Growing is tough on everyone, it doesn't matter how well-adjusted or well-liked you seem, there are going to be some struggles. But for certain kids, it's a lot harder.
Every classroom has at least one "weird kid" who rubs others the wrong way, or maybe doesn't connect on the same subjects. In some cases they alienate others with threats or morbid obsessions, while others make animal sounds and generally don't interact in socially acceptable ways.
While many of us adults were the weird kid and can attest to how much better it gets when you grow up, it can still be hard to watch your own kids go through the pain of not fitting in.
In a popular Reddit thread, parents shared how they reacted when they first found out their child was into creepy or unusual behavior.
I baby sat the neighbours kids, when the parents went out the little boy, around 6 told me 'I'm going to kill mummy' and took me to the top of the stairs where he'd tied string across the bannisters at ankle level.
I was reading on our porch the other day when I heard my 11-year-old stepson say he was going for a ride around the neighborhood. I said ok without looking up from my book, then saw he glide down our driveway on a razor scooter in a grim reaper robe.
He's not creepy weird, just entertaining weird. He also had his sister perform a wedding for him and our dog last year and won't let the joke go that the dog is his wife. EDIT: thanks for the concern, but he is not f*cking the dog. Shame on you, Reddit!
I dunno if it's creepy, but my son LOVES fat bellies. When he was younger he used to hug people and smush his face in their bellies, he always liked our fat friends the best. He's 7 now and still keen. I have to remind him that ladies don't like being told they've got a nice big squishy belly.
My 3 year old daughter loves old monster movies. I'm in the habit of putting a movie on while I clean the house. I plugged on King Kong (1933). Next thing I know my daughter is entralled. She can't stop creaming "Whats that? A Monster!" and crying...CRYING when Kong kills a dinosaur. I asked her 5 times if she wanted me to stop the movie and got an emphatic "NO!"
Since then she's gone on to fall in love with Ray Harryhausen films and Godzilla films. She cries her eyes out every time Mothra leaves Earth in Godzilla vs Mothra: the Battle for Earth. My wife was concerned that a 3 year old actually enjoys crying and watching movies that make her sad or scared. I just shrugged and found some old Kong and Godzilla toys on ebay.
When her friends who are girls come over she tries to get them to play monsters. They look at her like they have no clue what she's asking. I was a weird kid myself so my only hope is that I can convey to her that there is nothing wrong with being in to things other kids aren't. That it makes her unique and cool and interesting.
My son is obsessed with roller coasters that he runs around the house making wooshing noises and banking at the turns. He's 13. In the law of averages, someone has to be below the average line. My son is weird and I have accepted that he will be the weird kid in school. In fact, you're welcome that you can say "at least little Billy isn't like that kid."
He's not my kid, but my godson is extremely creepy. He likes to stand in his little sister's doorway while she naps and watches her sleep. I ask him why and he says, "it's the closest I can get to seeing her dead." He also likes to shove her fist in his mouth as far as it can go because he wants to "know what suffocating is like, just in case." I'm pretty sure he'd be a serial killer if it wasn't for Mario Kart.
Edit: he is 8. She is 5. He hasn't done as many creepy things lately. It was mostly right after she was born, he had a hard time adjusting. He still says the odd weird thing here and there but nothing as bad as what I mentioned above. His offhand comments are much more innocent, such as "I'm going to sell you on Kijiji" and "I'm going to sell you for a quarter and ask for change" to his sister. Also his character in Mario Kart is always Yoshi and although he is unhealthily obsessed with the game, he's an otherwise normal 8 year old.
My youngest daughter, around the age of 4 or 5, used to tell me she was going to chop off my head. Eventually it escalated to, "Daddy, if you do that I'm going to chop off your head and cook it on the BBQ." She's 10 now and will laugh with a fondness in her chuckle that she remembers that and still thinks it's hilarious. We told her that, although we laughed our a*ses off at hearing this, it really isn't funny and I would prefer to not be decapitated and subsequently cooked on my grill. I'm fairly certain she doesn't want to kill me.
My kid is a classical musician, we're the village idiots so I have no idea where this talent came from, but he is known as the weirdo in the family.
Don't get me wrong we're very proud, and there really is nothing quite so moving as listening to The Planets live from some Major Performing Arts Centre, it has been a real education for us. Alas, we really don't fit in when we attend his concerts and we are the weirdos.
