By Madison Butler
"Can you leave the hall light on?"
If those words have ever floated out of the dark toward you at bedtime, you know the particular ache of it. Your child isn't being difficult. Being afraid of the dark is one of the most common, most normal childhood fears — most kids pass through it somewhere between ages three and seven, right when their imaginations get powerful enough to fill the shadows with possibilities.
The fear is real, even when the monsters aren't. Here's how to help, gently.
1. Take the fear seriously
The least helpful sentence is "there's nothing to be afraid of." To your child, there clearly is something to be afraid of — they can feel it. Instead, name it: "The dark feels scary. That makes sense. Lots of kids feel that way." Feeling believed is the first step to feeling brave. You can't logic a child out of a feeling, but you can stand beside them in it.
2. Investigate together — in the daylight
Fear of the dark often shrinks when the dark becomes familiar. During the day, explore the bedroom together with the lights on, then with them dimmed. Open the closet. Look under the bed. Let your child be the tour guide. You're not hunting for monsters — you're building a mental map that says I know this room. Nothing in here is new.
3. Give the dark a job
Children's imaginations cut both ways: the same creativity that invents monsters can be recruited to tame them. Invent a "brave spray" (water with a drop of lavender), a stuffed animal with a night-shift job guarding the bed, or a story where the dark is the setting of something cozy rather than something scary. When a child gets to be the author of what the dark means, the dark stops authoring them.
4. Light it — a little, on purpose
There's no prize for total darkness. A warm nightlight, a hallway glow with the door cracked, or a dimmer on low can be exactly the bridge a child needs. Let them choose the light — control is calming. You can always dim it gradually over weeks as confidence grows.
5. Keep bedtime itself calm
An overtired, overstimulated child meets the dark with a racing mind. A predictable wind-down — dim lights, a bath, and one slow story read in your calmest voice — gives the nervous system time to settle before the lights go out. The story is especially powerful: it replaces the scary movie in their head with a cozy one.
6. Practice bravery in small doses
Courage is a muscle. Play games in dim rooms during the day — flashlight tag, shadow puppets, a "midnight" picnic with the lights low. Each playful encounter with darkness that ends happily teaches the brain a new association: dark can mean fun, too.
7. Be the calm they borrow
Kids co-regulate — they borrow your nervous system until theirs is ready. If you stay matter-of-fact and warm ("You're safe, I'm right here, let's do our breathing"), your child learns that the dark is a no-emergency zone. Check-ins help too: promise to peek in after five minutes, and do it. Trust compounds.
A little lanternfish who understands
Sometimes the best comfort is knowing you're not the only one. We're working on a deep-sea bedtime special about a little lanternfish who is afraid of the dark — and who discovers, in the deepest, darkest water of all, that his own glow was inside him the whole time. It's a story about being scared and doing it anyway, written to be read slowly, in a low voice, right before sleep. We can't wait to share it with your family.
And for tonight: if your little one needs a cozy story right now, our free bedtime book Tiko the Brave Little Crab is about a small hero facing big waves — a gentle reminder that brave doesn't mean not scared. It means going on anyway. Goodnight.
Keep the stories going: Explore all 20 Bedtime Tales from the Bahamas — or try the first book FREE tonight.