Bronwyn has had a reoccurring bad dream:
“I was dreaming that I was falling, and slipping straight into a deadline”.
After I composed myself (and apologized for laughing), it occurred to me that “deadline” is kind of a scary word. It certainly can be in its proper context, but besides that, can you imagine what it sounds like to a 4 year old?
Is it a line of dead stuff?
A line after which you are dead?
How many words, and their meanings, do we take for granted? Words that we throw around could sound scary to a child, especially taken out of context.
Even sayings we use can be morbid, or at least disconcerting when you don’t understand them:
It’s raining cats and dogs.
He’s dead meat!
Fish out of water.
I wanted to share this story because I never want to forget that some of the things we take for granted as adults, children still need to learn.
Can anyone think of any other words or phrases that might be scary to a child but that we, as adults, might laugh over?
3 Under 3 
Amazing, I have the same dream as Bronwyn! We grapple and slip with those “deadlines”. Hope I didn’t use the “d” word with her.Great fear, wakes me up in a cold sweat.
Here are some that others may have already mentioned:
Throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Full of beans (how full?!)
Dressed to kill
Bee in your bonnet
Eat your heart out.
Bark is worse than your bite
Get under your skin
Burn yourself out
Need something like a hole in the head
By the skin of your teeth
Cut off your nose to save your face
Do or die
There are also those other positive misleading idioms…”its a piece of cake”
Natalie, did you come up with all those yourself???
i do remember telling Nicolas to go and put a bug in Grandpa’s ear about going to the beach..and the reaction!
Well, this is my first comment to you Jules. I just had to add this, it’s not so much a scary saying, but definitely a misunderstanding I had as a child…
In the car driving along the 401 GTA (before it was the GTA)
Me: Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, that guy is drinking and driving! That’s wrong!
Mom: What’s he drinking? (With what I now know to be a skeptical tone)
Me: A Coke!
My mother then proceeded to explain the difference between my situation and the true meaning of ‘drinking and driving’
Hope you enjoyed that one 🙂
Love ya!
Great one Jenn!!
elliot was so terrified the day last december when he heard an announcement over the mall intercom about BOXING WEEK!
These were from my sister:
Being on fire (like a winning streak)
Being fired
Getting fired up
All good ones!
Another not-so-scary but easily misinterpreted;
a little birdie told me…
not to mention the songs we sing to them as infants “Rockabye baby on the tree top….when the bow breaks the cradle will fall and down will come baby, cradle and all!!