Alyssa Mariano

Vote up the scariest things children have ever said.

Kids can be brutally honest.

All answers are sourced from this AskReddit.

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Tony Toil

From Redditor u/yer-mommy:

When I was 7 months pregnant with my third kid, we put our two kids in the van along with everything we could fit and drove from the East Coast to the West Coast to start a new job. The kids were 1 and 3.

We stopped fairly often for pee breaks for me and to let the kids run around. On the third day, they were especially worked up, so we stopped at a park somewhere in New Mexico or Arizona or that area. We sat down and let them play on the playground as we had a little picnic.

The 3-year-old was having a blast, but I noticed he kept talking to himself, laughing at his own jokes and being generally weird. When he came over to eat, I asked him what was up, and he said he was playing with Tony. I asked who Tony was, and he said it was his new friend. Then he started laughing because Tony was next to him telling him something silly.

It wasn’t the first imaginary friend he had had, but for some reason this one was creeping me out a little. But I just told him to eat up and he could play a bit more before we left.

When it was time to go, he was more upset than usual, telling me that Tony didn’t want him to go. Tony wanted him to stay with him. Tony said he could stay forever.

I was honest to God just shivering at this point because I was dealing with pregnancy hormones and for whatever reason, this was just freaking me out. So I picked him up, and carried him screaming to the car. My husband had taken our 18-month-old and we got them both in their seats. I realized I had left my purse behind, so I went to get it.

Hand on my heart, the next part is true, though I understand if you think I am lying or karma-farming. (I should probably Google to find where this park was, but it was 8 or 9 years ago, and I don’t remember.)

As I turned around to head back to the car, I saw a plaque next to the entrance to the park, right under the sign. It was a memorial dedication to a 7-year-old boy who had been killed when he’d been hit by a car while biking home from the park in the 1980s. His name was Anthony.

We got in the car and left as fast as possible, and we only stopped at McDonald’s play places for the rest of our trip.

• Scary scenario?

Ghost Is Doing The Most

From Redditor u/crystalBdonuts:

When my kid was around 2ish, she told me one morning, “Mommy, the ghost picked me up last night.” I was like wtffff because I’ve never talked to her about ghosts or used the word ghost or anything along those lines (something she could’ve easily picked up at daycare or from a kids’ show or something).

A few years later, when she was around 5ish, she was like, “Mommy, remember how I used to cry at night?” (She was a terrible sleeper and would wake up like 4+ times a night and cry until we came to get her.) She said, “It’s because the ghost used to come into my room and pick me up at night.”

• Scary scenario?

‘No Discernible Face’

From Redditor u/dappled_light_:

When we moved into this big house, we all started hearing things and seeing shadows on the top of the stairs. The noise I heard was a loud banging on my bedroom door (think police banging rather than knocking), but everyone was fast asleep.

My youngest son was 3.5 – 4 at the time. He said someone sat in his room and he saw it crawl towards him. He drew pictures of it. It was black, with no discernible face. He said it always crawled into his room and watched him.

This all went on for six months before it calmed down. He’s just turned 7. He’s a normal kid but has remained scared of being by himself in his room.

• Scary scenario?

Just Listen To Joshua

From Redditor u/Sick-In-The-City:

One day, my sister’s imaginary friend told her that a burglar was in our house when we came home from a shopping trip. We all laughed and humored her. We get home and start unloading the trunk and a man runs out the back door of the house. My mom asked my sister when her imaginary friend had told her. She said that the man had come all the way to the grocery store and told her, and that the peanut brittle she got was for him. My sister didn’t eat peanut brittle before or since.

My sister’s imaginary friend’s name was Joshua. This is not the only thing Joshua and my sister did. We didn’t encourage it but we also didn’t argue with her.

Our dog broke out of a window and got hit by a car miles away from home. My sister, who hated the dog, woke up the next morning and took my dad straight to where he was. The dog lived another five years. Joshua had told her where he was and that his eye was hurt. The dog was stunned and had a broken paw. The impact had also knocked his eye out of his head. My sister will still speak about Joshua as if he was a person we all knew from our childhood.

• Scary scenario?

