I was in the lounge room watching television last night, when I heard a slight thump from Poppet’s room, then footsteps running down the hall. I looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was ten-thirty. Poppet had been in bed for over an hour. She must have been asleep for some of that time, I thought.
A sleepy face soon looked around the door, her eyes blinking from the bright ceiling lights. I got up and gave her a hug, then led her back to her room. As we walked down the hall, she started to talk to me.
“I had bad thoughts.”
She turned the light on. Sitting down on her bed she said, “I had bad thoughts in my head.”
“Were you asleep, when you had the thoughts?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“It sounds like you had a bad dream then,” I replied and she nodded. This is a first I thought. She’s only ever mentioned good dreams before. I noticed with interest how she described her first experience of a bad dream. She hadn’t had a label for this until now.
“Do you remember any of the thoughts?”
“Yeah. There was this man.” There was a long pause. Then she said, “And he was doing bad things.”
Bad things, I wondered. What on earth could be going on for my little girl?
“Bad things?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“To who?”
“To me.”
Oh no. I steeled myself in readiness for what was coming next.
“What was he doing?” I asked, trying to sound interested instead of anxious.
A long pause from Poppet as she tried to remember her dream. I wondered if she had the language to be able to describe the scenario to me. I knew that most things sexual are not a common vocabulary for her. I dreaded what was coming next.
“He was…” As she searched for the words, I held my breath. “He was throwing cats at me.”
I looked at my daughter’s face searching for anything that might indicate that this was not an accurate account, made up just to give an answer. Everything seemed okay.
I put my arms around her and gave her a big hug, my heart pounding.
As she lay down, putting her head on the pillow, I placed Teddy Bear beside her and gave him instructions to make sure that the man with the cats stayed away.
“Goodnight Poppet. I love you.”
“Goodnight. I love you too.”
I walked back to the lounge room and sitting down, realised that I’d been quite rattled by this brief encounter. How vulnerable she is, I thought. How would she respond if something really had happened to her? How would I know? Should I have tried to explain my concerns to her, then and there? Should I talk to her about it tomorrow? What was going on for her anyway, to have this sort of dream, and why did I automatically think it was something sexual?
Whenever it’s appropriate, I try to help her understand the meaning of ‘private’ and what constitutes ‘private parts’. We talk about who might be allowed to touch her and who isn’t. We’ve talked about sex too, although that really didn’t interest her, (thankfully).
There’s a balancing act involved in this, it seems. If I focus too much on these topics, would I then become a broken record? Would she think that I’m just overdoing it? How do I know if I’ve hit the mark? I can only hope that this is the start of the shield I feel I need to build around her, so that she is somewhat protected from the evils of the world.
Let’s hope for pleasant dreams tonight.