worry time” earlier in the evening, when things that are bothering them can be said and put away before bed.
• A promise you can keep: “I’ll come back and check on you in five minutes”, and then do it.

Stories where the dark is a friend

Stories are one of the gentlest tools you have. A child who hears about a hero who is scared and manages anyway, or who discovers that the night is full of owls and stars and sleeping animals rather than monsters, has a new picture to put in place of the old one.

Picture books about the night, about a small animal who is afraid and finds a friend, about the moon and the stars, work well. So do stories you make up, where your child is the one who turns on the light and finds a surprised, embarrassed little creature who only wanted a blanket.

A personalised book can go one step further. With AI-Koma Kids, your child chooses a hero and companions, a world and an adventure in pictures, and you, the parent, can add their first name and choose courage as the value to pass on. With the gentlest of the atmospheres, a story in which Maisie herself leads the little dragon through the dark forest to the lantern at the end of the path, read in your voice at bedtime, gives her a version of the dark in which she was the brave one. The soft background sounds, wind, night, forest, are optional, and some children prefer them off.

Create a free first book where your child is the brave one in the dark

Being patient with it

Fear of the dark tends to come and go over months, with better and worse weeks. A new sibling, a move, starting school and a frightening programme can all bring it back. Keep the routine, keep the night light, keep the words gentle, and keep the pressure low. Most children grow out of it, often without anyone noticing when.

For a wider look at how stories help children with feelings, see emotions and stories.

A new gentle story every few nights: see the plans