When my son David was little he had a fear of monsters for a while. To treat it—this was when he was about half-past-2—we role-played a book he enjoyed, Where the Wild Things Are. I worked on the key element of the book, looking into their yellow eyes without blinking once, and saying firmly, \u201cBe Still!\u201d I played the monster and he was intimidated by me at first, looking away. So I broke out of role and coached him. Then we played the scene. I roared my terrible roars, and clashed my terrible teeth and wiggled my terrible claws, and finally he tamed me. He got the knack of controlling his non-verbal \u201cflinch.\u201d At this, I whimpered and became tame. He had learned to tame the fierce Daddy-Monster!<\/p>\n
I never really scared him much, and broke set, so he got the idea of us only playing, but he leaned to put on a fierce, firm face. For several days after I heard him around the house, in another room, shouting \u201cBe still!\u201d No more problem with monsters and he\u2019s healthy today. But I was delighted that he used the Wild Thing as a logo for the conference he gave this last year in Austin. (He teaches graphic designers how to get the most out of certain software programs for desktop publishing<\/a>.)<\/p>\n
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