Children Seeing Ghosts
We lived in an apartment for two years that was haunted. This ghost seemed to like to scare my two year old son. My son called him "mean daddy".
My son is now five years old and we have since moved from this apartment but before we did my son had a lot of experiences. He now tells me he sees a ghost at his babysitter's house but he is not scared of her.
Why is my son seeing this? What can I do to reassure him the "mean daddy" is not coming to where we live now? He asks me questions that I don't know how to answer.
Help! Misty
Children seeing ghosts and spirits when adults can't is not unusual.
Children can often sense things that adults don't. A great deal of it has to do with their mind set and brain waves.
Enough studies have been done that we know that a child's brain and an adult's brain are very different. There is more info about it in the article Children and Ghosts . We believe that brain waves may have a great deal to do with being able to perceive the paranormal.
Children are also very open to anything. They believe anything is possible. So their mind set is one of simple acceptance. I believe that also contributes to being able to experience paranormal events.
It's because of these differences that many children experience paranormal events while many adults do not. It's also why many adults don't believe in ghosts, having long since put any experiences they may have had down to a child's imagination.
Your son is actually quite normal.
While some people seem more sensitive to the metaphysical world, most of the time it is just that they are more attuned to it then the average person.
Your son may be a Sensitive, someone who can see, hear and/or communicate with ghosts or spirits, or he may simply be more attuned than the average kid.
When you have children seeing ghosts you don't have to panic. You do want to be careful that seeing ghosts doesn't become the main pastime for them, though. Make sure he is spending time playing with other kids and interacting with adults. Kids don't have to spend all of their time in the company of others, just a healthy portion of it. If that's taken care of I wouldn't worry.
My son called him "mean daddy".Most ghosts mean us no harm and often want, or need, to relay a message to us and nothing else. There is no reason to fear them.
While there are evil entities that exist, most often we don't run into them. You do have the ones that give off impressions of evil, however. Just because the ghost feels mean does not mean he has any power.
We all give off feelings, call it an emotional aura, and most of the time those around us can pick up on it.
It works pretty much the same way for ghosts too. The ghost your son saw is clinging to his emotions and they seem to be those of meanness and anger. Likely he will have to stay on this plane until he releases these emotions, though that is an assumption on my part.
What your son has done is read these emotions – he can feel the meanness emanating from this spirit.
But that is the extent of his powers. Even though the ghost may be angry there is nothing he can do except to terrorize those around him. Very few ghosts can do more than that. There are instances of objects being moved and people being touched, but mostly ghosts are limited to projecting emotions.
What can I do to reassure him the "mean daddy" is not coming to where we live now?Most ghosts are attached to a thing, a place or a person. They can travel, but they usually have a reason for doing so. The ghost your son was seeing is likely attached to the place and in all likely-hood will stay there.
He asks me questions that I don't know how to answer.I don't think anyone has all the answers. What kids are really looking for is support, they need to know that you are there for them and that you will stand between them and anything that may hurt them.
I think it's ok to say "I don't really know, but how about I try to find out about that?" You're letting him know that you believe him and that you're going to try and do something about it. Parents don't have to be all-knowing to be effective parents.
What you really have to keep in mind is that with children seeing ghosts not everything is paranormal, some things may have a very natural explanation, and if you find something does, by all means let your son know that. When something is paranormal support him in a positive way without undo fear.
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