Draw a monster that’s bothering you, then put a party hat on it. Party Hats on Monsters gives a child a gentle, visual way to shrink a fear down to size, step by small step, without ever having to face it head-on all at once.
Why this matters
Most children find it considerably easier to draw a fear than to describe it out loud, and drawing offers something talking doesn’t: the fear can be changed. A child who draws something scary and then alters the drawing to make it less frightening, often discovers that the fear itself feels smaller afterward too, not just the picture.
What you need
Paper and drawing materials, crayons, markers, or paint.
How to play
Start gently, away from the fear itself. Ask your child to draw something that makes them feel happy or safe, a favourite place, a favourite activity, and talk about the drawing together once it’s done.
Once that feels comfortable, ask your child to draw something that scares them, but only a little, not their biggest fear to start with. Then invite them to change the drawing in a way that makes it less scary: shrinking it down, adding a silly hat, drawing a friendly character standing beside it, whatever idea they come up with. Let the idea be entirely theirs.
As they’re changing the drawing, or once they’ve finished, you might gently point out: “It’s interesting how changing the picture on paper can sometimes change the picture in your head too, so the scary thing doesn’t feel quite as big anymore.”
Working up gradually
Over time, and only as your child feels ready, you can work through a gentle series of fears this way, starting with milder ones and only approaching bigger ones once your child has had real, successful practice with smaller ones first. There’s no need to rush toward the biggest fear, and plenty of value in simply working through smaller, everyday worries this way.
Variations
Some children prefer sculpting their fear in clay rather than drawing it, which works just as well. For fears that show up specifically in dreams, the same basic idea, draw it, then decide how to deal with it, works well too: some children like to tear up or scribble over a drawing of a bad dream, and it can help to also draw a calmer, happier dream to imagine instead.
A note on bigger fears
This approach works well for everyday, ordinary childhood fears. If a fear is genuinely large, persistent, and affecting your child’s daily life, a child therapist can help far more directly, and is worth involving rather than relying on drawing alone.
A crayon, a blank page, and a monster wearing a party hat is a small, playful way to help a child discover they have some real control over how big a fear gets to feel.
