Robbers

Elise has had an irrational fear of people coming into our house for years. Sometimes those people were Santa and sometimes unknown intruders - we have no idea how she developed this fear but it is most certainly there and has been for at least two years. So a few weeks ago when our neighbor Elias introduced a new fear I knew it was going to be trouble.

It was a snowy day and Ellie and I were building an igloo in our front yard. Our neighbors, Elias (6) and Saira (3) came over to help. We all had a lovely time and made what I think was quite a lovely attempt at making an igloo. When we finished, Elise ran in the house to get some Little People to put in the igloo so that someone could live in the new home we just built. Elias told her "take the Little People inside when you go so robbers don't steal them." I was immediately nervous about this because this is the exact kind of thing that Ellie latches onto and gets freaked out about.

Elise asked a few questions about what robbers are and why they would want to steal Little People and I reassured her that robbers were not something that we had to worry about and no one was going to steal her Little People. We are completely safe! Despite my attempts to calm down the situation immediately, Elias only made things worse "Don't worry Ellie, robbers only come at night - and if you see one out of your window, just call the police."

Ever since that day - nearly three weeks ago at this point - we have at least two conversations a day (sometimes more) about robbers. Sometimes Elise is asking questions "what kids of things do robbers steal?" and sometimes she is trying to reassure herself "Robbers would never come into our house, right Mommy?" but one thing is certain - it's almost always on her mind.

At this point, pretty much everyone in the family has tried to ease her fears about robbers breaking into our house but nothing really seems to be working ("that's why we lock the door right? so robbers can't get in?") and we are at a loss about how to fix it. Hopefully she'll let it go and forget about it, but in the meantime, we keep calmly reassuring her that we are completely safe and that robbers will never come into our house.

So hopefully that will remain true!