From the first time she heard thunder, I knew my oldest daughter would be afraid of storms. Her reaction was fear instead of wonder or interest.
We tried to tell her it was the angels bowling in the clouds, but since she wasn’t familiar with bowling and the concept of angels was still a little out of her range, it didn’t work very well. At times she would cry if it was really loud and consistent and we would just hold her and tell her it wouldn’t hurt her and she would be OK.
As luck would have it, we were visiting the high school in Monroe for one of my nephew’s activities when my daughter made a discovery. At the entrance to the school stands a large, crimson mustang. I remember when the school got the statue because it was my senior year of high school and we, as a student body, had the opportunity to name it.
The choices for the horse were Thunder and Lightening, with Thunder taking the crown. This is important to my daughter because as we were reading about the statue, I told her his name was Thunder.
The name clicked instantly in her 3-year-old brain and from then on out, any time it thundered outside, it meant that Thunder the horse was running around in the clouds. Although it did not take all of the fear out of thunder, it has helped a great deal for her to picture a horse running around rather than the scary images I can only image she was thinking of.
My youngest daughter, I think, would be fine with thunder and storms if it wasn’t for her older sister. She tends to squeal with fear when she hears the crashes but the look in her eyes tells me she is curious more than scared.
While thunder isn’t quite the terror inducing experience it used to be, when it starts in the middle of the night I usually find an extra kid or two to cuddle with. That was true last weekend when a storm blew through putting on quite a show and leaving about an inch of rain behind.
My youngest stirred a little bit while sleeping but with a little reassurance was back to sleep in no time. My oldest, while trying to put in a brave front, admitted she was scared and scurried up to lay in between me and my husband.
She felt safe knowing we were there to protect her and we got to go back to sleep, so I called it a win-win for all of us. I’m hoping as she gets older her fears will subside, but for now, we’ll stick with Thunder the horse running around making all of that noise.
Contact Jamee A. Pierson at
jpierson@newtondailynews.com