My daughter has anxiety. She is a child who is easily upset, but when her Dad and I separated things got very difficult for her. She was in first grade at the time. She was constantly worried about bad men coming and ghosts in our house. At night she would wake up thinking there were snakes in her bed, etc… Eventually it got to the point where I had to be in the same room with her at all times…night and day.
If this continues, then yes I would seek help from a therapist. We did that and it helped her to deal with her feelings. Another thing that helps my daughter is praying. At night, she has certain prayers she says, and then I conclude by making the sign of the cross on her forehead and asking our Lord to send angels to watch over her, his mother to comfort her, and to post St. Michael at the door. At times when things were worse, I would give her a blessing with Holy Water or oil, which she especially likes. She still has anxiety, and this impacts her in other ways. But, the fears of unseen things and night waking hardly ever happen now. If I forget the blessing, she will ask for it. She is 10 now.
With the prayer, my daughter got much better. But sometimes I wondered if she was really seeing/experiencing things to which I was totally blind. I spoke to my priest about and he recommended I read a book called Unbound, by Neal Lozano. It is a book about deliverance, and he recommended it for me…not my daughter. It gave me a much better understanding of how the evil one messes with our minds, and I became aware of how some things from my childhood had impacted my adult relationships, etc. Strangely, one night I woke in the middle of the night, tormented by feelings of despair. I got up and went into the bathroom. I was crying…something I rarely do. I began praying and going through the process described in Lozano’s book, which involved renouncing despair in the name of Jesus. I felt relief, went back to bed, and fell asleep. Less than an hour later, my daughter woke up screaming and saying there was someone in the house. I suppose it could have been a coincidence, but at this point, we had gone for a very long period of no waking. It had been months.
So yes I do believe that children are impacted by things we adults cannot see. So if there is negativity or anger or whatever in your house, then I would encourage you to do what you can to address that for the sake of your son. And, if I were you, I would encourage my husband to try a calming approach with your son or wake you up to deal with it if he is unable to do that.
