What About the Dreams of Children?

Posted by: Brittney Zellner

Bombshell: When children dream, their dreams are mostly for their parents to hear.

I know that sounds strange but in my experience, a child does not, except in rare instances, have a psychological understanding of him or herself or an awareness of spiritual maturity until they are closer to their teens.

Dreams deal very strongly with both of those things on a personal level. Not to worry, though, because one day these purposeful symbol-words spoken to your child from God will be familiar enough to eventually understand …but not yet. It is important for parents to understand that when their young children dream it is actually a message for them, the parent(s). Whether in reassurance or in warning, a child’s dream is from Abba to direct the parent(s) about their parenting, the spiritual health of the parent, and about the mental and spiritual health of the whole family. Their dreams are like the absolute best parenting/family advice straight from Yahweh Almighty himself.

But seriously who wants to listen to kids tell their long drawn out dreams?

I can hear them now replaying in my mind from last week when my younger daughter told me hers… “and then…..and then…..and then”. Ten minutes after she started I’m beginning to think I should have just asked her to record it for later to start with!

Believe me, I know that children tend to dream very whimsical dreams and even seem to embellish them later on with other details. Children’s regular dreams do not really stir up a whole lot of excitement to hear them recounted all the time …but after a while, you will begin to see that even the embellishments can give you a sneak peek into the psyche of your child.

You see, children are much more aware of the condition of their families than we like to give them credit for. It should be clear to us that even when there are issues that the parents of the child try to hide, the children are still affected and seem to react to the issues without any direct knowledge of them.

“Don’t worry, it was JUST a dream.”

It is also very common that we as parents tend to reassure our children that their nightmares are not real and that they should not worry about them. However, if a child has a nightmare and the parent does actually try to convince the child that everything is not real, even that action is very symbolic of the act of trying to convince yourself and your children that there are no marital or household problems in existence and quite simply this action does nothing to really help anyone. That’s not to say that I don’t believe a parent should comfort their children but a child told that dreams are nothing will still feel the fear of their nightmare for no reason and the voice of the Father will be lost on everyone.

“So, am I supposed to tell them their dreams are real??”

When my children have nightmares or any dream and they are concerned about the meaning, I give them a basic explanation. It is usually something along the lines of “your dream is a message from Abba to Mommy that you are a little worried about the big move coming up …but he wants me to know that as long as I’m here for you and reassure you, that you will be okay.” I might even explain a few of the major symbolisms just to show them how their weird dream could really be a message from God.

I, also, like anyone who tells me their dreams, don’t always tell my children what their dreams mean unless they want to know. I always listen intently to whatever dreams they have and if they aren’t interested in an interpretation, I will silently write it down or think of the symbolisms that they have described and I will know something that I didn’t know for sure before about what they think.

Most of the time I feel that the messages from God are a simple reassurance to me when I am concerned about how they are doing psychologically. Children are not often forthcoming or adept at sharing those inner details as adults are. We oftentimes just assume they’re all good when in reality they are reeling inside and a little prayer and reassurance from us, their guides, would go a long way.

“But what if my child has a really messed up nightmare?”

There are some times when my child will have a major nightmare that has really shaken them. I know that something in our home isn’t right or that I need to take some kind of action to explain something that is really difficult for them psychologically.

When I was a child, for a period of years, there were significant nightmares every time I tried to sleep. I would tell my mother and she would pray with me or try to give me advice about how to deal with them. I would pray every night not to dream but the nightmares kept coming.

As an adult, I am now aware of just how bad things were in my parent’s marriage and that there were even some pretty extreme emotional and psychological issues that led to my step-father attempting suicide. My dreams were like a warning call that no one was listening to and there was no reassurance or attempts to fix the family issues.

I feel like something has to be pretty serious to have Abba speaking through my children to get my attention so I try to pay very close attention to their dreams and so should you.