Melissa Koenig, Ph.D., associate professor in the Institute of Child Development, was featured in a Live Science article that explored how parents should handle stories about the tooth fairy and other mythical beings.

For the article, Koenig commented on a method used by astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson, who encouraged his daughter to be skeptical of the story and to conduct an experiment to determine whether the tooth fairy was real.

According to Koenig, “in certain families, people go a good distance, meaning they really put in a good effort, to protect a child’s misconception.”