Monsters are real. Last night I put my three boys to bed, and my son, Henry (4),

Monsters are real.

Last night I put my three boys to bed, and my son, Henry (4), wouldn’t stop giggling.

My wife was recovering from a bad stomach flu, so I let her rest in another room while I settled the kids. Henry kept making funny noises for about an hour until he screamed, bolted upright, turned on the lights, and refused to go back into the darkness.

He saw a monster in the room. A light from a passing car had made scary shadows on the wall, and he was petrified.

Now, you can’t tell a child that monsters are not real; they won’t believe you. They saw one after all, and every fiber of their being and every letter of their DNA says that “monsters get you in the dark.”.

We lived with real monsters for thousands of years. Creepy crawlies, snakes, disease-ridden animals, four-legged predators, and, worst of all, other humans. Out beyond the wire, monsters still lurk, waiting for some unsuspecting child or negligent parent to make a mistake.

So if I can’t convince him there are no monsters, I have to convince him he is safe from them and teach him how to defeat the monsters in his mind.

I picked him up and said, “Don’t worry, Daddy is here now. The monsters are afraid of me. See, they all ran away when I came. When I was little, I saw the monsters too, and it scared me. But you know what I did? I acted brave and told them to go away. Levi (my 10-year-old boy) isn’t afraid of monsters any more because he scared them off.”

I put Henry down, and Levi went to lay beside him to comfort him.

“If you get scared, you can hide under the blankets. Everyone knows that the monsters can’t find you if you hide really well. And then, as you get more brave, you can look out at them and tell them to go away like this. I see you; I’m not afraid; now go away; you’re not welcome here.” Levi says to his brother.

They practice scaring monsters for a bit, and Henry falls asleep, Levi gets back in his bed and we all have a good night.