There is no reason we should expect young children to enter the nocturnal darkness of sleep and dreams without help.

Despite the fact that he fathered ten children, Dickens, the write, never gave up his position as a child. He identified with children and with the child-like - those who are not in power and who suffer under the fickle and often sadistic demands of those who are.

Most of us accept that although we may believe our dreams to be real events, upon waking, we can tell the difference between nocturnal hallucinations and reality.

Sleep resistance, bouts of insomnia, nightmares, night terrors, crawling into bed with parents in the middle of the night - all these are so common among children, it seems fair to call them 'normal.'

Children are not in a position to assess risk and safety; it must be done for them, and it must be done carefully.

Dreaming is another form of thinking, more concrete, more economical, more visual, and often more emotional than the thoughts of the day, but a thinking through of the day, nevertheless.