The Monster in the Closet

Welcome to the Susan Sto Helit School of Child Headology. Lesson one: The Monster In The Closet. Example.

Sprout's thudding footsteps on the stairs are my cue to close the social media app I’ve been doomscrolling and tuck my phone away. If I explained it, he would probably understand the concept of overcoming sleep inertia with the help of a screen stimulating my brain… but come on, he isn’t even nine years old. If he sees Mumma lying in bed, staring at her phone, he will learn that Lying In Your Bed And Staring At Your Phone is a normal thing to do.

I mean, it is; but I want *his* normal to be healthier than mine. Kids are little mimics, so I try to consider what example I’m setting.

The door opens so suddenly that it pushes a little breeze my way. Sprout’s green eyes are wild, urgent. He dashes onto my bed and hurries under the covers beside me, trembling.

“Mumma, I just saw the scariest thing ever.” He throws one arm around my shoulders and slips the other between my neck and pillow. I can smell the strawberry toaster pastry on his breath. He tends to wake before me, so he is allowed to watch a few videos on a filtered and curated YouTube profile and get his own breakfast.

I ask him, “Do you want to talk about it, or do you want to be distracted from it?”

He pulls back from our hug to look me in the face. “I want to talk about it!”

“Tell me all about it.”

The filters are reasonably reliable. The content Sprout can access without my direct supervision is definitely on the bell curve of what our culture considers appropriate. We’re in the United States, so this means that the animated characters can shoot each other with guns but don’t show any affection beyond kissing. That said, a standard distribution paints a big picture, and doesn’t cover every nuance of individual people.

Sprout describes the terrible monster. It’s an imaginary character, set non-canonically in a video game world, but his trembling is real.

Personally, I think “carnivorous, aggressive version of real herbivore” is a fun trope. Cow mysteriously alone in the pasture? It ate its herd-mates. Cute little Rabbit of Caerbannog? “It’s got fangs!”

There are some children Sprout’s age and younger who would be entertained by this video with no ill effects. There are some children Sprout’s age and older who would have nightmares over much less. This morning, this video was Sprout’s “scariest thing ever.”

I let Sprout vent a little about the imaginary monster. It has red eyes. It’s really good at sneaking up behind you.

When he’s ready to hear it, I say, “Wow, that does sound scary! I’m so glad it’s only imaginary.”

It's subtle, but Sprout’s trembling lessens. For a moment, his gaze drops down as his thoughts turn inwards. “Yeah,” he agrees. “It was scary.” Was, not is: progress.

I say, “Good thing imaginary monsters can be defeated from the imagination, too. I bet, if that scary cow started attacking villagers, then an iron golem would come beat it up!”

Sprout counters with Minecraft canon: “Iron golems don’t attack cows.”

“They attack anything that hurts villagers. And if you were in that game, you would have netherite armor and the best weapons, so you could defeat it, too.”

“Netherite armor wouldn’t help!” I honestly don’t know if this was a plot point in the spooky video, or Sprout’s own fear driving a mental catastrophe.

I tell him, “I think you’re underestimating how good you would be with a netherite sword. But in imagination, anything is possible. Mario could eat a mushroom, get really big, and squash the cow by jumping on it.”

Sprout rejects Mario’s supremacy over the bloodthirsty cow, but he visibly relaxes as he describes how the battle between them would go. I propose other characters to fight the monster. How would Toothless and Hiccup do against it? What about the Princess Alliance from *She-Ra and the Princesses of Power*, or the team from *Duck Tales*? The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?

He really gets into the game, waving his hands as he acts out the scenes and adding sound effects. Before long, he decides that this week’s favorite Pokémon would win the day, and tells me how it would happen. At this point, we’re both smiling and having fun.

I ask, “Are you feeling better?”

He says, “Yeah. But that video was really scary.”

“What can you do when something scares you?”

“I can list five things I see or hear.”

Methods For Coping With Panic Attacks have joined the chat.

I say, “That’s a great tactic. And you can always imagine how to conquer your fear, too.”

“Yeah, like Godzilla could just come in and step on that cow!” he laughs.

I say, “You know, YouTube videos usually have titles that give you a hint ahead of time if they’re going to be scary.”

