From having unwarranted conversations with ‘Satan’ to one shoving their face in their mother’s behind, the following stories sure to make raise an eyebrow or two.
Ask Redditors share their responses to the question, “What is something weird or strange that your kid did as a child?”
For more stories, check out the original threads at the end of the article.
My daughter was five and I was walking her up to school. I pointed out all the seagulls on the school field. She said, ‘Seagulls are evil.’ Then, in a slightly creepy voice she said, ‘Black badger, red rose and seagulls peck your soul. And you will walk in the woods and be always alone, for I will never love thee, No I will never love thee.’ So I said ‘Right’ and we went on in silence.
nowandthe
I remember holding my daughter in my arms when she was around 3 or 4 years old, I guess.
She looked me square in the face and raspily said ‘Cut the eyes! Cut the eyessss!’
I won’t lie, I was fucking terrified. She’s a completely normal 10 year old now, though.
ilsenz
My son would pace and make ‘pew pew’ noises whenever he thought he was alone. I asked him a couple of times what he was doing and he could never explain it. My husband and I had a few furtive conversations about schizophrenia, but this was really the only thing that seemed out of place.
It took me years to discover there is a name for this: maladaptive daydreaming. While it sounds like a bad thing, it doesn’t necessarily have to be – it’s just daydreaming that goes further than with most people.
I’m sharing this just in case there are others out there who worry about this. No, you’re not mentally ill – you’re just creative, focused and possibly gifted.
potatoisafruit
She would get out of bed in the middle of the night and stand at the top of the stairs screaming like someone was trying to murder her. Then she’d stare at the bottom of the stairs like something was there. And if I got too close or too far away from her, she’d scream louder.
She doesn’t remember any of this and is totally fine now.
serinaluna
My older brother was a total dictator who used fear and blackmail to get what he wanted.
I should probably mention that I was 1 of 11 adopted kids. This particular brother was the 3rd oldest. We’ll call him Tony because that’s his name.
When we were pretty young, he had this way of getting everyone on his side when someone turned against him.
Once I crossed Tony and he had my brothers trap me under a trashcan that was riddled with holes, then had someone sit on top of the trashcan while everyone else danced around and hit it with sticks while spitting and throwing dirt into the holes. I think I was 6.
Later on, I had enough, and ended up dragging around a big heavy axe screaming at my brothers to “DON’T MESS WITH ME.” This scared them all enough for everyone (including Tony) to leave me alone.
Aside from that, everyone listened to and obeyed Tony. Everyone took the blame for things Tony did if he got caught doing something.
I was thoroughly convinced Tony was going to be some sort of psychopath working his way up in a gang somewhere, but instead he got a well-paying job and moved in with his girlfriend after high school. They’re one of those couples that treats their dogs like their children. He delivers eggs to older people in his town. Donates food to the local food pantry when he can.
Seriously, if you met Tony today, you’d think he was the sweetest man you’d ever met, and he is NOW, but he definitely wasn’t always. I guess he just grew up.
Gluten-Free-Heroin
My youngest brother is 6 years younger than me. My parents coddled him.
At age 6, he would throw a temper tantrum like a 3-year-old if my mom didn’t make him cinnamon toast and she’d make it for him every time. He had a strange habit of chewing on the carpet on the stairs, any toothbrush he could find, the brush on the snow scraper, even the toilet brush. He never did figure out why.
He ended up in business school, worked at a bank for a while and then took over the business from my parents and is pretty well off now. He got married and has 3 perfect kids. I wouldn’t have thought that growing up, but I guess kids are just strange.
nice-try-but-I-win
My daughter used to lower her voice to a growl and call it her devil voice. She would torment other children with this much to her delight. I thought for sure she would be a sociopath or something.
Nope, she’s just fine and well adjusted.
Queen_Lizzie_Rose
I was reading on my porch the other day when I heard my 11-year-old stepson say he was going for a ride around the neighborhood. I said ok without looking up from my book, then saw him glide down our driveway on a razor scooter in a grim reaper robe.
He’s not creepy odd, just entertaining.
He also had his sister perform a wedding for him and our dog last year and won’t let the joke go that the dog is his wife.
ladyfriday
I don’t know if it’s creepy but my son LOVES chubby bellies.
When he was younger he used to hug people and smush his face in their bellies, he always liked our overweight friends the best. He’s 7 now and still keen.
I have to remind him that ladies don’t like being told they’ve got a nice big squishy belly.
