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Behaviour/development

Swiper the fox terrorising DS1

9 replies

ellehcim · 03/09/2007 16:17

After about a year of being obsessed by Dora DS1 has suddenly become terrified of Swiper the fox. He wakes up screaming and sweating and shouting that Swiper is swiping his hand/book/teddy. He's very hard to settle to sleep since he doesn't want us to leave the room because of Swiper. I've removed all Dora books and no longer have it on tv but he's claerly still thinking about it every night. Any tips on how to stop this, its heartbreaking to see him so terrified.

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fridayschild · 03/09/2007 21:24

Can you teach him Swiper No Swiping! to make it go away?

when we first started watching Dora, DS1 was very scared of Swiper, but we used to fast forward (we only watched recordings) and all shouted Swiper No Swiping at the TV. Would your boy like to make swiper vanish by fast forwarding? The other thing DS1 thought was funny was saying Oh man!

I realise all these are a form of aversion therapy - bringing your son back to the object of fear and helping him surmount it. This might not be what you had in mind.

There is a stage where they understand things are scary. I'm not sure what to do about it though, my boys never felt it quite as strongly as your little lad clearly does.

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LilyLoo · 03/09/2007 21:29

elle how old is he ?
I am going throught the same thing at the moment with my ds who is 5 with regards to a pssing conversation of a snake. Despite the fact he has had lot's of storys at bedtime about animals (which he loves)
Will be watching this thread for any tips.
I did one and someone suggested a bottle od water spray = monster spray

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ellehcim · 03/09/2007 22:34

He's two and a half. I know what's brought it on. We have foxes in our garden which eat anything in sight and one evening we mistakenly left out his sandals after playing in the sandpit. Next morning they were torn to shreds (brand new clarks!!) and to stop the tears we said Swiper had swiped them. I think it suddenly made Swiper seem real and scary. The "Swiper no swiping" thing no longer works unfortunately. Will have a go with the monster spray. Also thought about a torch but its nightmares as well as the getting settled.

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totaleclipse · 03/09/2007 22:37

Can you buy him some new sandles, and let ds find them in the garden, tell him swiper said he was very sorry, so bought him some new ones as he wants to be friends.

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babyboo1and2 · 03/09/2007 22:40

when my son was having nightmares and refusing to even go in his bedroom my friend bought him a dream catcher and we said it stopped bad dreams by catching them in the middle and bursting them, he loved it and seemed to put a lot of trust in it

we also made one out of willow twigs, string and brightly coloured feathers from a craft shop for use in our bedroom