Under The Bed, Over The Top

(Our six-year-old son has watched a scary film he shouldn’t have. He is being obnoxious and unrepentant, claiming that he is old enough to watch them, and so is being punished with early bedtime.)

Son: “I don’t want to go to bed!”

Me: “Well, you should have thought of that before you sneakily watched a grown-up movie.”

Son: “But the monster under the bed will get me!”

Me: “There isn’t a monster under the bed. You’re just scared because you watched a movie you are too young for.”

Son: “No! There is a monster! It will get me!”

Me: “Fine, I will go and look under the bed for you. When I can see there is no monster, you’re going to bed.”

Son: “Okay!”

(I go up to his room, and make a big show of looking under the bed. I go pale. I see my husband under the bed wearing all manner of scary Halloween masks and pieces of costume. He looks, quite frankly, terrifying. He stifles a giggle and mouths to be quiet. I catch on.)

Me: *to son* “Okay, there are no monsters here. You need to go to bed now.”

Son: “What if I stay up but be quiet?”

Me: “No way. You know what you did wrong. You need to be punished. To bed. Now.”

(He flops onto the bed and I close the door to his bedroom behind me. Ten seconds later there is the loudest scream you can imagine coming from his room, followed by the sounds of my husband laughing. I walk back into the room.)

Husband: “I thought you were old enough to watch scary stuff?”

(I know it sounds mean, but he never watched an age-inappropriate movie again, especially a scary one, until well into his late teens!)