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The 'boogy man' is just something made up, usually by adults, to frighten others, usually children.

Some parents don't know how to get their children to do as they're asked, and feel they have to make things up in the hope of giving kids a 'reason' to do something, as in 'If you don't go to sleep the boogy man will get you,'.

It sounds immature and silly, and is; eventually children realize they've been told pointless lies; this reduces their trust in adults, but the damage done by deliberately frightening children can range from non-existent to really severe.

Some children have nightmares over frightening things they've been told will happen to them if they, for example, suck their thumbs, or wet the bed; some adults still suffer fears going back to this cruel and misguided form of discipline.

Sadly, this approach is most frequently used as a last resort by adults to stop behaviour the child cannot control, or cannot easily control, such as thumb-sucking, bedwetting, insomnia, and so on. The adult feels helpless and tries to scare the child into stopping behaviour beyond that child's control; a frightened, nervous child is less able than ever to control such behaviour, the behaviour gets worse and the adult becomes more likely to frighten the child still more, or to use other inappropriate attempts at control.

Parents frequently use parenting techniques which were used on them as children. They might know perfectly well these techniques didn't work and simply made things worse, but people under pressure will often revert in this way.

Children and adults involved in this kind of cycle need support; it doesn't sound very important, but it actually is a real problem in many families, and without commonsense help can lead to worse problems.

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15y ago

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