A: His mother put the kibosh on his smoking habit.

B: How did she manage to do that?

A: She threatened to cut his allowances if he didn’t quit smoking.

Note: The idiom “put the kibosh on” means to stop or end something, or to prevent something from happening or continuing. The term “kibosh” is evidenced to have been used a few years before its appearance in Charles Dickens’ 1836 sketch, but there is no definitive proof to support any of its origin stories.