How We Contribute to Our Children's Fears - When I started out on the road of parenting, I was determined I was going to do everything right (I was young, and still quite convinced I could do such a thing if I put my mind to it)--I was going to be pleasant and patient and never threaten or lose my temper with my children. As the young mother of preschoolers, I used to joke when they were being particularly challenging that I was "going to send them down to the minors"--my playful reference to sending them down to the minor leagues until things improved and they could come back up to the big leagues. I thought I was being terribly clever and non-threatening. One day when my eldest daughter was about four, she had been snoozing in the car while we were running some errands and she woke up as I was pulling into an unfamiliar parking lot. She burst into sobbing tears, crying "No, I'll be good!" When I got to her and settled her down, she confessed that she thought I had finally brought her to "the Minors" and was going to leave her off.