To give more context to the story about my son: I didn't at all give him some overbearing lecture. I simply read the page to him as if it were regular story-time and let him make the decision, which he did with remarkable swiftness.

That's good advice about phobia/obsession.

My daughter is a bit weird about germs. For example the other day, I was handling a deer skull that we found in the backyard, and she was a little put out that I touched a doorknob before washing my hands.

As a kid, I was the same way with germs. As an adult, I'm probably still a bit overly cautious. When COVID happened, I joked that it wasn't OCD, but rather it was training for a pandemic.

My observation of her behavior makes me wonder if it's a nature vs. nurture thing with her. Nurture: Did I accidentally teach her my phobia. Nature: does her brain (like mine) ruminate about everything, leading to phobias when the topic of ruminations is a scary thing like germs.