It seems so cliche…children seeing ghosts. Maybe we have that infamous scene from “Poltergeist” to thank. Remember? “They’re heeeeere.” Children seeing ghosts has been a powerful plot device in some of the most popular books, movies, and television shows. But when it happens in real life, it’s not quite so entertaining. It can be downright terrifying.
For centuries, there have been countless stories of children seeing ghosts. Some may call them imaginary friends, some call them Grandma and Grandpa. As a paranormal investigator who works on residential cases, I’m not unfamiliar with this phenomenon. Well, hearing the stories at least. I have only experienced this once.
Before We Begin
Moving forward, we’re going to go with the idea that what children are seeing is spirits. There are so many ways we can debunk these stories.
According to Dr. Kim Peirano, children have the ability to see ghosts because their awareness is much higher than us old biddies in adulthood. Children have yet to build up their walls, and therefore, notice more than we can.
Some Background
Since I got my bachelor’s degree, I’ve been in the classroom in some form or another. I’ve also run and designed camps at the local YMCA in college. I’ve been working with kids in some capacity for over ten years from all different age levels. In 2014, I found myself working as a preschool teacher for pre-kindergarten.
When you’re a preschool teacher for Pre-K with a class of 18 students, you get to know these kids pretty well. You’re with them for eight hours per day, five days per week. You get to know their families, their habits, what makes them thrive, what upsets them, are they tattle tells, are they quiet and reserved, the list goes on. I’m also aware that children at this age (four and five year olds) can be highly imaginative and make up stories.
So, what I’m saying is that by the Spring of 2016, I knew my class pretty well by this point.
“She Won’t Leave Me Alone”
It was our afternoon playground time after snack. This playtime usually lasts about 45-minutes. But on this particular day. We have three Pre-K classes. We all eat together and play together on the playground. While I’m not with all 54 kids all the time, I know every one of them and most of their names. I tend to get to know faces and personalities more than knowing their names.
So one of the kids from another class comes running to me saying, “Ms. Alex! Karen won’t leave me alone!” in his tone of when he’s tattling on one of the kids…whining inflection, pained look in his face, the whole shebang. For purposes of privacy, I’ll call him Billy.
I quickly call out Karen’s name to talk to her, and I quickly realize that out of the three classes, we do not have a Karen. We don’t even have a Karen in the whole preschool, which goes from infants to 5 years old. But the Pre-K kids play together, and we don’t mix age groups.
I stop and ask Billy, “Are you sure your friend’s name is Karen?”
Billy: “Yes!”
I confirm that he wasn’t meaning one of the other little girls. He says no.
So I ask him to point Karen out to me. I’m thinking maybe even after being in that class for 10 months (our “school year” is from August to July), maybe he forgot his friend’s names or he was stating a nickname.
Billy: It’s that girl over there in the white shirt!
I look over and there is no girl in a white shirt as all the girls are in pinks, purples, oranges, and blues. So I tell Billy to take me to Karen. He takes me to the fence and points to the woods next to the playground. I ask him if he sees her now and he whines, “Yes! Karen won’t leave me alone!” I told Billy to go play at the slide and ignore Karen, and my coworker and I just looked at each other with big eyes.
Explaining it All
Now, there’s a chance that little Billy was trying to project his issues onto an imaginary friend because he was too intimidated to point out the real Karen. There’s also a huge possibility that Karen was imaginary and he was trying to engage in some sort of social structure and explore communication.
My friend had to go into the hospital over Xmas. We (my husband and I) took her in. I will freely admit that I did not know how to care for a 4 year old. I put her to sleep in a downstairs bedroom and we retired to our room upstairs. In the morning I woke up, realizing that it was morning and I had left a child asleep downstairs. I went down to find her happy enough, waiting for breakfast. I asked if she had slept well – “Yes.” I asked if she was OK to wake up alone. “Oh,” she said. “The old lady came and sat on my bed and read me stories. I hid my reaction. We already thought we had a persistent ghost in the house. Now a four year old was telling me she had kept her company!”