When a child can’t sleep because something is worrying them, telling them not to think about it is the worst possible instruction. What works isn’t emptying their head, it is giving them somewhere else to be.
What a safe place is
An imagined place, built by them, that they can go back to whenever they need it. It isn’t an exotic technique: it is the same thing an adult does when they picture themselves on a beach before falling asleep, only done on purpose and in detail.
It works because the brain doesn’t fully distinguish between what it sees and what it imagines with enough sensory detail. If the scene is rich enough, the body responds to it.
How it is built
You do it once, calmly, with time. After that it is available for good.
Let them choose it. It can be real or invented: a beach, the house in the village, a treehouse, the inside of a spaceship. Don’t judge it even if it seems odd to you.
Fill it with the five senses. This is where the work is, and it is done by asking:
- What can you see from where you are? What colour is everything?
- What can you hear? Is there wind, water, birds?
- What can you smell?
- What can you feel on your skin? Is it warm, is there a breeze?
- Are you alone or is someone there? Is there an animal?
The more specific, the better it works. “A beach” isn’t much use; “a small beach with round stones, at dusk, with a brown dog asleep beside you” is.
Give it a name. That way it can be summoned in one word, which is what you need at eleven at night.
Draw it. Having the drawing on the bedroom wall helps the youngest get back there quickly.
How it is used
You go in the same way every time: two or three long breaths, eyes closed, and you name the elements slowly. “You’re in the cabin. You can hear the wind in the leaves. It smells of wood.”
At first you guide them. Over time they do it alone, and that is the goal.
The moments where it pays off most: before sleep, after a nightmare, in the dentist’s waiting room, the night before something that frightens them.
One warning
If while you are building it something appears that frightens them inside their own place, don’t remove it yourself. Ask them what they want to do about it. Very often they decide to put a door in front of it, or send it outside, and that decision of theirs is worth more than anything you could add.
What it isn’t for
It doesn’t replace solving the real problem. If the child isn’t sleeping because someone is making their life impossible at school, the safe place helps them rest that night, and the next day they still have to go to school.
It is a tool for the moment, not an answer to the cause. Confusing the two is the only thing that can turn something good into a sticking plaster.
Guided visualisation and the relaxation activities are developed in Corazones Valientes, Niños Sensibles.