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Parents tell their kids all kindsa crap, like eating crusts will make your hair curl or picking your nose will cave your head in...

These tales are pretty harmless, but some aren't.

What about the bogeyman under the bed, or the monster in your closet? The shadow people lurking in the dark, waiting to grab you if you get out of bed after lights out?

This is really a three-part question; did your parents trot out any monster stories in an attempt to scare you into doing or not doing something as a child?

And, if you're a parent, do you use any of these tales on your child/ren, and why?

Lastly; in your opinion, do you think it's right or wrong to instill fear into your child and tell them what are essentially lies, in order to get them to obey?

I don't want anyone to take offence to this thread; if this is the way you bring your children up, that's your prerogative; I merely wish to gain insight into how and why these tales are used :-)

SO that child will be less likely to fall into trouble or illness

When the age comes to "break the scoop" the parents need to be ready to fess-up. Remember just because a parent doesn't introduce their child to such things a child (during a sleep over, at camp.. ect.) will still learn about such things, so be ready to have the boogy man talk regardless.

I have ta=ught parents how to "kill" the "boogy man". I am a firm believer in the boogy man ritual..

I think the best thing is not to instill fear in a child. Dont tell them that monsters exist, instead inform them of the real dangers in this world

That's a good point BlackHawk; what age do you think they should be informed of such dangers?

Perhaps the fictional monsters they learn of at a young age are really a metaphor for the real dangers in the big wide world, ready to be told about when older?

My mom used to say it as a joke kinda.. I use to go downstairs at night and raid the fridge.. So it was really for my own good.. I would eat them out of house and home. LOL

I was told about the monster under the bed and I was terrified as a child to get out of my bed. And then besides the scary movies I would watch the imaging would kick in

I think educating children about the difference between imagination and make believe is important, if a child thinks an adult believes something they tell them they are more likely to be tramaized by it. To many people believe in para normal things and the fad enforces it.. people at the childs school will talk about it if you don't other kids will as well. If your child comes to you.. even if ?" you are a believer think about wqhat you say when they ask you.. "are ghost real?"You could be contributing to something someone told the child.. so ask before you answer.. " What have you heard about ghost.. the boogy man.. always get the back ground.. it can make a big difference.. between a child being sppoked and a child gaining a phobia.

My father loved using these on my younger brother and I when we were little, my mother used to get so mad at him for doing it. It is not something that I use on my sons. They see several things now that maybe they shouldn't be seeing but I have never told them that if they didn't behave that the boogey man was going to get them or anything else like that. As far asanother parent using it on their children I think that its the right of the parent to do so. But I do not feel that it is wrong or right on that note. It just really depends I think on the child.

My parents never tried that line with me, my imagination was good enough for all of us lol ......I think its wrong to do that to your child, honesty and the real world is enough to scare anybody.

We had a dam at our old place and I told my son that there was a huge crocodile that it would come out and eat him if he went anywhere near it, it was dark water, the ground on the edge would fall away when you walked on it and he couldn't swim.

So yes I think it was ok to scare him, I have no problem with what I did, by installing that fear into him, I knew he would never go down there if I was distracted for a moment!

Muli, I can diffinently understand why you would say that to you son. Kudos, because it is something that not many would do even with the fear factor that might be involved.

my parents never tried that with me.
i will not do that to any children of mine for the reason that xxBlackHawkxx listed.
instilling a fear of something that doesn't exist is pointless. telling them of the real dangers of the world would be better.

My parents were about 50/50 with me . Some was good advice, others contributed to the paranoia I suffer from today.

Yes they told me about the bogey man...which made me scared of the dark for years.

I'm not a parent myself, but don't think I would use fear to enforce rules, though understand why some do.

I guess it's a case of understanding which is the lesser of two evils.

Yes my parents fed me several. They told me there was a killer snake in my aunts garage to keep me from playing in there. They told me i would die if I didnt eat potatoes. They also told me about the sand man which scared the crap out of me.

I think its wrong to instill fear into your kids like that. It isn't doing anything but setting them up for years of therapy really.


No I don't ever see myself doing this with my children.

"would die if I didnt eat potatoes" - now in my mind that's just cruel!