Red_sled
My 3-year-old daughter loves old monster movies. I’m in the habit of putting a movie on while I clean the house. I plugged on King Kong (1933). Next thing I know my daughter is enthralled. She couldn’t stop screaming “What’s that? A Monster!” and crying…CRYING when Kong kills a dinosaur. I asked her 5 times if she wanted me to stop the movie and got an emphatic “NO!”
Since then she’s gone on to fall in love with Ray Harryhausen films and Godzilla films. She cries her eyes out every time Mothra leaves Earth in Godzilla vs Mothra: The Battle For Earth. My wife was concerned that a 3-year-old actually enjoys crying and watching movies that make her sad or scared. I just shrugged and found some old Kong and Godzilla toys on Ebay.
When her friends who are girls come over she tries to get them to play monsters. They look at her like they have no clue what she’s asking. I was a weird kid myself so my only hope is that I can convey to her that there is nothing wrong with being in to things other kids aren’t and that it makes her unique, cool and interesting.
Devmax1868
He’s not my kid but my godson and he is extremely creepy. He is 8 and likes stand in his little sister’s doorway (she is 5) while she naps and watch her sleep. I ask him why and he says, “it’s the closest I can get to seeing her dead.” He also likes to shove her fist in his mouth as far as it can go because he wants to “know what suffocating is like, just in case.”
He had a hard time adjusting when she was born. I’m pretty sure he’d be a serial killer if it wasn’t for Mario Kart.
kleewankenobi
My youngest daughter, around the age of 4 or 5 used to tell me she was going to chop off my head. Eventually it escalated to, “Daddy, if you do that I’m going to chop off your head and cook it on the BBQ.”
She’s 10 now and will laugh with a fondness in her chuckle that she remembers that and still thinks it’s hilarious. We told her that, although we laughed hearing her say it that it really isn’t funny and I would prefer to not be decapitated and subsequently cooked on my grill.
I’m fairly certain she doesn’t want to kill me.
MrBlahg
My kid hid a dead animal. It’s escaping me what kind of animal but it was either bird or squirrel. He kept it there for long time, until it began to stink up everything.
When found it, I thought ‘oh crap, am I raising a serial killer?’ I watched him closely for years. He’s fine now, he’s in college and getting good grades. Although, if he is a serial killer I have no idea.
doomlite
I come home from work one night to find my darling 2-year-old blonde daughter standing at the top of the stairs staring up at the full moon in her pajamas with her teddy bear in hand. Mind you, she should have been in bed by this time.
Not wanting to scare her, I walked up the stairs and knelt down next to her and asked her what she was thinking about.
I was imagining she would say something childish like “is the moon really made of cheese daddy?” Something cute like that.
Instead, she turns to face me with a very serious look in her face and in a very serious and creepy monotone voice says to me: “We are all in the same cage!”
Two years old! I nearly died of fright. I literally recoiled from her and ran back down the stairs backwards. I couldn’t believe it.
She said a few more creepy things like that but it stopped after a while.
galwegian
Not my kid but my niece. I asked my brother and his wife if their kids ever did any creepy. They both immediately looked at each other and seemed surprised that I had asked.
Apparently the last few couple of weeks they would hear my niece talking to her self in her bedroom. They assumed it was just playful imagination so they didn’t pay it much mind. One day however, my brother asked her who she kept talking to and she said it was her new best friend Satan that visits her at her window everyday. Her window is close to the ground so they were seriously concerned that there was someone actually going up to her window and so they kept a closer eye on her for the next few days.
Every single time they would hear her talking he would go outside to her window but never found anyone. They began asking her more about her new friend and apart from his name being Satan she mentioned that he follows her everywhere she goes and that he promised her he will bring her a cake one day.
At a late cookout at my parents a week prior they mentioned that she took her mom outside to the backyard and pointed at the pitch black and told her that her friend Satan was there and she wanted to meet her also. That made chills run down my spine since I was at that cookout too. After that they made her promise she wouldn’t talk to Satan anymore. Although, I haven’t checked with my brother on how that worked out.
TheCruz
My oldest could possibly fit the criteria. From the age of two or three he had a fascination with electronics and all things electrical. He almost electrocuted himself once or twice, despite supervision. He would much rather play with wires, cables, old electronic junk, etc, than toys. He is now twenty majoring in computer science and writing code as a student employee at JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) in Pasadena Ca. Worked out pretty good for him.
dallenhill
My father died when I was about 9-years-old. Years later when I had a son I named him after my father.
When my son was three he would build elaborate train sets out of the Brio train set my father gave to me. I would hear him in his room talking like he was having a conversation, so one day I was in his room asking him about another elaborate train he had built and asked him how he figured it out on his own. He answer, “Oh, I am not alone I am with my friend Mike (my dad’s name and his name) he always helps and by the way he says he loves you.”
