Closet monsters?

This morning T1 and T2 went monster hunting. It seems that B has been telling stories. Telling stories to scare your sisters is bad enough, but scaring yourself in the process is worse. The girls have been told so many things they don't know what to believe. I have been trying to reassure them about monsters for weeks. The first time I knew their fear of monsters was serious was the evening B had to go to bed early. She had to go to bed before everyone else. The other girls stayed up an extra 30 minutes. I went upstairs to see why she wasn't in bed 20 minutes after she had been sent there. She was sitting upright in the middle of her bed with the covers wrapped around her, all the lights were on, her dolls and stuffed toys were piled in her bed, and she had propped open the child safety gate at the top of the stairs (So she could run without stoppin' to get the gate to open!)

Today, T2 needed to take her clean clothes to her closet. After 10 minutes, the clothes and the child were still at the bottom of the stairs. She explained that she couldn't go by herself. After a few questions we discovered that there was a monster living in her closet, and she just couldn't go in there alone. T1 took her by the hand and announced that they were going hunting. They looked everywhere in the room; in the closets, in the bathroom, under the beds, even in the toy box. They didn't find any monsters. T2 felt better about the room until B came home and told her that monsters hide if they see grownups and in the daytime.

The solution is simple. Actually we had already set it in motion before we knew there was a problem. We moved them to a bedroom downstairs, C's bedroom. C is now in the room with the closet monsters. They better watch out or she'll hunt them down. B says she likes the new room better because there isn't any scary sounds and the monsters aren't downstairs. Thank God!

Now I know what some of you are thinking: we should explain the truth about monsters to them. Been there already; didn't work. We should tell them that God will keep them save from harm. I tried that, too. Besides God doesn't protect us from harm, He stands beside us as we go through it. The idea of someone invisible standing beside them all the time might frighten them more than help them.

For now we are going to deal the truth as they see it. We will prove to them that monsters aren't real, and there isn't anything scary waiting in the dark when the time is right.