I don’t have children, but I can only imagine how terrifying it must be when something goes sideways and your child does or says something that creeps them out.

Let’s hear from folks on AskReddit about the most unsettling things they’ve seen their kids do.

1. OMG.

“For a few weeks my daughter started panicking at bed time about the “parents” that would visit her during the night.

It escalated to some serious nightmares and terrors, and was also creepy as s**t. We asked her a lot of questions regarding, are the parents us? Are they your friend’s parents (never know if shady shit is going on there) always no.. no, just the parents.

A few weeks into it my wife is driving down the road with her and she freaks out, Ma, look, it’s the Parents!!!!

It was f**king scarecrows.

Somehow she thought scarecrows were called “parents” and of course scarecrows are creepy, it was also Halloween so yeah, she was terrified of them.”

2. Zombies.

“My youngest daughter was about 4, we are sitting on the couch watching PBSkids. She reaches over and pauses the TV.

Then she looks at me and affectionately says, “Mommy, when you turn into a zombie I will have to lock you in a room and keep you there. I promise to feed you brains every day but you can’t have my brains.”

I ask her how she plans to get brains to feed zombie mommy and she says, “well I will have to k**l a lot of people but I’m sure I will get used to it.” There was much conversation after that. What stayed with me was not if I became a zombie but when. She was very sure I would. When I asked about where her dad and sister where she said they would be d**d, likely the first people she fed to me. But I wouldn’t know it because all I cared about were brains.

I wondered for a long while how my 4 year old landed on thoughts of zombies and m**der. My oldest finally filled in that the last time my dad had babysat he fell asleep on them so youngest started scrolling through channels until she found some zombie movie.”

3. Whoa…

“Our 16 month old son was going to bed, and my wife said “say goodnight dad!” and my son removed his pacifier said “goodnight dad” completely clearly, well enunciated, no baby syllables at all, and has since refused to repeat it.”

4. That’s not good.

“I was putting my 3 year old to bed and she said “Mommy , can you tell me a story where we all get electrocuted “”

5. Let me out!

“My son went through a phase when he was 6 where he would write “Help me! Let me out!” on everything.

It was on all his drawings and he’d write it outside on the side of the house for the neighbors to see. Then he started writing “Help me!” backwards, like some redrum s**t.

Turns out he was really into Goosebumps and one of the episodes has a girl trapped in a mirror writing “help me”. To the people looking into the mirror “help me” was backwards. Mystery solved, my kid is just a bit theatrical.”

6. Creepy.

“I caught my nephew bringing food to a d**d wolf he named Cody.

We all thought Cody was a friend from school because he had a classmate named Cody that he would go hang out with. Nope.

I followed him to Cody’s house which was a cave about 50 feet out of town in the woods and there was all sorts of wrappers from snacks and a decaying wolfs body.”

7. Don’t do that!

“My son walked into the room naked holding a pair of scissors and asked why his younger sister didn’t have a p**is.

He never explicitly said he was thinking of performing surgery on himself, but we kept a close eye on him for a few weeks and hid all the scissors.”

8. Scary.

“When my daughter was about 3 or 4, she started talking about “the blue lady”.

My wife and I asked her who she was and were told “I don’t know but she wants her hands back”. Chills. This went on for a few weeks. The story never changed and it was always the Blue Lady needs her hands. We were seconds away from getting a priest or a witch in to bless the house.

One morning, I’m watching TV and there is a woman in a blue US Post Office uniform saying “thanks to blah-blah hand cream, I got my hands back!” and my daughter comes running into the room screaming “That’s the blue lady! I love her!”

I relaxed so hard I nearly s**t myself.”

9. That’s correct…

“When we finally told my oldest, then three, I was pregnant, he stopped and grabbed my stomach intently.

He thought for a moment and then said “and we don’t stab the baby with knives?”

….correct, child.”

10. The night before…

“When my son was about 2/3, for a few days in a row he told me that there was someone in his room with “no eyes, just ears” the night before.”

11. Yikes.

“When my daughter was learning her ABCs, one morning at breakfast she sang all the way through for the first time.

We congratulated her and asked if she’d been practicing at day care.

“No, mommy’s mommy taught me when I was in bed”

Uh.. Mommy’s mommy d**d 3 years earlier.”

12. Poisonous.

“My daughter was probably around 4 years old when we had this conversation:

Daughter: dad, you know how water is poisonous?

Me (confused): um, water isn’t poisonous.

Daughter: it is if you put poison in it …”