If you believe in ghosts, you’ve probably heard that children are more apt to see spirits – maybe because they’re too innocent to talk themselves out of what they’re seeing, or they live with a less defined idea of alive and dead – and these 14 kids have definitely seen some stuff.

And their parents definitely wish they hadn’t brought it up.

14. *gulp*

“When my sister was 4 years old, she was babysat by a family friend who lost her husband Paul suddenly before my sister was born. My sister had never heard about him before. But one day, our babysitter heard my sister laughing and playing alone in the basement playroom. She called out to my sister and asked who she was talking to. So my sister came upstairs and said, ‘Paul was downstairs. He says hi, and that he’s OK.'” —Steph Allen, Facebook

13. So sad.

“We lived in a house on six acres of wooded, swampy land with our 2-year-old son. One day, after a ride through the woods with my husband, my son started talking about ‘Courtney.’ We didn’t know anyone with that name, so we figured it was just an imaginary friend. But then he started saying that Courtney was a little girl who was trapped under the swamp and said she was never rescued…” —anniecb

12. I bet that wasn’t on the official disclosure.

“We were house-hunting, and we toured a house with a big backyard with a detached garage. After we left, I asked my son what he thought of the house. He said simply, ‘We can’t live there. There are ghosts screaming in the yard.'”

11. Well…she’s got attention for detail?

“One day I overheard my daughter — who was alone in the playroom — say to someone, ‘OK, I’ll draw you. But I need to find the red. You have blood in your hair.'” —smrtblonde77

10. At least it’s someone you know?

“When my daughter was 3 years old, she started telling us that she was being woken up in the night by a man who kept tickling her feet. But she said it didn’t scare her because he was always smiling. We figured she was just dreaming until we came across an old picture of my grandparents on their wedding day and my daughter pointed at my grandfather and said, ‘That’s him! That’s the man who tickles my feet!’ My grandfather passed away when I was six.” —sarahc48880d19c

9. That’s…sweet?

“I have a tattoo on my arm of my grandmother, who passed away seven years before my daughter was born. Not too long ago, my daughter pointed to my tattoo and said, ‘She holds me at night sometimes.'” Stephanie Terrance, Facebook

8. You’d think that might have brought them comfort.

“When I was a kid, I used to play for hours with someone I thought was an imaginary friend only I could see. One day, my mom asked who I was talking to, and I told her my brother. She turned white and left the room. When I said the same thing to my dad, he got really mad and sternly told me to NEVER do that again. And I never saw my ‘brother’ again after that. Well, fast forward ten years later, when I was snooping through the family bible, I found an entry showing that I did indeed have a brother. He died a year before I was born.” —kellyb4008c2352

7. Not the dog, too!

“Once my little sister told me there was a monster in her room, so I checked under her bed and assured her she was safe. But then she pointed at a blank spot on the wall and said, ‘Then why is there a man in the wall looking at us?’ And to make matters worse, our usually very calm dog suddenly started barking and growling at that very spot, and continued to do so every time he went in her room after that. I didn’t sleep for weeks.” —lop48be6d33d

6. Don’t have to ask me twice.

“I took my kids to a rose garden at an old, historic park in my hometown, and was telling my kids to stay on the path so that they wouldn’t trample the roses when my son stopped dead in his tracks, terror on his face. He asked, ‘Why is thatman running through them?’ I looked around and saw no one but the three of us there. But when I asked my son where the man went, he just begged to leave.” —rachelrae

5. Yeah, she’s gonna need a new babysitting gig.

“I was babysitting my friend’s toddler who was playing in her room and talking to herself while I made dinner. I didn’t pay it any mind until I heard her say, ‘I said, ‘STOP!’ So I went to check on her and asked who she was talking to. She calmly pointed at the AC vent and said, ‘The family who lives in the vents. The little boy is bothering me.'” —danikab478fa0b06

4. Creepy AND sad.

“When my son was a toddler, he had a rocking chair in his bedroom, and he was really afraid of it. He kept talking about ‘the boy’ in his chair. Then one day I saw him waving to someone outside my bedroom window. When I asked who he was waving to, he said, ‘The boy. He wants me to come play.’ Well, we finally got rid of the rocking chair, and shortly thereafter found out that a little boy drowned behind our house a very long time ago. I guess he wanted to play with my son.”  —ericai5

3. Yeah, isn’t there some kind of clause in the rental agreement for that?

“We had just moved into a new duplex when my 3-year-old daughter out of nowhere said, ‘There’s a bad man.’ I asked her where, and she pointed to the attic door and said, ‘There.'” —stacia

2. I’m sure he didn’t MEAN to be scary.

“Ever since my little brother could talk, he would tell us about a man he calls ‘Scary’, who stands in the corner of his room when the lights are off. Well, once we were looking through an old photo album, and my brother pointed to a picture of my great-grandfather — who he has never seen or met — and said, ‘Look, it’s Scary!'” —kenneddie

1. Um.

We moved into our duplex when my daughter was two years old. She already had a few imaginary friends named ‘Honey’ and ‘Buzza Buzza,’ so we weren’t surprised when she added a new one — an old lady named ‘Mollin’ — to the mix as soon as we moved in. Whenever I talked about her, my daughter would tell me that I was saying her name wrong. But I couldn’t quite understand her pronunciation…

Well, a few months later I received a letter in the mail addressed to a ‘Madelyn,’ with the same last name as my neighbors on the other side of the duplex. So I took them the letter just in case it belonged to them, and my neighbor told me that Madelyn was her mother-in-law, who had lived in our side of the duplex until she passed away three years earlier. Of course, I didn’t think anything of this info, until the next time my daughter mentioned her old lady friend ‘Mollin’ and it suddenly clicked. So I asked my daughter, ‘Are you trying to say ‘Madelyn?’ And she became so excited that I had finally pronounced her new friend’s name right.”

—emilybatsont

Have a ghost story you want to share?

Drop it in the comments!