DR. WALLACE: The clocks just recently changed for daylight saving time, and my youngest sister is having a hard time with it. She doesn't like it getting dark so early in the evening and she constantly tells me she's afraid, even at bedtime. In the summer, she never worried about going to bed. Our parents just tell her there's nothing to worry about and they're very dismissive in the way that they nonchalantly act like it's not a big deal. But I can tell, to her, it is indeed a big deal.

Is there anything I can do to help calm my sister down, and why in the world are small kids so worried about the dark anyway? She's now talking about monsters in the dark, but she never said a peep about any monsters all summer. — My Sister Struggles With Early Darkness, by email

MY SISTER STRUGGLES WITH EARLY DARKNESS: The best thing you can do is to stay positive and calm when discussing the topic with her. Try to tell her a funny story or something that might make her laugh and change her mind's focus.

One thing not to do is to take her over to her closet or to any other location in the house to open closet doors or drawers and show her that monsters don't exist, because by validating that they aren't there, you might subliminally be conveying to her that there was a possibility they do exist and that's why you checked.

Let her know that the sun comes up and goes down for many millions of children each day, and they all wake up, have breakfast and go to school or whatever activity they normally participate in. Let her know that it's just part of life, and that the sunlight goes through various cycles during the year.

And as to your question of why younger children typically struggle with this issue, it's a combination of their imaginations beginning to work as they generate advanced thought patterns, but sometimes they unfortunately project things forward that aren't there.

You can also install a dim nightlight in her room and establish a repeatable bedtime routine that will help to keep her calm. Following a ritual bedtime routine provides psychological comfort to most children.

HIS HUMOR SENDS US TO DETENTION AND LOWER GRADES

DR. WALLACE: Several students, including me, are having trouble in a particular class because we laugh out loud at inappropriate times, which causes the teacher to become upset and to send us to detention.

The reason we laugh out loud is that there's a guy who sits at the back of the class, someone you'd basically call a class clown, who makes these witty, biting remarks that are indeed extremely funny and on topic! Quite often we can't help but let out a laugh, even though we do our best to stifle it. He's a likable guy out in the quad at lunch, and a casual friend of ours, so no one actually wants to tell the teacher why those who get caught laughing are actually laughing.

I asked this guy why he doesn't just wait and say these funny things to us at lunchtime, and he replied that he was sharpening his "comeback" skills, and that had to be done in the moment. He's good at this, and he's so funny that several people have told him to his face that he's going to be a good stand-up comic as soon as he gets out of high school. When people say this, he always says the same thing, mentioning that he's funny here and there, but he's certainly no professional.

Yet there's a big smile on his face when people praise his sense of humor, so I know deep down he does think he's going to make it someday, and he's using our high school classes as incubators! How do we get ourselves out of this vicious cycle without turning our friend in? — He Makes Us Laugh or Snort Out Loud, via email

HE MAKES US LAUGH OR SNORT OUT LOUD: You certainly have a decision to make. Your friend is the catalyst and is causing this situation to occur, even though you are one of the ones who laughed out loud and got into trouble for doing so. Two solutions come to mind here: one is to speak openly and honestly with your friend and inform him that if it happens again and you get into trouble, you're going to have to identify him as the origin of the humor that caused you to laugh out loud.

But there may be a better solution for you, at least as an individual. Instead of sitting within earshot of this particular friend, sit farther forward in that class and seek to be as diagonally far away from him as possible as well. He's obviously delivering his humorous comments in a quiet enough voice so that they won't be heard by your teacher. Therefore, sit as close to the teacher as possible. If other friends of yours continue to sit near him and to get into trouble for laughing out loud in class, that's up to them. You now have some possibilities as to how to handle this situation so that you control your laughter in class so that you don't face the discipline and lower grades associated with it.

If by chance this particular class has assigned seating, you could discreetly visit your teacher outside of regular class hours and request to be able to be seated much farther forward because sometimes other students talk in the back of the class and it's distracting to you. Making a comment in this way, if it needs to be done, would be vague enough to not identify any specific individual and still likely get you moved into a safer location. The bottom line is to extract yourself from this situation and to let others figure things out for themselves.

Dr. Robert Wallace welcomes questions from readers. Although he is unable to reply to all of them individually, he will answer as many as possible in this column. Email him at [email protected]. To find out more about Dr. Robert Wallace and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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