This is what I'm talking about; telling your children nonsensical things in order to get them to do something is basically threats and blackmail. If you tried it on an adult you'd get done...

But I do see Muli's point, telling a child something in order to keep them away from a danger can be a good idea. Of course, instilling a fear of water in them is an unwarranted side effect, but the thought was there :-)

My parents never told me such things but grandma yes to prevent me from going to certain places.

I believe it is ok to tell your children such things to prevent them trouble but then there is exageration.

Why scaring them about the monster in the wardrobe or under the bed? For making them having nightmares and not sleep in their own bed?

Sometimes relatives exagerate. My grandma tended to be exagerated luckily I didn't believe everything she said, like scaring me from policemen which is something wrong to do, what if I was in a situation where I needed the police and I wouldn't call them for fear?

There should be balance and I'd prefer to tell them the truth: ''don't go there because there are evil people who could harm you, or hurt yourself'' I think children can understand that.

My parents used to tell me that if I didn't behave, eat my vegetables and go to bed when I was told, the boogeyman would get me....which caused me probs with sleeping due to having an overactive child's imagination and thinking that I could hear a monster under my bed or in my closet.

I refused to do this to my children.

Looking back, I do not think scare tactics are good. It helped my parents achieve the goal that they were shooting for, but it effed with my head.

It certainly does make you wonder just how many of our adult psychoses, paranoias and fears actually stem from our parents...

I mean, would any of us be scared of the dark if our parents hadn't told us what lurks in it?

I feared the dark even though my relatives didn't scare me of it.

I think fear of the dark comes naturally because you don't see what's there.

Then I'd wonder if monsters are really children's fantasies or affected by parents' tales.

However certain fears and phobias are effected because of past expiriences, often affected from parents.

Yes , my parents did do that to me. As a child I was very inquisitive , but I also had a brain. I got the message they were sending to me and knew it was for my own good. They did not play it up that much either. I kind of had fun with it , because I always had a really good imagination.

I cannot recall if I ever used it on my daughter , if I have it was in a jokeing manner , and we had fun with it.

To answer you last questian , to install fear in a child. For their saftey, YES.
Say for instance you want that child to stay away from a dam that is deep and has a strong undertow. I do not see anything wrong with telling him or her there is a sea monster in there , BUT BUT BUT , at the same time maybe that would make the kid go down to the water even more because he or she is curious?

What if you were to be up front to the kid and say if you go there, you could fall in and the undertow you take you under and you drown , then I would loose you!

Do any of you think that would keep the kid away? That would be scary but it would be the truth.

I think in some cases it's better for them to be scared of the truth than a lie. Besides, I remember how pissed off I was when I grew up and found out my parents had lied to me about stuff like this...

My mom never told me anything like that, we were always really close and everything that we talked about was real. My daughter knows the difference between what is real and not, she knows all about zombie's and the boogeyman and monsters and she also knows that those things are not real.

my parents loved to tell me crap like that then watch me be paranoid for a week

I was told the classics; be good and Santa will bring you presents, be bad and you will go to hell. Thankfully, it never got too out of hand.
I'm not sure that these stories are worth the deception caused when you find out that Santa doesn't exist or that hell is a place called earth.
I will though, perpetuate the tradition and tell them to my kids.

My parents never really told me about those little monsters. My sister told me a tale about my stuffed animal clown that he would report back to her about things. And my grandma was the worse of anyone. She would tell me about the different creatures that lurked outside in the night that would 'get me' if I went outside.

From my sister... my clown is still with me and stays under the bed where he can't see or hear me.

And I still get paranoid about being outside at night.

My imagination gets the best of me even though I am 21 years old.

I don't think I'm going to tell my daughter such 'tall tales' because it does impair their judgment. Some of the tales scared the crap out of me. I don't believe parents should tell their kids such things to keep them from doing certain actions. Just tell them the truth... explain it to them and they will understand but don't treat them like they won't.

I never told monster stories to my children. My parents didn't use them on me. I believe they need to be aware of the real dangers in the world. Pedophiles, Child abductors, wrong friends, incorrect choices in life and their consequences! Truth is best.