I never knew what to say or do when he played with Mike, I guess I just have to believe it was what it was.
VonLore
My son has said that when he kills someone he’ll put their body on the train tracks so no one will know they were murdered.
And then he said if anyone saw him he’d have to put their body on the train tracks too.
He was 6.
I embrace his dark side. It’ll help out a lot in the future zombie invasion.
deleted
The little boy my grandma took in is really creepy but no one else sees it but me. He is OBSESSED with five nights at freddies and guns. He has so many toy weapons it’s worrying. He also likes to tell me IN DETAIL how he is going to kill me and my grandma. All he does it sit at the computer and play Minecraft. He makes these really complicated machines to kill non player characters and then he laughs when they die. He also likes to attempt to get into the bathroom when anyone is doing anything in there, so he can watch.
It’s not any one of these things that make him creepy, it’s all of them together. Especially his fascination with talking about and killing (fake) things.
Mlee56
My kid has been the weird kid since about 2-years-old. His favorite bedtime stories were the user manuals to my appliances. At 3 he became obsessed with human biology and would watch open heart surgeries on YouTube. He was also obsessed with vacuums – for four years. He would spend hours in department stores demonstrating to shoppers how to use them. At 5, his “summer plans” were to teach himself mechanical engineering and physics…I could go on.
When he turned 3 is when I started to suspect he was “different”. It scared the crap out of me. He was my firstborn so I had no idea if he was developing normally or not. His thirst for knowledge became extreme and I didn’t understand how to handle him, so at 4 I sent him to a child psychologist. I was terrified my son would have a nervous breakdown, because although he was so young, he NEVER, I mean never once in his life, played. All he did was learn. The psychologist made it clear to me, that he was gifted, but that I had to FORCE him to play. Otherwise he would develop obsessive compulsive disorder and other disorders.
He is 8 now and still different but he does play. Sometimes. I’m happy he is who he is, but I can see that he has a difficult life ahead of him. He doesn’t have many friends. Mainly because he would rather discuss the news, than some new game or toy. I can say this though, I don’t think I’ll ever meet another human being who is anything like my son, and I love that about him.
KodoPodo
My now 21 year old would talk to himself all the time when he was 4 or 5. But they were two sided conversations and he would change his voice to a MUCH DEEPER voice when answering himself.
First time I heard it I legit thought some man had broken in and was in my kids room talking to him. My legs shook as I walked up the steps and opened his door. He was just sitting on his bed talking to himself… and answering himself… in some seriously deep voice. Freaked me out!
SidneyHandJerker
When he was 4, my son decided he was Steve from Blue’s Clues. For an entire month, he refused to answer to anything except Steve. At school, soccer practice, with family… didn’t matter. He was Steve.
He’s currently majoring in Musical Theater in college.
Honkey_Cat
My daughter would sit in her high chair and start to shiver when we’d put food down on the tray. Then she’d do these conductor-esque circles with her hands, like she was conducting her own private orchestra. We started calling her Maestro. I catch her doing it every once in a while now at 16.
Willard2566
My daughter used to sleepwalk. Once I followed her around the house while she looked in the slots of all the VCRs, never knowing what she was looking for. She also talked in her sleep, once saying come here doggy, my husband was getting ready for work, when he left there was a dog on our porch stairs, freaked him out a little.
Blackrhane
My kid is really into nature documentaries. One day, when he was 3-years-old, my wife was getting his bath ready. She was bent over the tub, checking the water temperature. My son shoved his face in her bottom, took a huge woof and walked away and said “Ahh! Dominant female butt!”
I have since realized not only is he into nature and it’s beasts, but he retains almost anything he sees while watching these educational shows.
He is also most likely going to be a butt guy.
RagingDangler
My wife found it in our daughter’s room filled with urine. My daughter said, “it’s for an experiment” and then looked at my wife like she had just asked the stupidest question anyone had ever come up with.
Anyway said daughter did remain a bit of an odd-ball, but has since grown up into a pretty regular person. For the most part anyway.
Link-to-the-Pastiche
My eldest has an imaginary friend named Xavier. He claimed that he was a ghost that lived in his play room and he would sit having long conversations with him. It was really creepy and we started questioning whether or not he was a mental illness.
He stopped mentioning his friend shortly after he started preschool and started hanging out with kids his own age. He says he doesn’t even remember having an imaginary friend now and is your typical moody teenager.
zerbey