It’s ocurred to me this week that an underdeveloped skill in many adults is the ability to frighten children. Some people have the ability to freak kids out as an innate talent. But the rest of us need to hone our skills. After all, this is the generation we will have to engage in combat with in just a few short years. So, for your edification, I’d like to present the following list of television programs which are key helpers in keeping your diminutive targets in a state of panic. Whether you’re babysitter, day care worker . . . whatever — let’s get these visual images out there to encourage as many paranoid childhood phobias as possible. Today’s lesson will begin with the simplest method:

Scary TV Shows and Movies

This is fairly obvious. The trick is finding shows that are actually scary. For example, this human:

Is never, ever scary. Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood will always leave children happy, soothed, and self-confident. This is bad. Instead, I’d like to suggest something like this:

Frightening. Creepy. Sick and wrong. Perfect. May I also point out Bananas in Pyjamas, which is hands-down disturbing. This show is so creepy it even gave me the heebie-jeebies. Observe:

The key is to get the child to relate to the bear, and to impress upon them that beyond any doubt, an enormous banana in blue and white jammies will be coming to get them. And eat their brains. And nothing, not even the thickest of down comforters, can stop that.

Other good potential phobias include characters with glowing or invasive parts, or ones that move in a shuffling manner, or have unusual means of ingesting nutrient matter. It helps if the character can seem innocuous or improbable enough to be real, even better as it will decrease the possibility of moral support coming to help your target overcome the fear of imminent doom. These creatures should freak the living snot out of kids, but will not ever be taken seriously by their parents. As the ultimate example, for your viewing pleasure and to facilitate the torture of human larvae, I present here the most frightening children’s programming I could find, after scouring all of television history. Enjoy.