I've told this story once before on a similar thread, so here goes. My kid hid a dead animal, it's escaping me what kind arm either bird or squirrel. He kept it there for long time, til it began to stink up everything. When found I thought oh sh*t am I raising a serial killer? I watched him closely for years. He's fine now, in college , good grades etc. if he's a serial killer I have no idea.
I come home from work one night to find my darling two year old blonde daughter standing at the top of the stairs staring up at the full moon in her jammies, teddy bear in hand. She should have been in bed by this time.
Not wanting to scare her I walked up the stairs, knelt down next to her and asked her what she was thinking about.
I was imagining she would say something childish like "is the moon really made of cheese daddy?" Something cute like that.
Instead, she turns to face me with a very serious look in her face and in a very serious and creepy monotone voice says to me: "We are all in the same cage!"
Two years old! I nearly died of fright. I literally recoiled from her and ran back down the stairs backwards. I couldn't believe it.
She said a few more creepy things like that but it stopped after a while.
Update: that was 12 years ago. She has since turned into a very happy and well adjusted teenager who is only slightly in league with Satan. ;-)
I guess my son was weird from conception. He rarely moved and laid transverse the entire pregnancy right up to delivery. After he was born he had to be held all the time, ended up just getting a sling. He would scream for a good two hours every night, for no reason. I always said he was releasing his frustrations. Refused to sleep on his crib as a baby. The only way to get him to sleep was bundled up in his car seat.
As he got older he had some "quirks" that I just chalked up to his personality. Obsessed with cars and would run them back and forth in the dirt for hours. He was a quiet kiddo and played alone for hours.
Had to be very careful with movies. If things got sad, like when Bambi mother died he would sob for hours.
When he started preschool his first week was spent under the table.
When he was in kindergarten the teacher started dropping hints; he's an odd yet lovable boy, prefers to be alone, gets upset over odd things.
First grade it finally became obvious to me we had issues. The day he walked out of his classroom on his hands and feet to meet me I knew we had something going on. He also wore sweats because jeans were too hard. Had to have cold blankets aka sheets, at night to cover up. Spent hours and hours playing with legos. Socks and underwear were huge problems. Eating was an issue, he'd get stuck on a food and only eat that, for weeks. He had no friends and didn't want any, said other kids bothered him.
Had him evaluated and yup, autistic. Not aspergers as he had some serious speech issues.
He's now 22, on disability and happily living his life. He still has no friends and doesn't want any. He spends his day playing video games and watching documentaries on netflix. Just pray he doesn't want to talk to you about it because he will go on for hours and hours and hours..lol
In a way I'm jealous. I wish I could be so content with my life. He just goes with the flow, as long as things don't change..lol He has no wants. Not because he has everything but because he's just content with what he has. He only sees today, has no concept of planning for tomorrow. He totally lives in the moment.
When my son was around 2 years old, he was obsessed with the phrase 'the ship sinks in the water' (he'd said something like 'aco ute awa', for Spanish 'El barco se hunde en el agua'), while making a gesture with his hand emulating a sinking ship (his hand upside down, bent a little to form a ship, and putting it down slowly). He talked about it constantly, and even asked me for youtube videos of sinking ships. I used to indulge him to see his reaction, and it was kind of weird to see his glee while looking at those videos.
To everyone he met, familiar or unknown people, the first thing he'd said was that phrase. He would come to you randomly, say it, and then he'd go off like nothing.
His obsession has moved to Mario Bros nowadays.
Edit: He also makes comments, since he was little, about his 'sister' who 'died when he was a baby'. He's convinced he knew her, but he never had any siblings.
My cousin is creepy. Smashed his pet hamster to death around age five with a toy firetruck.
My kid is into nature documentaries. Very into nature documentaries. One day, when he was 3 years old, my wife was getting his bath ready. She was bent over the tub, checking the water temperature. My son shoved his face in her a*s, took a huge wiff, walked away and said "Ahh! Dominant female butt!"
I have since realized not only is he into nature and its beasts, but he retains almost anything he sees while watching those educational shows.
He is also most likely going to be an a*s-man.
