The Pacifier Fairy Queen
Convincing a 5-year-old give up her pacifier
Luisa was five. And still unusually attached to her pacifier.
Her parents had tried all kinds of strategies. Reasoning. Gentle pressure. Rewards. Calling it a phase and waiting it out. Trying to take it away from her still resulted in drama.
In sessions I create scenes that fit the child’s age, interests and inner world. For Luisa, that world was full of fairies.
So, with her eyes closed I invited her to travel into a fairy world.
There I had her meet the Pacifier Fairy Queen. This fairy queen was known for having the biggest collection of pacifiers ever assembled. Kids from all around the world had brought her their pacifiers.
Luisa, after a brief negotiation, agreed to give up her pacifier for the fairy queens collection.
But not just anywhere. It had to be a special place.
We went into the fairy queen’s house and found a special rainbow cabinet. This was where she kept only her most prized pacifiers.
Luisa handed her pacifier over to the queen, who promised to personally look after it.
Luisa went home ready.
And that evening went to bed for the first time without her pacifier.
There’s a version of this story that sounds like a cute trick. A nice imagination game that happened to work. That’s not what this is.
Luisa experienced a ritual that felt real, chosen, and entirely hers. The fairy world gave her the dignity of a proper goodbye on her own terms, in her own language.
That’s not magic. That’s understanding how a five-year-old thinks.
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