I think it's wrong to lie to your child in order to make things easier for yourself. My parents lied to me all the time and now, I never know who to trust. It's wrong.

When I was a little child, my parents told me that there was a Green Man with six arms who lived in the basement of one of my favorite diners that was located in a different town than ours. When I misbehaved, they said that he would find out, and that the next time we went to the diner, he'd come for me. They also said, he had a friend, the Orange Man, who only have four arms (heh), and that this man could leave the diner if I were to be really bad, and follow us home. Of course, I behaved pretty darn well because of this.

By the time I was 8, I knew this wasn't true, and no, it didn't create a phobia, or anything else. In fact, I thought it was a pretty imaginative way for my parents to deal with my misbehaviour.

My sister, on the other hand, had the Dirty Man, which was, in all actuality, the garbage man. She was scared of how filthy she thought he looked, so he became her "Boogey Man". So when she misbehaved, our parents told her they would call the Dirty Man and he would come and talk to her, which of course, caused her to behave.

Again, by the time she was around 8-ish, she too knew that it wasn't real. And no phobias were created out of this for her, either.

My parents used the monster thing on me and my siblings. Now that i have kids i relize that there are certain things that kids should be afraid of and most are not. I don't use the monster thing but i do make sure they know that bad things can happen if they do certain things.

Eh, I didn't wind up with any phobias from what my parents pulled on me...and it's a good thing. They also used police officers against me by telling me if I didn't behave in public that the policeman would take me to jail. It was mainly my mother who did crap like that.

I don't teach my kids about monsters and I don't try to instill fear in them. There's enough weird things going on in the world, they surely don't need lies too. I don't even push religion onto them as my family did. I decided that the best way to be is to simply be honest about everything and they will respect you more in the long run.

Hell...I even had religion pushed on me as a child. Wow...do I need to see a shrink? LOL :p

We shouldn't do everything our parents have done to us...there is no user manual for perfectly raising kids. Everyone makes mistakes, but using fear to accomplish a task or goal of having extremely well behaved kids is a nono in my book.

I may have been wrong in using physical exercise to discipline mine. I felt it was instilling a healthy environment by making sure that they were getting exercise...they were kids so they were always doing SOMETHING wrong...so it was easy.

Plus I did the exercises with them.

My mom taught me if I needed to lie to do at least be creative and let the people around me create it as well. I have talked my way out of some bad potential things that way.. starting when I was 10.

I think that parents do the best job they know how to do. Well most of them anyway. We don't come along with a user manual and raising a child is probably one of the hardest tasks that parents will ever come across so I wouldn't blame them for trying to get a little help from stories and myths.

I did put a little thought it telling Hopi (son) this, and I did consider installing a fear into him, but at 3 he did not understand the dangers as it looked deceivingly safe, even to a adult, but he did understand crocodiles (He loved Steve Irwin).

As for his fear of water being now 8, swimming lessons has helped a lot, but he still has a respect for it, something I am also pleased about.

I don't agree to lying to your kids just to make them do what you want... telling a child that there is a monster under it's bed to keep them in it at night is pretty sad, but when it came to Hopi's life, I would do it again.

A gator is a real animal.. if you had said .. swamp creature who is to say his curiousity would over ride his caution.. you took the realist approach.

Thank you... I agree!!!
I also agree with teaching creative lying, something I had also done, to be able to talk you way out of a bad situation, this could also be a life saving skill.

When I was a child, we lived way out in the country... My Dad would tell us if we didnt stay in bed at night . The black monster with the huge green eyes would sneak in the house and take us out of our beds. We later found out that what he was speaking of was a black panther in that area had climbed in a window of the child and killed these peoples baby.. Wether this is true or not it was something that people use to tell there children to make them behave. I do not think that scare tactics is a way to keep you child in line... I am as guilty as most parents that have used the boogeyman or monster in the closet at least once.

I wasnever really scared of any monster that I was told about b/c my mom would always say, "There is no such things as monsters."

See, that's another problem parents face; even if you choose not to feed your child tales about monsters, they could still hear about these things from other children with parents who do use these stories. Obviously you can't come out and say 'so-and-so's mom is lying', so what do you do?

In response to your child hearing such stories from other kids, what I would say in that situation would be"

"That is what they believe. But I believe differently."

