Monsters in the closet

To your child, that monster is real, so no amount of "There aren't any monsters, honey" is going to convince him his bedroom is safe. When A.J. was 6, he began worrying about bad guys from videos or books coming to get him at bedtime. So I started telling funny stories to keep them away. The premise: Picture the mean guy doing something so ridiculous it makes you laugh; in the process, you totally defuse his power. For instance, I made up a story in which a monster has to enter a hula-hoop contest. He loses because his multiple arms get in the way, and he falls over, completely embarrassed. Silly, yes. Effective? Strangely so. Once I got A.J. smiling, he could relax and settle down.

Or you can use a real-life prop. When her 5-year-old daughter, Lauren, got worried about monsters in her room, Hulya Migliorino tried reasoning with her, to no avail. "Finally, I started spraying air freshener into the room," she says. "I told her that monsters don't like houses that smell nice, only houses that smell stinky. It's become a nightly habit." Other ways to banish the nighttime beasts: a song that scares them away, a monster-repelling curtain in the window, or a stern phone call from you to the monster mommies.

Goodbye, paci

Letting go of a lovey can be traumatic -- unless you hit on just the right thing to say. Carolina Fernandez, author of Rocket Mom! and a mom in Ridgefield, Connecticut, had visions of her 3-year-old son, Nick, taking his pacifier to kindergarten. "Finally, I told him it had to go to a really poor baby who couldn't afford one," she says. "He took it out of his mouth immediately, handed it over, and said, 'Give this to the poor child.' " Fernandez was stunned, especially when the pacifier didn't turn out to be an issue in the weeks that followed. "I couldn't believe it. We had fought over this for ages, and it was done in less than a minute." For your kid, the turning point might be something else (when you point out that, say, pirates don't use pacifiers), so it can pay to just spout whatever pops into your head! If you need some inspiration (like how to convince your kid to tie his beloved to a helium balloon, and more), check out these tips.

Abby Carr's son has a tendency to get attached to less-than-desirable objects, like his old Pooh toothbrush with splayed-out bristles. "To ease the parting, we put the object in a 'special box' and have a little ceremony," says Carr. "He knows he can go back and visit it every now and then."

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