Fear of things exploding.

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My child (9) owns a X-box that stays up in his room. It is his and if his brother (4) asks if he can play it he tells him only if brother (6) watches you or if mommy does.

I had a conversation with him about why we have certain rules (ie. to keep someone safe, or to protect something). Then after he told me about the dinosaur cartoon he had watched (:D hehe) I asked him about the rules that he was putting on playing his X-box. (He didn't mind that he was going to play it and has separated the games out that he doesn't mind brother playing into a little pile for him to choose from.) He said. "I made the rule because I don't want him to get hurt. I'm afraid my X-box might explode and hurt him."

I had a "huh..." moment there. Then we talked about how his Playstation broke (the baby yanked on the disc drive drawer and it doesn't read anymore), and even if his x-box DID break that it would not explode but a piece might fall off or it would just stop working.

He's always been a bit on the anxious side...

Anyone have another approach here or something to allay his fears here? I'm planning on bringing it up at the next appointment but I don't think it has to do with his medicine.

Is he at school?

I'm just wondering if other children have talked about something "exploding" or the like, and he has taken them literally? Or maybe he has seen something like an X-box exploding in a cartoon, and thinks it could happen?

Sometimes, there is a logic and reason underpinning anxieties and rules, however strange or misplaced it may seem.

If cartoons can teach us anything it's that all machines explode.

I have to mention that my 88-year-old very NT mother has always (that I recall) had a fear of things exploding. We never had a gas stove "because they explode all the time" (but she could not specify a single instance). If the car ever overheated at all, she feared it would imminently explode. As far as I could tell, she has never actually seen an unplanned explosion, but she sure thinks they are common. Perhaps too much viewing of the Hindenburg newsreel as a child.

An Xbox won't explode unless some explosives were put inside. Will just pop if short circuited at most

Maybe someone did say something at school, and I would rather not bring up a non-existent chance that someone is putting explosives in his x-box, he would FREAK. haha

As for your mom, I have an uncle who I am seriously surprised that I haven't seen wandering around in tin foil hats to escape the mind readers....