Things that go bump in the night?

Question

My 4 year old has had an ongoing problem with "ladies who pop out of the wall" in her bedroom at night...now I am a very sensible person and not easily scared...but she keeps on about them and has done over the course of the year we have been in this house. She says they are "brown" she means they have brown skin and have pink scarves on their heads...now she says that one of them has a baby in her arms that is screaming and that the Mother is asking my daughter for milk! I mean come on! What can I do? I have told her they are not real but she just says "They are real...." and reckons she is awake when they come....out of the wall at specific points....what shall I do? I am not a churchgoer and would a priest laugh at me if I asked him to bless the house? It is built on the site of an old workhouse long since demolished....my husband often sees lights out of the corner of his eye if he sleeps in her room.

Answer 1

ever thought of setting up a video camera to see if you can catch anything that or a tape recorder.      kids see loads we dont because they havent been told its nonsense yet...

Answer 2

no a preist would not laugh at you, go and see your local preist as soon as you can if these images are disturbing your daughter, kids can often see things adults can't so believe her when she tell s you that they are there,  is there another romm she could sleep in so she can get some rest?  my oldest boy used to play with a man he called alfie and my youngest 2 (aged 3 and a half and 2) quite often play with something i can't see and they both point and say man so don't worry your daughter isn't alone when it comes to seeing things

Answer 3

My youngest daughter had the most amazing imagination - when she was four years old she would tell us all about her husband. Dan, who was a farmer.  He didn't have milking cows any more because they were too much work, so he now had beef cattle instead.  She knew the names of their 12 children and told me all about their personalities, their dogs and other pets, she told me about the house where they lived and how she would spend her day.

BUT, she was aware that it was not real, but she liked to talk about this other life and draw pictures about it and eventually she moved on to other things and stopped talking about it.

It would be okay for you to talk to a priest of minister of a Church, perhaps he could come and bless your house.

Do your neighbours have problems like this too?

Answer 4

My mother in law believes babies and young kids have an easier time seeing ghosts because they are still so close to the other side.  Perhaps asking your daughter to say hello to them, and tell them it's time to sleep and they need to go to bed.  And maybe a full water gun if they don't listen?  She can alway call you if it doesn't work.

Answer 5

I had this problem!  I thought it was rubbish and explainable, and then I saw the thing!!  The thing with your husband?  Yep, I was joking to friends that I either needed an eye test or an exorcist - turned out it was an exorcist!  Anyway, I got rid of it myself and it never came back - give it a try.  I don't think your daughter is making it up - it's just too descriptive.

I went to the local crystal shop and the lady told me to do this and it really worked.  Had someone told me a year before I would've said they were crazy:

1.  Get yourself a smudge stick - from a hippy type shop, usually made with sage - you can even get them on Ebay.

2. Close all the windows in your house.

2.  Stand in your living area, light a candle and ask a higher power for help to get rid of the spirit (even if its in your head), then light the smudge stick from the candle.

3. Walk through every room in your house and make sure the smoke gets into every single corner (including cupboards).  My little ones were really excited that I was doing something about the apparition so I got them to follow me around with maracas for good measure to stir up any blocked energy - they had a ball.  I think including them really helped to ease their minds as well.  

4.  When you've finsihed smoking the place, open all the windows and ask the spirit to leave your family in peace.

5.  blow out the candle and then sprinkle rock salt in the 4 corners of your property, if it's a house the corners of the yard, if its a flat the inside corners.

6.  Give your little girl an amethyst cluster to sleep with and tell her it holds fairies or dolphins that will keep her safe.

Sounds like a lot of effort I know, but it really did get rid of the problem.  And my kids were so relieved when I finally believed it and did something proactive.  Whatever you do, make sure you're daughters involved and give her the amethyst anyway.

Good luck with it all!  You're welcome to email me if you want any further info - just know you're not crazy!

Answer 6

Why don' t you try sleeping in her room with her for a couple of nights? If she says she can see them and you can't, then it's possible it's just a figment of her imagination.  If you can...well...time to call a priest! Or put her in your room for a few nights and see if she still says she sees them.

Answer 7

A lot of people believe that children are more in contact with the paranormal because they are more open with their imaginations and have not developed an adult mind where we process things logically.  If she really is convinced then you could always contact someone who knows about the paranormal and see what they say (some will be fake and some will know what they are talking about).

It might just be her imagination taking control but if other people are seeing things then it might be worth investigating.

Answer 8

Think VERY carefully before you ask a priest or exorcist in.

Children have very active imaginations, and it's usually good to encourage this. But children also need to know the difference between what's in their imaginations and what's real. If you call someone in to bless this house you're basically saying to your child: "You really did see ghosts. There really are such things. You were right to be scared."

Is that really the message you want to be sending, as a responsible parent?

Instead, why don't you teach her some methods to prove that the figures don't really exist? Maybe give her a torch that she can shine on the wall to show that there's nothing there.

Answer 9

Whilst I don't believe in ghosts, I should really because of something that happened to my when I was a kid.

I used to share a bedroom with my sister (we were very young) and we would often come down stairs in the morning and tell stories of a lady who used to sit and the end of the bed and talk to us.

Our family thought we were just messing until one day, whilst going through some old family albums we identified the old lady...a great aunt who had died before we were born...

Answer 10

it is ok to ask a priest to bless the house or a minister

Answer 11

dont you know that babie's are the one who can sense if there is trouble in the home or anywhere. come on this problem its been there for a year now and u a doing nothing about it...

do something or rather look for a new apartment or try to research about the apartment u a living in now. find out who stayed there before and what happened.