The proceed to explain why you believe differently. That might be better(?) perhaps than saying to your child that so and so's mother is a liar, since it's always possible that your child could say that in response which could create an entirely different set of problems.

Just my two cents. :)

Vespers: I would agree with you because no one parent is going to teach their children the same thing. Sure we might try the things our parents did with our children but probably in a different way.

my parents didn't tell me scarey storeis but my uncle did.
he said that if i left my toes out of the covers vampire would bite them in the night*lol*
i wouldn't tell my kids scarey stories i don't think.

A very worthy two cents Vespers :)

It's always best to explain things...I was told as a child to do something and if I questioned why, I was told "because I said so!"

Yeah, nothing is more frustrating to an inquisitive child than 'just because'. IT would probably make them more likely to investigate dangers, just to see why they're dangerous, if they're not told.

It's like seeing a sign saying 'do not push this button'. You gotta push it just to see why you shouldn't!

xxBlackHawkxx wrote: I think the best thing is not to instill fear in a child. Dont tell them that monsters exist, instead inform them of the real dangers in this world


I ask: By informing your child(ren) of the real dangers in this world, are you not in fact instilling fear in said child(ren)?

Now, to address the actual question.

I do not remember my parents telling me stories like this, but my house had enough scary things growing up that I do not believe they needed to.

Would I tell these stories to my children? Probably not. I don't see any reason why I would need to, though.

It is wrong to lie to your children. Withe the exceptions like Muli made. A lie to save them from certain death or harm is not wrong. Just to scare to keep them to stay in bed all night is definately wrong.

if you tell them these things they will be afraid to do alot of things because they are scared and that could be a good thing or a bad thing it depends

BeautifullySadistic, you said "By informing your child(ren) of the real dangers in this world, are you not in fact instilling fear in said child(ren)?"

Do you not think that it's better for them to be scared of things that might actually hurt them than some make-believe feet-eating monster which supposedly lurks under their bed?

At least if they're aware of real dangers you can do something constructive with that fear, such as teaching them not to speak to strangers, and self-defence classes when they're older, that kind of thing.

I'm not a parent myself, but if I ever became one, I would never use the threat of monsters to get my children to obey me. I would teach them about things like vampires and werewolves, sure, but not in a threatening way.

Good points Vespers and Maledicta.

I don't think it would be fear as in being paranoid and create phobias but to make the childrens cautious and aware of the real dangers.

Strangely enough when I was a child didn't believe in Santa Claus and many other things children believe in but my mother used to warn me about strangers and to not open the door unless I could really see who is there.

I believe it did me good that way and I didn't feel fear just cautious in a moderated manner and aware of the real dangers even at a young age.

My father did the scare tactics on me!

As a parent I NEVER do that to mine! I always remind them that there are no monsters at all but those in human form who snatch lil children. I teach them not to talk to strangers even if they look nice for these can be monsters. Monsters don't have to be scarey. The human ones are the dangerous ones, not the make belief kind.
They don't get scared anymore or believe in the bogey man and such things.

Would this scenario be considered the same as telling the children that there are monsters going to get them if the do not behave.???

I have a friend that thought it would be wise to let someone scare her two sons. Here is the problem with that though. It is to the point that the kids are deathly afraid of this man because he picked up one of the boys and acted as if he was going to through the kid into a bon fire. Now they use this guys name to say that if you don't behave I am going to take you to so -so house and let him have you. The kids actually run into their bedroom and hide scared out of their minds.

My mom believed in the devil, ghosts, witches, angels, and that evil spirits walk among us. She told me if I was selfish with someone, the ghost of that person would pull my feet at night. Got over that --- not the selfish part, but sleeping with my feet uncovered.

She also told me the devil was behind me, meaning it was directing my very bad actions. That hurt; got over it; told the devil to buzz off.

Never mentioned any of this to my kid. He didn't know a devil from an angel, but he did know about child abductions, etc. Made him less of a risk taker with other humans.

If I had to do it over, I'd choose the symbolic figures. Easier for an individual to rebel against those.

I believe that if you wish to believe in such a thing after childhood then i stays with you.. If you dont believe in such things once your older, the urge to even tink about such a thing dont exist anymore..

