I See Dead People – Children and the Supernatural

It’s the classic Hollywood Horror film storyline isn’t it? Children and spooky going’s on are a match made in heaven. As much of a cliché as it may be, add a child into the equation of a potentially unsettling situation and it suddenly becomes a whole lot more unnerving.

It’s always been implied that children and animals can see and sense things that us older beings cannot, but how much of this is hearsay, and how much of this is actually true?

I have to say I’ve never been much of a believer…

My view was always that, sadly, once you are gone you are gone and that talk of spirits and ghosts could always be explained by some kind of logic, be that wishful thinking, grief playing games with us, or by our imaginations running wild. Mike is the quite the opposite, having had a few unexplained encounters as a child himself, and often claiming to be able to feel a ‘presence’ in our home. Now we have children, it appears that they seem to be following in their father’s footsteps.

My mother passed away when Erin was around 1 year old. We always said it was like Erin could sense she was unwell – like she was knowing beyond her years, and realised that she had to be on her best behaviour and be as quiet as possible in those final days around her. This didn’t make any sense of course – she couldn’t even talk let alone understand what was going on, and realistically her memories of my Mum must be few and far between. That said, just a couple of days before my Mum passed away, we went to visit her and Erin took her first steps; completely unprompted and completely out of the blue – toddling four or five steps over to my Mum who was propped up in a chair. She did it just that once, and then didn’t move again at all for a couple of weeks, almost as if she just wanted to prove to her Nan that she could do it before she left for good.

That was a pretty special moment, but an explainable coincidence, and potentially nothing more than fluke.

However, we have since had a fair few unexplainable experiences with Erin. A few weeks after Mum had died we had just got back downstairs after putting her to bed. She was sound asleep in her cot, and we had her monitor downstairs with us so that we could see her nursery on the screen. All of a sudden Erin sat bolt upright in her cot and reached both arms upwards in the air – just like she was reaching for someone – someone who of course wasn’t actually there. As we looked at each other with a bit of confusion, the monitor temperature started to rapidly reduce, from its usual 20 degrees to around 8 – so cold in fact that it started to beep to alert us to the fact that Erins’ room was too cold.

Mike went upstairs to investigate and as he got up to go upstairs the heating came on, the thermostat having clearly triggered, meaning the house HAD actually gone cold, and this wasn’t just a blip on the video monitor. Mike joked that Mum had probably popped in to see Erin sleep, accidently woken her, panicked and legged it down the stairs. I laughed, as it felt like such a ridiculous thing to say, but I had to admit, even I was a little spooked by this.

When Mum died, we’d said to her about giving us signs she was ok by showing us a white feather. Whilst I loved the thought of it, deep down my brain told me that white feathers were pretty common, and that a white feather on our doorstep was more likely to have been down to our friendly neighbourhood cat than a sign from beyond the grave. That said, the feathers started to come thick and fast, and some even I struggled to explain. On the day of Mum’s funeral every single one of us found a feather at our homes, and as we all sat outside in my Dad’s garden waiting for the cars to arrive, I watch a single solitary feather slowly blow around the table, almost like it was visiting every person sat around it. I told myself it was ridiculous.

I miss Mum every day, but it is the big moments I find the hardest. Preparing for Erin’s first day at school was tough, as I knew my Mum would have absolutely loved to have been there to share the moment with us. When I opened Erin’s wardrobe drawer on the Monday morning before school, there, sat softly resting on top of the lovingly folded uniform was a solitary white feather. At this point, I didn’t care whether it was coincidence or not, it made me sob my heart out. To this day I have no idea how it got there, and no idea of what, if anything it means, but that day, it gave me the reassurance that I needed, and for that I am truly thankful!

Erin’s final experiences seem to be around our garden. Our house was built on the land of an old pig farm, and as such, bizarrely out title deeds ban us from ever owning pigs on the property (not that I ever had that on the agenda!). When she was younger, she would never go down the bottom end of the garden, almost as if something was stopping her from passing an invisible line. When she got older, she would play nicely at the bottom of the garden and then all of a sudden come running back to us saying “the old lady’s back”. Mike would ask Erin what the old lady looked like, and she said would describe a lady with a scarf over her hair, throwing food on to the floor around her. We couldn’t explain it at all, but Mike is convinced it is the farmers wife feeding her pigs… despite her never knowing of our house’s history. I guess we will never know!

I asked some fellow bloggers if they’re children have ever had ghostly encounters and some of them described experiences from their own childhood – they properly gave me the shivers!

Michaela from Adventures of a Yorkshire Mum – “I woke up one night to see my nana Doris sat at the bottom of my bed. She just sat there smiling at me. I remember her polka dot skirt and navy blouse she was wearing – it was all so clear. The next morning I asked my mum why she was here and found out she had died that night. It still scares my mum whenever I talk about it!”

Natasha from Mummy and Moose – “My Grandad died when I was 8. I remember having nightmares that night and waking up with pain just everywhere. I couldn’t breathe properly, my stomach hurt, my head hurt. My dad brought me downstairs and I went back to sleep. I dreamt of my Grandad removing his oxygen mask, getting out of his hospital bed and sitting at a small table by the window and smiling as he watched the sunrise. I was woken by the phone ringing and before the other person spoke I said “He’s dead, isn’t he?”. It was the hospital calling to give my Mum the bad news. My Grandad had lost his 9 year battle with lung cancer.”

Vicki from TippyTupps – “When I was younger I had an imaginary friend called Parker. My parents didn’t think anything much of it past a child’s imagination, but we later found out that Parker was in fact the name of a soldier who had died in the building!!”

Sarah from Arthurwears – “On the night my grandad died I’d been having a dream that I was sat on a bench with him at a tram station and as the tram pulled up he said – “it’s time to get on the tram now Sarah, it’s time to say goodbye”. I said I didn’t want to say goodbye…next thing I knew I had woken with a jolt and was sat upright in bed – my twin sister was with me and she had also woken up suddenly and sat upright. We looked at each other and said “grandad’s gone”. It was 6am on the dot.
A few hours later my dad arrived home and told us that my grandad had passed away at 6am.
I’d like to think it was him coming to say goodbye before he left.”

Have you ever had any ghostly encounters with your children?