I believe it's important for us parents to know the difference between a nightmare and a night terror. So most of us know about a nightmare. It happens during our dreaming sleep, our REM sleep. And we or our children wake up. We have a scary dream. Our kids run into our room. Mommy Daddy. Or they cry out from their bed. I think we should go to them. Reassure them that all is well. They might have trouble going back to sleep. I find a very helpful technique with our children when they have nightmares is to help them throw the bad thought out of their head and then they've got to replace it with a new thought. Otherwise that bad dream finds its way back in there. I know I've had this happen myself. So maybe you had a bad dream that there was a tiger coming after you. And you throw that out the window. Maybe you can think about your favorite tree house, or that time we made a sand castle at the beach together. Something nicer to think about that they put in their mind instead. Nightmares they also will typically will remember them in the morning, so you could talk about it, help them process it. The other thing that's important to help reduce nightmares is to make sure your child is not playing really violent video games, watching scary shows before bedtime, even sometimes reading scary books can do that. So try to be very conscientious of that. Also too late of a bedtime can cause increased nightmares, so that's another factor. And nightmares are a normal part of childhood. They usually start around 2, and end or change what nightmares children have about 5-7 years of age.