by Crystal Shimo

Created on: August 22, 2009

Darkness surrounds them, shadows dance in the dim light coming from the small princess night lite. Monsters appear in the closet door while scratching sounds come from the bedroom window. The child cries for her mother, or father, wanting them to scare the monsters away. Easing a child's night terrors is only one thing a child needs from their parents. Before a parent can ease a child's terrors, the child has to trust the parent, and feel safe when they appear.

A child is defenseless in the world around them. They learn the defenses as they grow up, but when they are young, they depend on their parents to be their shield. Scary monsters, strangers, unknown sounds, and anything else that can't be seen. Children tend to interpret the world around them by what they see. If a sound is made that is outside of their viewing area, or where they move to see what made the sound in minutes if not seconds, they tend to let their imaginations take hold. A child's imagination can take the unknown to wonderful places, or terrifying places.

If a shadow appears in the night, and he/she cannot figure out what is making the shadow, monsters take their place. An unknown person comes up to them when the family is on a day at the park, and they freeze, not knowing this person from anywhere before. They want mommy and daddy to come scare the stranger away.

Trust and safety goes a long way in easing those fears and becoming their hero that scares the bad guys away. But trust and safety often come after unconditional love. A lot of things from any relationship stem from unconditional love. Once your child realizes that you love them, they trust you to be there for them, and feel safe when you wrap your arms around them.

Another thing children need from their parents is open-mindedness. Letting your children experiment as they grow allows their creativity to blossom, Which lets them become adults that have outlets for whatever stress inducing job they end up getting. A willingness to 'think outside the box' is something that few people can brag about and causes some to be written into history. For instance, Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Alexander Grahmn Bell, Charles Lambert, and Amelia Airheart. Each of them thought outside of the box and ended up doing extraordinary things.

A less liked aspect of life that children need from their parents is discipline. If a person does not have discipline, it is likely they can get out of control and become a menace to society, or harmful to themselves. Different people have different methods of discipline, and there is a fine line between discipline and abuse that a lot of public offices take a little too far. Some sort of discipline is needed, as the child needs to know what the structure of society is, the laws of society, and that they can get punished for disobeying those laws.

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