Small children are well known to be afraid of voids (closets, under the bed) in their sleeping area. Knowing this, why don't we design children's rooms to eliminate them?

If we eliminate the children, then children’s rooms would simply just be rooms

Not a psychologist or anything but isnt it healthy for a child to overcome a fear and not just avoid it

We did for my daughter. She then got scared of door knobs because they "had eyes". They find something else lol

I think fear is an important part of our development, and sanitizing children's upbringings is rarely the best approach. I love when my child communicates that they're afraid of something because that gives me an opportunity to guide them through how to encounter and process that fear, and how to continue functioning in life when fear is present (which is always for a lot of people).

Also, for kids who are scared of their closet or under their bed at night, if you remove those triggers I would be surprised if other triggers did not arise. It could easily turn into a never ending game of whack a mole.

Maybe we don't need to round every sharp corner we can find. I doubt anyone is traumatized for life because there was a closet in the room as a child.

Kids are afraid of being alone in the dark. The monster under the bed or in the closet is just how they communicate their fear.

I had a room similar to what you suggested. No big closets and an elevated bed. But I still got scared sometimes. And the only things that helped were being in a well lit room and or not being alone.

My 1st thought is that we may need these minor fears to learn how to deal with fear itself and as part of developmemt they'll likely just be a fraid of something different instead.

Did you forget about your teenage years? Teenagers want their own space to hide their uhhh stuff.

It is an opportunity to bind with your child. Make them face their fears playfully. Probably will strenghten its braverity.

Also, any matress needs air circulation _beneath below it. Otherwise it will get warm, stinky and very dirty.

i dont know a single child who has the same fears kids in movies do

Eliminate closets?

Anyway no, not every child has these fears. Mine don’t. They sleep in pitch darkness and have never complained.

But you deal with a lot of weird fears and hang ups with kids. Not by accommodating them but by helping the kid grow out of them.

I did actually the opposite, unintentionally. But worked. My daughter never had a problem with a dark void somewhere. She loved to hide there.

I always told my kids the monsters were in the closet not under the bed. I also introduced them to hand puppets named chewy and Bytee. They were monster ostrich that lived in the closet, there favorite food is my kids which they nip at and the kids all have found it hilarious over the years. Also there was a monkey that slept in the closet when the zoo was closed. I told the kids I was renting out the closet space. Have three kids 13, 11, 4 none of them were ever afraid of the closet or under the bed. Any hint that they thought something was in the closet and I would go full conspiratorial and confirm there is “something” in the closet. That always seemed to work well apposed to denying their fears.

I was afraid that I'd die in my sleep. Not like from health issues. Monsters or something unknown that only existed when I was alone in the dark. To a later age than I'd prefer to share.

Fuck, all right, I got over it last week. /s but the rest was true.

An enclosed capsule just brings on another fear: fear of closed spaces. Too open and it's fear of open spaces.

When you buy a house, closets are just there. You could take the doors off, I suppose, but closets are just a thing. As for the void under the bed, that is a feature and not a bug. Yes, it may allow for a fear of what's under the bed. It's also an inherent defense against the actual bugs on the floor that would otherwise crawl up the child's bed.

Basically, the answer isn't to change the standard child's bedroom but to instead work around it. Take the doors off the closet if it scares them. Check under the bed every night and maybe put their "bravest" stuffed animals under there for protection. But rooms are rooms. Blocking off a closet and putting the kid's mattress on the floor is not the answer lol.

Because we are free to design the space and most peopoe don't design rooms with that in mind.

Kid: I'm afraid of Vegetables.

I can’t speak to closets, but I’ve heard of Montessori beds being placed directly on the floor. That’d at least eliminate monsters under the bed. I say that as a parent of a child with a bed raised above the floor…

For me, we need the space under the bed for clothing storage. One of the drawbacks of having 2 adults and 2 children in a 2 bedroom home. We need all of the closet and storage space we can get.

Edit: I went off on a tangent there. Definitely get what you’re suggesting.

It's a question of resources you have and what you think children should learn to do to grow.

Let's put a void in every dark corner. I'm never scared with cats around.

Not everyone has kids.

I don't have kids, but the way I was raised is by letting me experiment with stuff. My parents would let me bump my head or get my fingers stuck into stuff, because then I would learn to not put my fingers into random stuff. Now of course they told me don't do it but they didn't prevent me from learning from my mistakes. And look at that: I'm not dead yet and I don't run in places with things hanging off the ceiling!

And they also did that for fears, the kid needs to overcome their fears the same way they learn from their mistakes, by doing it themselves.

Kind of unrelated one thing my mom told me she did with me and my brother was for example when we fell off our bicycles, instead of running and crying and acting all shocked and scared, she would just say "Wow! That was a COOL fall! You were so badass with all the dust going everywhere!!" And that would prevent us from crying and making a whole case about it. She told me that kids will cry when they feel like it will bring them attention, especially if they are not badly/truly hurt