Author’s practical guidance
"What if something happens to you"
Source named in the book: attachment and reunion (Bowlby)
Somewhere around four, children work out that people can stop existing, and it arrives at bedtime because that is when they are alone with it.
Say this now
“I'm going to be here in the morning. I have always been here.”
Answers the real question with the evidence they already have.
“Big questions are for the daytime. Ask me at breakfast and I will answer it.”
Does not dismiss it and does not open it at eleven at night. Keep the promise.
Do this
- Answer the reunion, not the odds: who will be there and when.
- Keep the answer short and identical every night it comes up.
- Handle the real conversation in daylight, when they can actually take it in.
- Tell them who else looks after them, because that is often the underlying worry.
- Watch what they are hearing — the news, a funeral, an overheard conversation.
Avoid this
- "Nothing is going to happen to me." — a promise no adult can hold, and they will remember it.
- Long explanations about how rare it is — the numbers are not what they are asking about.
- Refusing the topic — they will take that as the answer, and it is the worst one.
If it repeats
If the question is arriving every night for more than a month, or spreading into the daytime — refusing to be left at daycare, checking where you are — treat it as separation worry rather than a bedtime problem, and raise it with your doctor if it is costing them days.
Why the book suggests this
Somewhere around four, children work out that people can stop existing, and it arrives at bedtime because that is when they are alone with it. The question is not a stalling tactic, even when it is also a stalling tactic.
Bowlby's account of attachment is that a child needs to know where you are and that you come back. That is the question under this one, and predictable returns answer it far better than any argument about probability.
From this collection
Same Words: Every Night
45 prepared situations in this family area.