So When The Exorcist Comes On, I'll Leave the Room

When your child is watching a particularly intense movie like, say, Where the Wild Things Are or the Paris Hilton video, your natural tendency is to sit right next to him or her and help the kid through the experience.

But it turns out, according to a study discussed on MSNBC by a group of people including one very frightened-looking psychologist (pictured at right), that you're a sadist.

The study, from Finland, a place that scares me just thinking about it, says that kids who watched TV with their parents were four times as scared as kids who watched the same crap by themselves.

The reason might be that parents are likely making the situation worse by flinching or otherwise freaking out in anticipation of that killer hiding in the closet and the kids are feeding off their parents' reactions.

The article includes this little chestnut so valuable and slap-my-forehead worthy that I'll quote it in full:

[W]hen a child who's been sleeping alone wakes up frightened in the middle of the night and comes to the parents' bedroom crying, the temptation is to just comfort the child and maybe even to let him sleep in the parents' bed.

But by hugging and cuddling the child, the parent positively reinforces the child's anxieties — and makes it less likely the child will get over the fears and be able to sleep alone. What you want to reward is bravery...that might mean giving the child a reward that depends on how many nights he sleeps alone without getting up in the middle of the night.

Pretty strong stuff. It makes sense, but good luck following through on that when your kids is freaking out at 1am.

The rest of the article is worth a read, particularly for its tips on how to deal with your kids' fears (hint: don't dwell on them; you're only making it worse). That is, if you're able to get past the zombie stare of that psychologist.

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