Background:
The Indiana Jones movies (especially #1 and #3) have taught that it’s a serious liability for an adventurer to acquire a phobia against any animal that may be seen in the course of adventuring (e.g., snakes, rats).
Proposal:
In order to avoid these problems, we can easily desensitize a future adventure to dangerous animals at a young age, via constant exposure to a likeness of that animal in “stuffed animal that dangles from a mobile” form.
(The official term for this is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposure_therapy )
Compare the two mobiles in figures 1 and 2.
Fig. 1: This classic mobile has minimal educational value and confers NO resistance to snakeophobia or fear of spiders, which is known as “spiderophobia.”
Fig. 2: The enhanced “horror-mobile” can be customized to help a child grow numb to the most terrifying aspects of existence. It’s unclear whether this would actually be 100% helpful: a healthy degree of scorpion-o-phobia is probably a useful trait for a person to have.
Conclusion:
You could be the first to try this totally unproven and un-tested parenting tip!
PROS: May help when the child (who has now become a grizzled adventurer) encounters a pit of snakes in an ancient Egyptian tomb.
CONS: Might have unintended negative effects, like the “aggressively criticize children when they stutter” study (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster_Study). Additionally, the chance of actually encountering a snake pit in the course of a typical lifetime is < 50%.
WorstPlans: updated every Monday since July 2014! 
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