Kids. They say the darndest things. And then sometimes they say things that completely terrify their parents.
Whether it’s talking about imaginary friends who don’t sound all that imaginary after all, or sharing details about people who have been gone longer than they’ve been alive, sometimes our kids have a way of spooking us with the things they say.
What do we mean? Check out these doozies parents shared with SheKnows:
1. My oldest came into my room crying when he was younger — in the middle of the night — because a dream voice had said, “Your mom is going to die tonight.” He was scared and so was I!
2. I want to keep your heart when you die.
3. When our middle daughter was 4, we lived in an older house that left us with some creepy experiences. While living there, our daughter had several imaginary friends. Or at least we thought they were imaginary. One day she told us about how her friend, Becky, told her to do some mean things and even used a bad word in her story. When we asked how old Becky was, she said she was 35. She then proceeded to tell us enough about Becky that we realized she wasn’t “imaginary.” — Expert Staci Salazar
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4. When my daughter was 3, I walked by her room and our dog was standing at her door with her hair raised. I heard my daughter talking sweetly, and she suddenly turned around quickly and said, “You scared us, we didn’t know you were there.” Not thinking much of it, I entered her room to inquire about what she and her imaginary friend were talking about when she said, “Can you let Honey (the dog) out because she doesn’t like it when I talk to Emily. Emily said she scares her.” I didn’t know what to think so I let the dog out, and my daughter continued to talk to Emily off and on until we moved. — Expert Shasta Walton
5. My son told me he had an imaginary friend, a little man made out of marshmallows. One day, a car hit him and killed him. Since then, his imaginary friend has been an ax who has been possessed by the spirit of a serial killer. His mission is to find and destroy the car that killed marshmallow man. So he destroys them, one at a time.
6. For my daughter’s 7th birthday, we had a pool party at my sister’s house. My daughter went under the rope separating the “kid-safe” area from the deep end of the pool. My niece saw my daughter floundering in the deep end and went and got her out. When we got home that evening and she had calmed down enough to talk about it. She told me, “I was scared because I knew I was dying and I didn’t want to die so I tried to scream but that was making me die faster. So I starting screaming inside my head, ‘Help me, God! Please help me!’ Then I saw an angel tap Aunt Fee-Fee on the shoulder and tell her to turn around.” I spoke to my niece afterward and she confirmed that something kept saying, “Turn around, turn around.” — Expert Taylor Gilmore
7. One afternoon, my young toddler and I were playing in a bedroom together with blocks. She started jumping up and down and clapping and pointing at something over my head and behind me. I turned around and nothing was there, but then she started saying, “Grandpa! Grandpa!” She even grabbed my face and tried to show me, but I saw nothing — although a good dose of chills ran up and down my arms. Finally she turned around and looked at me and said, “Gone.” Then as if nothing had ever happened she moved on and started playing with the blocks again. — Expert Jennifer Humphries
8. My 2-year-old walked up to a photo of my late grandfather, picked it up and brought it to me and said clear as a bell, “Great-grandpa.” He’d never seen the photo or heard the word before.
9. A few days after our 16-year-old husky passed away, our 4-1/2-year-old was in the kitchen staring at the spot she laid every day. She was talking to someone — I thought herself at first. Then she bent down and made a petting motion like she was petting dog. I asked her what she was doing and she told me she was petting our dog that was no longer with us. The look on her face was like, “Mom do you not see her?” It was creepy and gave me goose bumps. — Expert Kim Logan
10. When my 14-year-old was only 3, I was preparing dinner and my son was upstairs playing in his room. When I was finished, I went to his room and said, “Sweetie, dinnertime!” to which my baby replied, “Ok! But what about him?” — as he pointed towards the area where he was playing. It freaked me out, so I calmly answered, “Ummm, I’m pretty sure he’s not hungry, so he can continue playing.” My son sadly waved while saying, “Bye-bye…” at his “friend” as I carried him out of his room. — Expert Carmen Sakurai
11. My younger daughter, who never met my grandmother or even knew what she looked like, saw a picture of her when she was around 2-1/2 years old and told me that was my “Nana” and that she knew that she loved me. — Expert Janine Huldie
12. When my son was about 18 months old, I heard him talking away in his crib. When I walked in the room, I saw that he was standing up and talking to the corner of his room. As I walked in, he looked at me, then back at the corner, waved and said, “Bye-bye!” — Expert Kate Anthony
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13. I had just gotten home from my grandma’s house. I could still smell the nauseating mix of sterilized plastics and her lotions stuck on my sweater from when I crawled in the hospital bed next to her to say goodbye. I threw the weight of both my grief and my relief — that yes, she was finally done suffering — onto the sofa next to my 2-year-old and started to cry. I had become so despondent that I could barely move my arms when he wiggled his way onto my lap. He picked up my hand, opened it, and began tracing circles on my palm while humming a very familiar tune, one that my grandma used to sing to me when I was very little. “Round and round the race track to catch a little hare.” Then he ran his fingers all the way up my arm and tickled me under my armpit until I started laughing — just like my grandma did. Then he wiped my cheeks and popped his soother out, looked at the front door and said, “Ok, bye-bye for now, Mamie!” My son never knew that song. There is no doubt in my mind that she came to comfort me that morning. — Expert Kimberly Morand
14. When my daughter was young, she used to tell us she knew her aunt Misty, who passed before my daughter was born (at the early age of 14). As she got older, she kept telling us she knew her, so my husband asked her what she looked like. She described her perfectly (for a 4-year-old) and proceeded to tell us what she was wearing, which made my husband fall to his knees and cry. I came to find out she described the same purple boots, shirt and pants that she was wearing when she passed. — Expert Jennifer Worden
15. Our 5-year-old points at our empty, dark hallway and says, “Mom, that really old, wrinkly man wearing a fedora keeps staring at us. Tell him to go away, he’s scaring me! He just keeps staring!” The entire time, Conner is pointing at the entrance to the living room slowly backing away. I look; I see nothing. I hear nothing except the TV in the background. “What are you talking about, Conner? There is no one there.” I am convinced he’s just creative, so in some strange way I’m proud. “Mom, I see him almost every day, and he’s always wearing the same old suit with a fedora!” I see nothing, but I’m getting chill bumps all over at the thought of an old man I cannot visualize staring at us right there in the same room! Conner always did, and still does years later, describe this man in every last detail, from his dress shoes, white buttoned-up shirt and black jacket to his infamous fedora. — Expert Carrie Boan
16. My grandson has a fascination with a picture at his other grandmother’s house. The picture is on the stairwell. Every time he walks by, he is fascinated with her. He wants to know if she broke her leg. The picture is of the other grandmother’s mother, or his great-grandmother, named Rachel. The irony is that she did break her leg just before her death. He is only 4, so how would he know this? Eerie. — Expert Mary Hill
17. “The lady in my bedroom is boring. She doesn’t do anything — she just sits there and looks out of the window. She’s one of those nun ladies.” Later talking to our neighbor who had lived in the house next to ours for 60 plus years, we found out that Portuguese nuns lived in our home during the 1940s. — Expert Nancy Hill
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