Tahlia: A lesson in supervision

G’day, This is probably a lesson in watching what kids watch. Tahlia was one of those adorable, wide-eyed, bright kids with a very fertile imagination. She could play by herself and role play for hours on end. But that imaginative mind had its down side.  

I don’t know if you remember the movie Child’s Play. I haven’t seen it but I gather it has some rather horrible chucky dolls in it with horrible eyes and devouring personality. Tahlia’s parents were wise enough to know that she should not be exposed to anything scary because she internalised it, elaborated on it and made it a monster of the mind. So they didn’t let her watch Child’s Play, but they didn’t count on other slack parents who might, so her friend, Hannah who had seen it was very keen to tell Tahlia this graphic story about this chucky doll, adopted by an Australian couple and whose nails continued to grow - then during the night Chucky scratched dad and mum to pieces so the little girl fled to aunty’s and the next night she was found all scratched to pieces too.

Tahlia’s mighty imagination did the rest. She could not only see Chucky, she became possessed by it. She would panic if left alone, wouldn’t be in her room by herself, and it got worse every night until she couldn’t go in to her room at all. She was so spooked by this Chucky doll that when I met her she was shaking with fear and her little eyes were sunken. Even to mention Chucky by name made her mouth quiver and she would start to get short of breath.

Her parents said they had tried reasoning but panic and obsessions are not responsive to reason so no bribe or punishment or explanation would work. They tried shooing the doll out the window but Tahlia could see this chucky doll and it just hid and came out when they stopped.

Too often adults forget that kids are kids. They don’t reason like we do, they imagine like we don’t. Tahlia and I had to get our counter forces operating; as she was pretty gullible to a good story I thought I’d have to trump a bad story with a better one.

I found out that her favourite fluffy toy was Simba the lion, so we decided that Simba was the most powerful of all creatures, king of the jungle and a great Chucky chewer. Any time Chucky or his clones appeared Tahlia would call on Simba to “go chew Chucky” and Simba would pounce on him, gobble him up and grin for more.

 We practised the combination of Simba and the hated doll word a few times till Simba was deadening her pain and good magic had outgunned bad magic.  

Then with Simba clutched in her arms off she went keen to do battle and with the first grin on her face for weeks.

The message to be gained from this story is to keep an eye on what the kids see, an ear on what they say, and a lap for what they fear.

I bet Tahlia still has her Simba in her life – ready and waiting to devour nasty thoughts or ideas and protect her at night. Maybe we all need our Simba.