Children are wonderful... until they're scaring the living daylights out of you, that is.
Today's burning question came from Redditor blurryrhombus, who asked the online community "Parents of Reddit, what is something your kids started doing/seeing that made you believe they were communicating/seeing ghosts?"
Leave it to these parents to serve us ice-cold dishes of Can we f*cking not?
"My son..."
My son will be quiet for ages in his room and I'll think he's asleep, then he'll start hysterically laughing. He's 2.
"Before our oldest was talking..."
Before our oldest was talking, we found that often when we lay him down in his room (either to sleep or change his nappy), he'd look over our shoulder and start smiling or chuckling, like he was reacting to someone. My wife and I independently decided that it was my dad come to look in on his first grandchild. (All the other grandparents are still alive, dad took his own life when I was 12.)
This went on for a couple of months or so but we never addressed it out loud at the time. Then we'd put our boy down to sleep and for a little while we'd hear him chuckling and gurgling for a while before he slept. Kids do that but it really sounded like he was reacting to someone playing with him.
One night he was still going an hour after we put him down and my wife said "he's your dad, go talk to him."
So, feeling slightly silly at first, I went in and said to the room, "dad, please let him sleep!" I told my son "say goodnight to grandpa and get some sleep."
As I walked out, I said "I miss you dad. I love you." I've never been too sure about whether I really believe in spirits but I certainly felt suddenly warm and comforted.
That was the last night we heard the bedtime playing. From then on, when we put our boy down, he went to sleep without a quiver and still does several years on.
About 18 months later our second child (now at roughly the same age her brother was when dad visited) starts howling not long after she's gone to bed. I go in and comfort her but got a distinct feeling of confusion for a minute before it went and then she settled down.
A couple of nights later the same thing happens. I go in to settle her again but this time I said "dad, she can't handle this like <brother> did. If you were here, she'd love you and be in your lap all the time but not like this. She can't deal with it, please leave her alone."
That was the last visit we ever had that we're aware of, even with their three younger siblings.
"We took my 3 year old daughter..."
We took my 3 year old daughter to meet my wife's grandmother who lived on the other side of the county...we walk in the house and my daughter doesn't even look at her great grandmother, but instead goes straight over to a picture of her great great grandmother, points at it and says, "That's the lady who lives in my room. She's nice."
"I had a dog..."
I had a dog from the time I was about 6 or 7 until I was about 19 or 20. My oldest son was born a few years after he died. Flash forward to when my son was around 2.5, he started telling me about "the black dog that lives in the basement" (where the dog, who was a black lab died.) He said something along the lines of "I woke up when you were still working and the black dog was in our room."
I asked if he meant our current dog, who was black and tan, but he was insistent it wasn't "Goonior" but "the other dog." And I also didn't allow the dog in our room, ever, and he never tried to come in.
Also, same kid, same time frame...
My best friend committed suicide days before my son's first birthday. He had no recollection of Pat besides knowing he had an Uncle named Pat. Well, I come home from work one morning and he is wide the f**k awake at 6am (I worked overnights and he usually slept until around 9am) talking in his crib. I assumed he was talking to himself. I asked him who he was talking to and he said "my pirate friend" and said "he has a patch" and I kinda brushed it off. Then I realized "wait... Pat was blind in one eye... Pat always cosplays pirates... Pat loved him..."
Pat continued to visit my son for years after that.
"When my youngest son started speaking..."
Giphy
When my youngest son started speaking, the wife had a friend with a newborn. My son was constantly telling us what the friends baby was saying and wanted and he spoke to the baby more than anyone. The theory is that he was still in the cusp of being able to communicate with babies and adults but, it tripped us out for like 2 months until the baby started talking Babel. After that, the kid didn't understand what the baby was saying and would just tell us, "he's upset."
"She had no idea..."
My 4 year old daughter started not being able to sleep. She was complaining that "Simon" was coming to her room and yelling at her. It got to the point she wouldn't let us leave the room until we told him to go away and leave her alone.