So when I was like three I became like obsessed as fuck with Hitler. I think it was because I saw WWII documentaries and Hitler looked like a total bada*s with the armies and pomp and splendor and whatnot. My parents, wanting to foster my interests in history bought me the Encyclopedia of the United States at war and read it to me before bedtime.
I would have them read to me about Hitler over and over again and then go to class in pre k and tell the other kids about Hitler. I watched hours and hours of history documentaries because I was obsessed. This fascination also led me to tell my parents that people that were loud at restaurants, "must be Jewish." My parents were called in for a PTA meeting and they were instructed to stop telling me about Hitler because the other kiddos were starting to like him too.
He's unbelievably interested in bugs of all sorts. In second grade, his class was learning about bugs and their body parts. Thorax, abdomen, etc. His test asked him to circle all the pictures of bugs that had 'mandibles.'
He got a point off for not circling a mosquito. He went and talked to the teacher and told her that the mosquito has a proboscis, not a mandible. She gave him the point back.
My kid has been the weird kid since about 2 years old. His favorite bedtime stories were the user manuals to my appliances. At 3 he became obsessed with human biology and would watch open heart surgeries on YouTube. He was also obsessed with vacuums - for four years. He would spend hours in department stores demonstrating to shoppers how to use them. At 5, his "summer plans" was to teach himself mechanical engineering and physics...I could go on.
When he turned 3 is when I started to suspect he was "different". It scared the f*ck out of me. He was my firstborn so I had no idea if he was developing normally or not. His thirst for knowledge became extreme and I didn't understand how to handle him, so at 4 I sent him to a child psychologist. I was terrified my son would have a nervous breakdown, because although he was so young, he NEVER, I mean never once in his life, played. All he did was learn. The psychologist made it clear to me, that he was gifted, but that I had to FORCE him to play. Otherwise he would develop OCD and other disorders. (I'm trying to make this short).
He is 8 now, and still different, but he does play. Sometimes. I'm happy he is who he is, but I can see that he has a difficult life ahead of him. He doesn't have many friends. Mainly because he would rather discuss the news, than some new game or toy. I can say this though, I don't think I'll ever meet another human being who is anything like my son, and I love that about him.
My wife's Son (From a previous relationship) is 12 years old and ever since I've known him (since he was 5) still won't talk in a 'normal' person voice or volume, if that makes any sense. He will talk in all sorts of weird overly animated voices or tones. I ask him to stop talking like that but I truly don't believe he could if he tried. He is pretty introverted with anxieties we are working on but that is the weirdest thing.
My only reaction to that is it's hard to take anything he says seriously. I have a hard time wanting to have conversations with him because it bothers me that I don't get a solid answer out of him or feel like we could have a real conversation. After working with him for so long to try and remedy it I feel defeated sometimes.
Weird kid here. Was adopted by my grandparents in my teens but they basically raised me. Spent a lot of time there growing up months Upon months some years. Parents were abusive.
I'm bipolar and was pretty obsessed with death self mutualzation anything sad dark or scary. They never addressed it out right but took ample time to assure me that I was loved had support and sent me along to do tasks on the farm that I hated but later appreciated
Many times I came home drunk or high and they would just ask if everything was alright, I'd say yes stumble into my room and write. The next morning was always greeted with a hug an attempt to feed me breakfast and a task to do. Be it homework, actual work, or a soft suggestion to see friends. Looking back what they did wouldn't have worked with a lot of other kids. Never would've sobered up ect but they really knew me better then I did.
Tho after listening to Manson a bit too loud they introduced me to polka music. Still don't enjoy it but it always makes me smile.
My youngest son is pretty weird...creative, funny, smart, but weird. Last year he was upset because it made him feel isolated (he has friends but he knows his mind works different from theirs. He isn't on the spectrum, he just makes intuitive leaps and mentally connects information in a way that isn't traditional).
I reacted by crawling into his bunkbed with him and cuddling him. I held my 8 year old and told him that being weird is okay. I told him that I was pretty weird myself and that while it meant that you wouldn't connect with everyone, the people you do find as friends are going to be true and amazing friends. I told him that being normal was boring and if anyone ever teased him for being different, then f*ck those kids because it isn't like these are the people he is going to be hanging out with in twenty years.
Then we arranged for some counseling so he could talk to a professional about It and be reassured that no one is as normal as they seem.