Jason And Son

From Redditor u/CandiedYams73:

One day, I was driving my younger son to his daycare. He was about 3 and we were just chatting. I don’t even remember about what. But then he said something and ended it with “when I was little.” I laughed and said, “But you still are little!” He said, “No, when I was little and lived in California with my mommy and Jason, but then Jason stabbed me and I came to live with you and Daddy.” We were living in New York state at the time, so I can’t imagine he was influenced by anything he heard on the news or radio and I don’t think he even knew what California was. We didn’t know anyone named Jason, either. I nearly drove the car off the road. He said it so matter-of-factly, like I should have also been aware of it.

I asked him about Jason a couple of weeks later and he had no idea what I was talking about. His “prior life” never came up again.

• Scary scenario?

Mind Reading Mischief

From Redditor u/Mischeese:

When she was 3, we’d gone for a meal at a really old pub/restaurant. She wanted the toilet, so I took her and the pub had the kind where it’s a little room on it’s own. Now she was in that phase where they are basically small terrorists and if you do or say the wrong thing, well, there will be the most almighty tantrum.

Her big thing was no talking while she was on the toilet (3-year-olds are weird!). So, I’m standing there, silently looking out of this really tiny barred window while she does her business. It’s a tiny Tudor window and the first thought that popped into my head was that it would be impossible to get out of if the place was on fire. Don’t know why, but that’s just my brain.

Suddenly I hear her little voice say, “It’s okay Mummy, there won’t be a fire.”

Now I know 100% I didn’t say anything out loud, she had me well trained. But somehow she heard my thoughts. She did it again a couple of times in the next few months and then has never done it again. It was so bloody weird.

• Scary scenario?

Billy Not Really

From Redditor u/lissalissa3:

I had a friend who lived in a very old house (pre-Revolutionary War, I think built in the 1750s) and had an imaginary friend named Billy for a few weeks when she was little. She would play dolls and pretend in her room with him. Her parents didn’t think anything of it. One day, they noticed she was being pretty quiet, so they went to her room and checked in on her. She was just sitting on the ground, staring at a blank part of the wall (no pictures or anything). They asked her what she was doing and she said, “playing with Billy.” Oooookay, a bit odd but kids are weird, so it’s probably fine. After that, she never played with Billy again.

A few years later, they had to cut the drywall in her room for something and found the name “Billy” scratched into the beam inside the wall. They looked into it further and apparently there was a little boy named Billy who died on the property sometime in the late 1800s. Friend has no memory of playing with Billy. Her mom told us this story when we were older.

• Scary scenario?

Look Over Your Shoulder

From Redditor u/paatus75:

My son was almost 3 years old when he called me to his room about five minutes after he was put to bed. I asked him what’s wrong, and he replied, “I’m scared.” I asked him, “What are you afraid of?” “I’m scared of the old lady with the angry, red eyes!”

I figured he saw something on the telly or his iPad, so I, while bent over his baby bed in the corner, asked him where he’d seen this old lady with the angry, red eyes.

“She’s standing right behind you.”

Damn, that was chilling. Worst of all, I turned around, slooowly, looked around and said there’s nobody here. Everything’s okay. Kissed him goodnight and left him but let the door halfway open.

Still feel bad about it, but wasn’t going to let some angry old, red-eyed ghost b**** f*** with my family.

• Scary scenario?

Doppelganger Doom

From Redditor u/Stunning_Attention82:

My daughter (4) was playing in the backyard one day and I quickly went inside to do something in the kitchen on our first floor. I did not go upstairs to the bedrooms at all. After a minute or so, I came back out. She said, “Mommy, why were you in my room? I saw you look out the window at me!”

This freaked me out because we were the only people home at the time. I said I didn’t go upstairs and she insisted she saw me look out her window. With great hesitation, I went upstairs to look around but nobody was in my house lol⁠ – ghost or otherwise.

• Scary scenario?

Their Eyes Were Watching

From Redditor u/Particular_Flow191:

Maybe not very unsettling, but still…

I was pregnant, waiting [for] my second child, and my firstborn was about 2 years old. She had some speech delays and usually formed sentences containing max two or three words. Anyhow…

I was making dinner and my daughter was in the kitchen with me. Suddenly she looks at me, points up with her finger and states calmly and matter-of-factly: “I used to watch you from up there.”

I had no words for her, I simply turned around and stared at her. She smiled and ran off to play. Now I wish I would’ve asked her more about what she meant by that…

• Scary scenario? 

Mother Knows Best

From Redditor u/cnewman11:

When my daughter was learning her ABCs, one morning at breakfast she sang all the way through for the first time. We congratulated her and asked if she’d been practicing at day care.