My Catholic mom in law was getting worried and gave me a bag of blessed medals while I was at Walmart and saw her. I rolled my eyes and threw them in a drawer when I got home instead of burying them and saying prayers like she wanted.
My daughter stopped seeing Simon the same night. She had no idea about the medals (wasn't with me at Walmart and I put them in the drawer before she got home) so it creeped me out.
"The next morning..."
My kid has sliding mirrored doors on her closet. She goes to bed early but I check on her now and then. One night I was on my way to bed and I hear weird chanting coming from her room. I open the door to check on her and she's standing on the bed staring in the mirror. She looks at me and says "mirror me is the real me." I close the door and nope right out of there.
The next morning I ask her about what she was doing. She said "I was talking to Horrifying Me. She lives in the mirror and has no bones."
My husband's family is haunted so I guess it was just a matter of time but f**k that. Kids are so creepy.
"As an infant..."
My daughter had two moments. As an infant, whenever we laid her on the changing table, she would always squirm into whatever position would allow her to stare into one corner on the ceiling of the room. It was a plain white room and plain white ceiling, so nothing worth looking at. She would always stare and smile or laugh. As she got a little older she would point at it and say Hi. We never really worried because it always seemed to be a positive experience for her. Not a ghost, but just as eerie.
When she was 3, we were getting her ready to meet my Aunt Mary for the first time. We are not a church-going family, but she proudly told us that she already knows someone named Mary. We ask about her friend Mary and she smiles and tells us "She's God's mom," and tells how she hasn't talked to her in a long time. Of course she doesn't remember any if these conversations anymore, but they are burned in my memory.
"We took it home..."
My father bought a Native American medicine bag while he was in the western US. He brought it back and gave it to my son, who was 2 or 3 at the time.
We took it home and hung it on the door knob of my son's closet. Soon afterwards, my son started complaining of not being able to sleep because the bell on the bag would start ringing. Then "the spoonbills" would start coming out of the closet. He didn't seem particularly bothered by the spoonbills, but just irritated that they made the bell ring.
"My daughter was..."
My daughter was refusing to fall asleep so after a while I asked her why she wouldn't and she said "Because those people are watching us." or something similar and pointed to a corner of the room where there wasn't anything even vaguely human shaped.
We slept downstairs that night.
"I went in..."
I went in to my 3 year old son's room to find his vent covered with a blanket. I went to take it off and he started screaming and yelling that the "glowy" would escape... the next morning I found him sleeping on my bedroom floor because I let the glowy out.
"Last night..."
Last night me and my partner both heard a sound like 'yoo-hoo!' As in someone talking to a baby.
Our 17mo daughter started giggling like I've never heard and babbling away like she always does when she's 'talking'.
This isn't the first instance of something.... odd... happening in our house, but it sent goosebumps all over me.
"He laughs at this toy..."
Giphy
My youngest son named his favorite toy (stuffed dinosaur plushie) after my dead sister. I've never spoken her name out loud before to him or around him. I've never brought him to her grave. He'd never know this name otherwise, it's a European name my parents gave my sister because it "sounded pretty". One day he took a small plastic gun from one of his army guys and put it in the hand of another toy, and chased the dinosaur around manically saying "boom BOOM BOOM you're so dead and your baby is too!" My sister was 6mo pregnant when her boyfriend killed her, her unborn died as well. He laughs at this toy A LOT. Like... too much for it just being a game. He talks to it all the time as if it's responding to him in real time.
"My parents' first child..."
My 3 year old daughter asked "How did your sister die?"
My parents' first child died at 2 weeks due to complications. She was born the day before my mom's birthday and neither parent EVER talked about her because it was just too painful.
There is no way my daughter could have ever overheard that not only I had a sister, but that she died as well.
A month later daughter tells me "Mommy is going to give me a baby brother in the Spring. Wife and I found out we were pregnant 2 weeks later... we had a son in March.
"I read one part..."
Last night I was reading my son a book before bed. (15 months old) I read one part and tickled him and he said "hi" and waved towards his crib. At that moment the mobile started playing music.
