Granddaughter scared to climb stairs

Granddaughter is Afraid at Home

I have a granddaughter who will be 3 this year.

In our other home we moved from a few months ago – long story short – it had an odd feel to it and too many noises we couldn’t explain. When she was close to her 2nd birthday she would wave to the staircase but no one was on stairs, or she’d sit in the playroom and come running and screaming, “THE BOY, THE BOY”.

I’d go in the playroom and she refused to come in but would point to “THE BOY”. I could not see him. Her family just moved into a larger home and her mom was telling me she is stating she doesn’t like the old people. When her mom questioned her, she states they’re scary and they walk around upstairs.

Last night we went over for a bbq and I asked to see her room. She grabbed my hand and said no mamaw don’t go up there. I honestly felt her fear. What can I do to help her not be frightened all the time?

Signed: Greta

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Athena Responds

Dr. Athena Drewes

Hi Greta,

Your granddaughter may be picking up on the energy left behind by the people who lived in the home before her.

We all leave ‘psychic imprints’ from charged emotions and events in the spaces we live, which can be picked up and felt and seen as though it were a spirit. It is possible she is also seeing the spirits of those who remain in the home and have not yet moved on to the Light. It would be important to help your granddaughter understand that what she sees cannot harm her, although not everyone can see what she does.

She can tell the spirits to go away. Together you can sit in her room and say with her to whatever energy is in the room, to “go to the Light, where people who love them are waiting for them. They do not belong here on earth and to go away”.

Keeping a night light on in her room will help change the energy in the room and lessen spirit contact.

Sometimes it is difficult to tell whether children between 2 and 7 are seeing spirits or have normal developmental fears of seeing ‘ghosts’, scary things in their rooms, and imaginary playmates. But either way, helping your granddaughter to feel empowered to tell them to go away and not to be frightened of them is important.

You can also use sage, a bundle of herbs that you light like incense and blow out and use the smoke. Going around the house, around the windows and doors, in her room, and around your granddaughter, you can blow the smoke, say a prayer or just that the house is protected by the Love of God (or Jesus or the Universe, depending on belief), and that all energies and spirits in this house need to go to the Light, where people who love them are waiting for them, and only the highest good may enter the home.

This may help to clear the house of any energy or spirits lingering there.

Athena Drewes, Psy.D., RPT-S
Perceptive Children Network