What do you do when your kid says freaky stuff?

I don't have children (yet!) but I had custody of my niece for a couple years while my sister was deployed. One night when she was two, I was driving home while she was dead asleep in the backseat and I got lost, leading me down a curvy skinny road with no lights. I was going about 80 because I was so freaked out when I looked in my mirror and saw her head up, eyes wide open like a deer in headlights. I calmly asked her if she was ok, did she have a bad dream? All she would say was aunt Charlie, bad man, go. Over and over and over while staring like she was possessed. Well that freaked me the hell out so of course I bucked it out of there. I told my neighbor the story a week later and he informed me that the road I had ended up on was where a group of teenagers had been killed back in the 60s in a hit and run with one survivor who has since died. I did some research and not only did that sadly happen, there's numerous reports of people seeing a ghostly hitchhiker late at night. I don't believe in ghosts or paranormal activity but I believe entirely that my niece saw either the ghostly hitchhiker or some kind of spirit that night!

a reply to: casijones
Meh. I kind of understand. I was once at a window with a 3-4 year old. We were being mischevious. He looked out the window and asked me something about the "people". I looked outside and there was no one there. I wasn't sure what he was getting at. But I got a similar feeling you seem to describe. A feeling that the kid is tapping into something elsewhere.

It's probably imagination, but it's funner to think other things. Like an unused function of the brain or a fading genetic memory.

Our younger daughter is a big "boy toys" fan. You know, cars, airplanes, trains, dinos, the stereotypical "boy toys". She was playing with her train set not too long ago, and suddenly pipped up to my husband, "I really love trains! Just like my grandpa!" His eyes bugged out a bit and I must have looked at him funny, because he mouthed "Later!" at me. I didn't push it, and she kept playing.
Later on, I asked him what got him riled up over what she said. "My dad was a model train nut, he used to build his from scratch..." Ohhh, okay. I see now.
His dad's dead and the kids never met him. Definitely a super weird thing for her to say o.O

When my oldest son was around 2 or so, he started talking about a green lady and being in a helicopter with her when it crashed and burst into flames. It was strange.

My youngest son, as soon as he could talk well, kept saying that he wanted to go home. We'd tell him that he was home but he would point and say NO! he wanted to go home. Very weird.

My daughter used to see this little girl with black hair, in a pink dress with a red rose attached to it, and black eyes and that she walked around with a tall, mean man. My daughter cam running, crying and screaming out of the bathroom when she was 5. She was not joking at all. She seen this little girl many times over the years. Once, she said the little girl was covered in blood. Another time, she said the little girl was laying on her bed and turned into some sort of reptile-looking monster. My daughter was visibly shaken and scared.

originally posted by: casijones
I had my middle child talk about the "ghost man" in the middle of a busy medical clinic.
Lately, my 5 year old Ethan has told me about the "bad Angels" that make him see the scary wolf from the 3 little pigs in his head. Most recently, we were on vacation. I took him into a fastfood bathroom and he saw water coming out of a drain. He said, " is that water from the great flood??" I said no why? How do you know about the flood? He said, "God drownd the earth and people died... but some people went into outerspace with their space clothes!!".
I was pretty much dumbfounded after that. We've discussed God and Jesus, but nothing like the flood/ark, or any other stories.

en.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org...

a reply to: Xaphan

Your wiki article does mention that these ailments must be distinguished from normal childhood fantasies. Also, these are very young children saying these thing, not older teens or young adults as one might expect to see when offering a diagnosis of schizophrenia.

When my oldest was 3 he used to be afraid of some manner of cucuy. He once told us, "But Scratch will get me". This was close enough to "old scratch" (an older term for satan) that it got my attention