Answer 12

regardless of whether you're a churchgoer or not, or even whether you believe your daughter or not, calling a priest in might make her feel easier... however, before you do this, you will need to think very carefully about how you will answer any questions about this and how you will justify it in terms of your own belief system - if she asks awkward questions about things the priest has said, or what he is doing, you need to have the answers ready or you could end up confusing her and making the situation worse.

as an alternative to this, you might consider calling a non-church medium in; whether or not you believe in ghosts, mediums etc, someone who believes in these things themself might be able to give your daughter advice on how she should respond to them - and an adult with a genuine belief in these phenomena will seem much more credible to her than you will.

If you don't want the trouble/expense of doing this, you could try putting a beaker of milk by her bed.  then you can tell her that she can point this out to the ghosts if they ask her, but that if they don't want it, she can drink it herself.

if she is finding the crying babies disturbing, try giving her some ear muffs by the bed that she can put on to "block out the sound".

you could also point out, if she is afraid, that she has been seeing them for a long time now but they've never hurt her so they're probably not going to.  this kind of logic is very reassuring to a young child.

Answer 13

i have heard loads of stories like this i have a little brother whos much younger than me and he used to talk to a man called mr swallow and when my step mum did some research on this man it turned out to be the man who built and lived in the house about 150 years ago. and another story i know is my step sister had a baby to a guy that denied being the father right from day one so they split up not so long after my step sister gave birth she met another guy married him and he took her daughter on as his own and the child never knew she had a different father. when the child was about 1 her biological father was killed in a motorbike accident. and when she was about 3 she claimed she had been talking to a man who says he was her father at 1st my step sister ignored it but after more and more encounters she got out a photo and showed her it not telling her who it was and she said thats my dad. anyway in the end they told her the truth that her real daddy had died. you hear so many stories about children seeing ghosts these are just two of a long list some people believe in ghosts and some dont. i get really freaked out about the thought of ghosts but my boyfriend thinks im mad even though he claims to have seen things himself he thinks it was his imagination he wont ever say hes seen a ghost.

Answer 14

Oh dear. My 4yo & nearly 3's have the same sort of problems.

Sometimes I think they are having me on, and other times, I think they may have been telling me the truth.

Our new home, was originally built on a old grave site from the 18 hundreds. They didn't inform me of this when I bought the land.

My boys have seen some kids here, which for the longest time I thought they were invisible friends. Then they started telling me things about whooping cough, measles, and other childhood disease's. I got a little freaked out and started researching.

I'd ask a priest to come. Anything for some peace and mind. If they laugh at you, what can you do.

Answer 15

This is fabulous! One of the best questions I have ever seen on YA!

Firstly, yes, they are real! And please stop trying to tell your daughter any different otherwise her mind will start to filter them out, just like every other non-believer does.

No, a priest isn't going to laugh at you but in all honesty you do not need one because you can talk to them yourself or get someone else who can see them to do so.

But why would you want to? They aren't doing any harm are they? Your daughter isn't scared of them!

For the record, my house is also haunted. We have 6 lovely ghosts that we are quite happy to have around, but we have asked one to leave. He was an old vagrant who had died in there when the place was derelict a long time back. He didn't know that he was dead and was very upset by the comings and goings in "his" house. His anger made the room go cold and sent shivers down the spine. When it was explained to him that he was dead and that he should move on now, he left and instantly the coldness left the house.

As for the others, they do no one any harm, so we are happy to let them stay.

What is really surprising me is the number of people (who happen to be on YA at this time and happen to have selected this question to look at) are not surprised about this and are happy to relate their own stories.

I'd really like to know why it is that Confuzzi is only prepared to email an answer to you. I may ask her later.

Once again, thank you so much for this it has made my day finding it here!

Answer 16

ooooo I've juat got goosebumps. It sounds like you do have ghosts, apparently children are extra sensitive to these things, Go and talk to your priest, if he laughs then he laughs!

Answer 17

I can email you the answer if you want. I think I have your answer, I recently spoke to another yahoo user about something similar. I don't think a priest would be the best answer to be honest. Email me :)

Answer 18

I think she is telling the truth, children & babies can see spirits or ghost as some people call them. I honestly believe that we have a spirit in our house, ever since i moved in with my husband about 3 years ago, there has been strange sounds coming from the guest bedroom, which is now the babys room. When my daughter was about 3 months old she was in the living room in her swing & was facing that bedroom, she started smiling really big towards the doorway of the room & then she started moving her eyes & her head like she was following something that was walking across the room & smiling at it, it creeped me out, & she has a toy that is in her bedroom that plays music that she likes, i was walking through the house a few weeks ago in the middle of the night the baby was awake & i was trying to get her to go back to sleep, so i put her in her bassinet & gave her a bottle & all of a sudden the toy started playing music in her bedroom & no one was in there, that also creeped me out, & it has started playing by itself another day when my husband was home alone with the baby, he went & took the batteries out, because it spooked him. But my husband thinks that the spirit could be his grandfather who passed away before he was even born, & it apparently doesn't want to hurt anybody & has a good time entertaning our 7 month old daughter. But i don't think a priest would  laugh at you & if they are bothering your daughter, then you should ask him to come out & bless the house, but if they are not bothering her then i would just leave them alone, not all spirits or ghost are bad. Best of luck to you!!!!

Answer 19

My advice is to have a hot chocolate every night before you go to bed. It is both spiritual and relaxing for the lips, brain, foot, arm and hair. Please remain seated during your sleep.

Answer 20

Do get a priest to come over and bless the house.