“No, Mommy’s Mommy taught me when I was in bed.”

Uh… Mommy’s Mommy died three years earlier.

• Scary scenario?

Correct!

From Redditor u/Quicily:

When we finally told my oldest – then 3 years old – that I was pregnant, he stopped and grabbed my stomach intently. He thought for a moment and then said, “And we don’t stab the baby with knives?”

….Correct, child.

• Scary scenario? 

Nightmares Blare

From Redditor u/Kthulhu42:

For a while, when my son was 3-4, he would cry and scream because he dreamed there was a tall man at the end of his bed, who was completely black and had holes where his eyes should be.

His nightmares were really bad for a while and I can’t blame him.

• Scary scenario?

Daunting Dylan

From Redditor u/Blueeyes1101:

Watching my nephew. We were playing tag and I was chasing him around the house when he like disappeared. He showed up behind me and I said, “Oh, there you are, Dylan. How’d you get there?” He looked me dead in the face serious as ever and said “I’m not Dylan” in a deep raspy voice. I laughed it off and told him to go watch TV.

• Scary scenario?

X Is For Xavier

From Redditor u/zerbey:

My son had an imaginary friend named Xavier… but Xavier was the ghost of a little boy who was in his room. He’d have whole conversations with this supposed ghost. It was f***ing creepy. He forgot all about him within a few weeks of starting preschool and has no memory of him now.

• Scary scenario?

A Shocking Statement

From Redditor u/SunnyTheToad:

I was putting my 3-year-old to bed and she said, “Mommy, can you tell me a story where we all get electrocuted?”

• Scary scenario?

Happy Ending

From Redditor u/parkinglotguy:

When my daughter was about 3 or 4, she started talking about “The Blue Lady.” My wife and I asked her who she was and were told, “I don’t know but she wants her hands back.” Chills. This went on for a few weeks. The story never changed and it was always, “The Blue Lady needs her hands.” We were seconds away from getting a priest or a witch in to bless the house. One morning, I’m watching TV and there is a woman in a blue US Post Office uniform saying, “Thanks to blah-blah hand cream, I got my hands back!” and my daughter comes running into the room screaming,

“That’s the blue lady! I love her!”

I relaxed so hard I nearly s*** myself.

• Scary scenario?

A Kid Of Culture

From Redditor u/BlackCatAttack666:

My son went through a phase when he was 6, where he would write “Help me! Let me out!” on everything. It was on all his drawings and he’d write it outside on the side of the house for the neighbors to see. Then he started writing “Help me!” backwards, like some redrum s***.

Turns out he was really into Goosebumps and one of the episodes has a girl trapped in a mirror writing “help me.” To the people looking into the mirror, “help me” was backwards. Mystery solved; my kid is just a bit theatrical.

• Scary scenario?

Flag-ment Of Your Imagination

From Redditor u/theTrebleClef:

This happened last week.

My 2-year-old is sitting down at the table for dinner. It’s dark outside. He looks outside and says, “What is that?”

He doesn’t know how to say “who” yet. When meeting new people he says, “What is that?” My wife and I look outside and don’t see anything… It’s dark. We look back at him. He’s staring into the darkness. He’s a kid, his eyes are new, he sees better than us.

We freak out. Is there someone outside in a dark outfit and we can’t make it out, and he can? I grab a flashlight, go outside, looking for the trespasser. Nothing.

Come back in, he makes the same comment. I sit next to him and look in the direction he is. Like over 200 feet away, on another house, there is a small LED American flag that is turned on. It’s barely a foot wide.

“Is what you’re looking at red and blue?”

“Yeah!”

“That’s a flag, buddy.”

• Scary scenario?

It’s Dead, He Said

From Redditor u/Rosa_gallica:

A few greatest hits:

When my son was about 2-3, for a few days in a row he told me that there was someone in his room with “no eyes, just ears” the night before.
For a while around age 3, that same son got confused about the meaning of “dead” and would use it to mean “inanimate.” So a stuffed animal cat would be “a dead cat,” and a doll would be “a dead kid,” etc.

Meanwhile, when my daughter was around 5 years old, she discovered the concept of wills and inheritance (probably from the Aristocats movie, if I recall) and went through a phase of asking if various items of mine – usually sparkly stuff like jewelry – would be hers one day after I had died.

Fun times.

Scary scenario?

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