I used to tell my brother there was a horrific monster living in next doors garden & if he didn't do what I told him it would eat him alive (yeah I was an awful kid) he recently told him that he still has nightmares about that - oooops!

I was totally terrified of the idea that That monster from the "billy goat's gruff" was under meh bed, This resulted in my checking under meh bed EVERY night for a year, untill i got brave enough not to.

I was always afraid of finding a blue skinned dwarf which resembled a half man half animal kind of thing....I'm a fucked up child >.>

Lmao

idk i remember being told anything as a child but i had the fears regardless

and it doesnt seem right to lie to child and scare them but idk i dont think it really makes a difference but it may

Well a common thing to this set of theorys is that a little kid will watch something scarey and get jumpy anough to where anything looks like a monster and in some cases the parents arn't the ones tellling them this. Now as for ones that do its to spook them just anough into thinking if they do fallow certain house hold rules they whant there kids to abide by bad monsters will go after them so genrealy for a time the kid will be close to good.

The other kid factor, as stated toward the bottom here.. once again..
a very good point to consider.. if the parent does not tell the child they are likely to hear it anyway.. if a parent tells a child and the child gets re-enforcement from others(some being crafty, and using the kid primed imagination to spook them). So speaking about peoples creative process with a child is a good idea in their before-teen years.

Do you think a child is more or less likely to believe something another child tells them, as opposed to their parents?

When you're a kid, your parents are usually the ones you trust above anyone else, so would hearing about monsters from another kid at school be as potentially damaging as hearing it from a parent?

Kids are brutal.. they are likely to mock or exploit another child through physical differences.. most kids now know that is wrong.. yet a persons .. beliefs, superstitions, imagination, oriantation, those are all the new frontier.. a child is likely to share their beliefs or fears with friends .. and associates may relay those to others .. so perhaps it is that a child is receptive to peer acceptance/ or denouncement. That is the social stigma of a mind filled with irrational fears..

The world is so scarry now with all kinds of things that can kill you
And hurt you i feel it is best to tell the child something real about the danger but plump it up so it seems more then it is
So that the child will be less likely to fall into it

there are many forms of child abuse and i deeply beleive that telling a child that they will burn for eternity is one of those many forms. boogymans got nothing on that let me tell you!

That's a very good point Molly, but that would fall under a religious belief, and is a whole other topic :-)

well a boogey in the sky is a boogey man no less.

No, I agree with you completely, I just don't want this to turn into a religious debate as it wasn't my intention. I don't want us to get started on the subject of forcing religions onto children :-)

i will cease at last but before i do i will say one thing. child abuse is child abuse. period.

My parents never did that to me the stories. I dont do that to my kids and I make damn sure that they know most of the things they see on tv and in movies is fake. they know there is no boogyman or jason or freddy.

Well i was never told any monster stories. but they really didnt scare me as much. but my brother used to tell me that It was coming (you know that really creepy clown) Any way i would never use that tactic on a child. i consider that lying to them. then they grow up and resent you for it. so i think its a bad tactic.

i remember my parents more trying to convince me there was no such thing as boogeymen, and if they did ever try to convince me of anything i dont really remember so it must not have been that traumatic unless i'm subconsciously traumatized.

As a parent im not sure what i would do. but i'm a big believer in the truth. what's the difference in saying "hey kid you are going to die if you do that," or "hey kid the boogeyman is going to kill you if you do that."
either way is gonna scare the kid. might as well scare them the right way.

this thread actually reminds me of a Voltaire song called Goodnight, Demon slayer.

Oh yes, I remember my Mum telling me I had to keep myself inside all the sheets at night because if I didn't then the bogeyman might get me!

To this day to get to sleep I still have to have the sheets or duvet firmly wrapped around my shoulders!

As the mother of 4 children I have never instilled fear into them with stories like the ones listed. I remember being completely pissed off with my mother-in-law when she used to have my oldest son stay over and to get him to stay in bed she used to threaten to turn the hallway light out so the boogeyman could come and get him. I had to make a 'monster scarer' for him and attach it to his headboard that he could 'activate' if he got scared during the night - and up until he was about 9yrs of age he needed to have the light on all night. I think kids have enough to fear and worry about in everyday life without filling their heads with crap.

