It tells you that the child is struggling to master the intricacies of abstract thinking. From a developmental perspective, a child’s fear of monsters under the bed is a reason for celebration. These are abstract fears � the things they are frightened of don’t have to be there at the time.
They talk about ghosts in the closet, monsters under the bed, or burglars breaking into their room. Preschoolers, however, begin to show different fears. Infants and toddlers tend to be afraid of such things as a growling dog or a thunderstorm � things that are actually there at that moment. We can see this development of abstract thinking in another important area as well: children’s fears. The abstract image or concept stands in for the physical object.
All it means is that a three-year-old can get a feeling of security by thinking about a favorite teddy bear as well as by holding the bear itself. Children this age have learned to replace physical objects with mental images of those objects.