“Yeah, this one said ‘Creepypasta.’”

“Aha! That’s a word to watch out for. On the internet, ‘Creepypasta’ means people are making up stories to try to scare each other. It’s basically a dare. ‘Read this story or watch this video if you think you can handle it.’”

Sprout has a thoughtful expression. “That actually sounds like fun.”

“It can be,” I agree. “Some people really like it. Maybe you’ll like it, too, when you’re a bit bigger and ready to handle scarier things.”

“Maybe I will! Can you come with me to the living room? I want to make sure that video is over, so I don’t see any more of it.”

It had finished playing in his absence. Scout chose a palate cleanser of a YouTuber making something inventive out of Legos. I blocked the content creator responsible for the scary cow and several others relevant to the search word “creepypasta” to reduce the risk of Scout stumbling into another too soon.

The Monster In The Closet. Procedure and Explanation

Step 1: validate the child’s emotions.

People can listen best when they feel heard. Besides, we humans are emotional and social creatures. All of us deserve to know that our loved ones care about our feelings.

Step 2: empower the child.

In the Discworld series by Sir Terry Pratchett, the grim reaper’s granddaughter is a highly effective governess and schoolteacher. When a child is afraid of a monster in a cupboard, Susan Sto Helit either whacks the monster with an iron fire poker or hands a similar weapon to the kid.

I think we all get caught up in imaginary confrontations. Some of us review arguments we’ve had while in the shower and come up with a quip we “should” have made. Some of us have nightmares about taking an algebra test with no pants on. Some of us even believe in an oppression that can be verified as unreal, like the mistaken impression that public school students “aren’t allowed to pray or have the Bible in school,” while in actuality, it is illegal for the school to prompt, lead, require, or ban prayer or scripture.¹

The human brain is squishy and complicated. Fear and anger can be really difficult for anyone to regulate. So, when Sprout has a feeling so big that he seeks a trusted adult's help, part of my support is teaching him methods to handle it himself.

Step 3: process engineering.

Discworld witch Granny Weatherwax is so magically potent that when a vampire bites her, he takes on her characteristics instead of vice versa. Still, the bulk of her work curing and protecting her community stems from common sense, herblore, and headology.²

It is easier to solve and prevent a person’s problems if you understand that person and the source of their problems. If your patient has a fever, cooling their body doesn’t cure their infection. They’ll feel better when the virus is gone. In the meantime, you can help by treating their symptoms. If you know them well enough, you can also find an effective way to teach them hygiene and ways to avoid future infections.

I see my job as a parent to provide for my kid and teach him how to provide for himself. When Sprout faces a situation that scares, angers, or harms him, I teach him how to avoid it happening again; and I take steps to protect him myself.

Thank you for attending the Susan Sto Helit School of Child Headology. Lesson one: The Monster In The Closet. The quiz will be on Monday. I’ll have an extra credit question about Tiffany Aching, so you might want to peruse The Wee Free Men. And remember: even if the source of your fear is imaginary, your feelings are very real³ and always important.

¹ In emulation of Sir Terry, I will use a footnote to expand on a topic that is related to the discourse, but does not necessarily drive the plot forward. There are two notable exceptions to the rule that public school employees cannot prompt religious observance. In 1954, the Christian majority of the United States feared the forced atheism of the Soviet Union. Congress added the phrase “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance recited every morning before lessons start. As of May, 2025, two states have also passed bills requiring public schools to display “the Ten Commandments.” It is beyond the scope of this lesson to discuss which edition of which translation of the story of Exodus is quoted.

² The word “psychology” does not exist on Discworld, so Granny Weatherwax had to coin her own phrase for it. I’d like to see you grow up on a flat planet supported by four giant elephants, which stand on the back of a great turtle that swims through space, and do better than she.

³ The given example is very real, in that most of the dialogue did come from conversations that actually happened. Miss Susan’s fire poker really did inspire my approach to mitigating irrational fear. To protect the privacy of minors, Scout and Mumma are composite characters. Their depicted interaction is too close to a true event to be entirely Fiction, but details have been changed a little too much to accurately represent Fact. We’ll end with a quote from Alan Moore: “Artists use lies to tell the truth.”