Maybe it was his longer hours at work. Maybe it was the fact that it was the tail end of summer and I was done with the free-for-all days. Whatever the reason, I was clearly feeling forgotten, even if it wasn\u2019t true. And it makes sense that I would carry it with me into my waking hours. A study in the journal, Social Psychological and Personality Science, found that, depending on the emotional intensity of the dream, the mood can stay in an altered state<\/a> the following day or even longer.<\/p>\n I see this in my kids, too. I see them wake from a nightmare about being lost in the grocery store or unable to find us in a crowd and they hug my legs like cling-wrap for the rest of the day. That feeling of aloneness is hard to shake.<\/p>\n But there are ways to help your kids combat the lingering effects of bad dreams so they don\u2019t ruin their days and maybe even identify what the dreams are all about in the first place. Here are a few ways to help bring your kids back to reality:<\/p>\n We know dreams aren\u2019t true, but the best way to remind your kids of this is to have them re-write the ending. Let them write down, or tell you, everything they can remember, detail by detail, until they get to the end \u2026 and then change it. Help them to fix it and make it as it should be, like righting an overturned table. They\u2019ll tell you how it should have ended, probably with everyone safe and sound and eating ice cream on an island, and be happier for it. That\u2019s how I\u2019d end every one of mine.<\/p>\n If psychologist Michale Breus is correct and we tend to \u201cdream about whatever it is\u00a0that is going on in our lives as we are falling asleep,\u201d then it would make sense to\u00a0do a little pre-sleep prep. Sit with your kids and meditate. Pray. Deep breathe. Say a few positive aphorisms. Turn on the sound machine and turn down the thermostat. Make a calm environment where they can put their minds at ease before bed.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a reason people pay good money to see a psychologist and it\u2019s not just to sit in a quiet room away from kids, although that is an incentive. Hearing yourself voice your fears makes them smaller. This is true for kids too. Talking it out releases the emotion that built up in the night and helps them put it in its proper place. Help them talk to you, your spouse, their sibling, a best friend \u2013 anyone they can trust to be a sounding board and then let them sound away.<\/p>\n Chances are, the primary emotion in the bad dream is one that has carried over from real life. Like following the strand of lights until you get to the knot, identifying the culprit can be the final undoing that will give them some rest. Help them to make a list of the main stressors in their daily lives and the emotions that go along with them. This is especially important if they\u2019ve been having a recurring nightmare. Somewhere in there is a knot that needs unpicking and you can help them find it.<\/p>\n Bad dreams don\u2019t have to ruin good days. Let them be what they are: the fiction that points to a truth your kids can\u2019t see clearly when they\u2019re awake. Hopefully, once they do see it, they can move on to better things.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n *Thinking out loud<\/a>. This article was originally published in Parent.co<\/a>.<\/p>\n I dreamed that my husband didn\u2019t recognize me. We were the same age we are now and I tapped him on the shoulder. He turned and I went in for a kiss and he recoiled, politely and with great care. And then he smiled at me, pried my fingers off his arm, and turned back to whatever faceless person he had been talking to. It was that smile that did it. It\u2019s the smile he …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3701,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[21,86,26],"tags":[371,374,97,370,46,176,209,55,136,372,63,54,17,84,100,373],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mom-gene.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/yawning-1895561_1920-e1506123409420.jpg?fit=1920%2C897&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8ca5p-U3","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3475"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3475"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3947,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3475\/revisions\/3947"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mom-gene.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mom-gene.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/sleep-problems_332x163_ed74gj.jpg?resize=753%2C369\")
<\/p>\n1 | Re-write the ending<\/h1>\n
2 | Do a little pre-sleep self-care<\/h1>\n
3 | Talk until there\u2019s nothing left to say<\/h1>\n
4 | Identify the real-life trigger<\/h1>\n
Have you ever had a dream that’s carried over into your day?<\/strong><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"