I found out later on that when my mother used scare tactics on me, it was how she was raised and she didn't see any harm in using doing it.
Older peeps say that my generation has ruined everything for everybody by whining about how we were treated as children....personally I think that my generation was the first to realize what the repercussions would be from scaring the crap out of us when we were kids.

I do not use monsters on kids just tell they why they need to be good becuse if there not good then no will want to do good things for them

I was raised by my grandparents and my uncle used to scare me with the drip, The drip will get u or the hand in the toliet,
Also the hand would come get me if I got out of bed instead of the boogyman it would be the hand, or the drip. I never did that to my kids,

Menajurie you make good use of an alternative word for belief a word I would like to see more often.. convinced.. to have a child imagine that Santa or the man exist.. with the expectation that others will convince the child that they imagined it later in their developement.. though flawed .. can serve an immidiate purpose.. but to convoince a child early in their life that a boddy man exist and reenforce it .. that is abuse..

The hand in the toilet? Hell..now I am traumatized!! So, basically what our parents have done is put us through mental abuse?

I can't remember ever being told stories like that. My parents were not the type to try to keep me from doing something by trying to friegten me. The boogeyman, goodness knows where i first heard that term used. It could have been from them but i doubt it.

As a New mother this isn't really somthing i have put much thought into. I would say that i wouldn't use those kinds of stories.. or even old wives tales, (such as if you play with fire you'll wet the bed...hehehe) but i know how much like my parents i have been this far and my guess is if they said it sooner or later it will come out of my mouth too.

As was first pointed out most of these stories are harmless, but it depends on the kids. I have a younger brother who was absolutely terrified of the dark til about age 11. I am sure that had more to do with the way my sister and i tormented him... ( in a loving way of course) but i would say you really have to know your kind before using something like that to get them to do what you want.

Even though my mom never scared us with any monsters, I was afraid nonetheless. ( I was a pretty good well-behaved kid, so no terror was needed to keep me in line).

I spooked younger kids.. with boogy man type stories.. I also started spooking my peers in junior high as well, most of which would swear to this day that they witnessed poltergeist or apparitions.

well, Ok...My sis and I spooked kids in our Jr high - having them believe that we were really into voodo and could mess someone up kept us from getting beat up ( it was a pretty scary school full of gang-bangers, dealers, and the like)...

I am one of four kids and the only monster story my mother ever told us was that under the stairs in the little closet lived the milky way monster. The milky way monster would never hurt us as long as we did not go in the closet and we left a milky way bar in front of the door every now and then.
the 4 of us stayed away from the closet and would leave it a milky way or some other kind of candy whenever we got realy scared.
I am the oldest and i remember the day i confessed i no longer believed in santa a few weeks before christmas so my mother let me in on the secret that the closet with the milky way monster in it was where she always hid presents for us for birthdays and holidays.
As each one of us started to grow out of the santa thing she would pull us aside and tell us the truth and let us know the closet was STILL off limits.
Am i traumatised from it ? NO
do i believe it was the work of a mad genius ? YES and i respected her creativity to keep the closet off limits until we were old enough to understand.
Am i pissed off she got all that candy ? HELL YES
I will exagerate a situation to my children to make them understand some dangers for thier own safety.
example
Don't go in the street or your going to get hit by a car.

there is no, you might, or you could there, is a you should fear that road because you will get hit by the car. will they be scared for life that there is a car out to get them if they even so much as put a toe near the street... i doubt it but when theyy are ready to go near the street they will be taught to proceed with caution.

I lost a friend to a car( he came out from between to parked cars.. So I tell all my friends kids to avoid playing between parked cars.. I once tossed a bag of sour apples from between to cars to show them how the driver will not have time to stop.. the driver at first wanted to kick my butt, but then when he learned the reason he agreed.

communication is key some children respond to NO some just don't maybe it is not what you communicate to them but how you do it and the type of person they are.
If i tell my son not to do something he will listen. If i tell my daughter not to do something she wants to know why and how did i know and if my answers aren't to her liking she may even test me on it.

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