Dr. Coltan Scrivner

It doesn't mean you should try to keep that out of their realm of influence.

You know, one thing you could do is when your kid shows interest in something sort of scary is if it's a movie, let's say, watch it with them.

Right.

If they watch that with their parent, you know, they learn that it's if it gets to be too extreme, their parents there, it's not too bad.

Right.

It's not so scary.

They have a safe place to return to.

And importantly, you show them that it's okay to feel afraid.

That's not the end of the world, right?

I think that's one thing that kids who tend to avoid thrilling or scary play, either on their own volition or because their parents don't let them watch it, let's say, one thing that they often struggle with is when they become adults, they inevitably face situations that are frightening or scary or anxiety-inducing.

And they've not developed the right toolkit, the right sort of cognitive emotional toolkit for learning how to deal with those feelings.

And then it becomes sort of an overwhelming feeling because it's new and they don't know how to deal with it.

They've never felt this way before.

And so if you sort of practice regulating difficult emotions like anxiety or fear when you're a kid and you do it in a safe way through games or movies or books, it can help you sort of build your toolkit, your emotional regulation toolkit.

And you can use those emotion regulation skills in the real world when you're feeling afraid or anxious.

If only, right?

I don't think it's that simple.

I think that that's one of the things that actually makes... The problem is that what that did over time is it also developed within our species an ability to plot and plan proactively aggressive...

So we could now, if we didn't like an individual, we could sit back and plan and wait until the time was right to commit violence.

And this is exactly what serial killers do, right?