kids and ghosts

[AVGH]

Hi, I am new to this site/forum. As a background, I run a gh group in the antelope valley. I have a client/private residence that we are soon to investigate (Feb 08) and I am asking around for some thoughts on this subject. Seems the client's little 3 yr old boy is recently seeing a male figure at the top of their stairs. The boy has now seen the figure 2 times so far (this is a very new happening) and says he is big but can't see his eyes. The residence does have a full bodied apparition that has been seen by adults (female) which we originally were told about and were planning to investigate.
I want to know your thoughts on kids and ghosts. Seems only the boy can see this male (so far) figure even going so far as to say the man was playing with the lights and waving at the boy. Is it easier in your experience for a child to see a spirit? When maybe others cannot? How do you go about asking questions of such a small child without alarming him/her? This has us perplexed in that this is very new for the client. They have never witnessed this before and it's seems out of no where so to speak.  Luckily the client is totally for our investigation even before finding out about this second spirit. And lastly, I have no reason what so ever tot no believe the child, per the mom he was very serious when relaying his experiences. Going so far as to ask mom to ask the man to go away.
Your thoughts please. Thanks you, Teresa-founding member of Antelope Valley Ghost Hunters

[ttjoon]

 Hi Teresa,
My daughter who is 8 years old has seen two full bodied apparitions in our home that we live in currently.  She saw them both in the same day.  (In fact all of the paranormal events that have happened in our home over the last 4+ years, all started from that day on). One of them was in the doorway of our laundry room and the other was on the stairs.  (My husband has also seen the one on the stairs, numerous times).

Both of them are men and both from completely different eras. She saw them just before she turned 5 years old.  She still gives the exact same description of them to this day.  I don't think she is fibbing because if she was, those details would have changed over time. One of the men she saw, she can talk about without a problem.  The other gets her upset to recount. Just last week, we were talking about it and I asked her if she would draw me a picture.  What she drew absolutely blew me away.  I have a dear friend who is an art therapist and he helps children with traumatic events in their lives by having them draw and color what their pain looks like to them.  A lot of times a child can draw what they feel or see better than they can describe it.  I think that children are more open to the paranormal.  Their little brains have not been alerted to the fact that they aren't SUPPOSED to see things like this.  Children are so innocent and I think a lot of times that is why sprits/ghost/etc appear to them and not adults.

My daughter is a cancer survivor. She almost died in the womb and then again 4 days after she was born.  I have heard the theory that people - especially children - who have had a near death experience have had one foot in the afterlife and one foot in the here and now, thus making them more of a magnet for the paranormal.  I am not an investigator.  Hope to be someday, but for now all I can tell you is our experience we had and continue to have with our daughter.  I also asked her if it made her happy or sad, afraid and just curious to see them and how she thinks they felt as well.  I have gotten some great information just from doing those two things.

[AVGH]

Nice reply Tracy. Good to know you.
I am some 300 miles from our next investigation and this male ghost. So I try to encourage the client to talk to her son if he seems to be okay with it. I will ask her to have him draw the man. That is good advice. He may be too young to draw but you never know.
The more indepth story goes like this: The boy was heading upstairs one day a few days ago to change clothes. He got finished and was heading back down on his bum, thunmping along the stairs on his rear. He called out to his mom saying, Mommy, someone waved at me. She asked what? He said it again. Then she said, who. He answered a man. She said where is he? the boy replied right there, pointing at the landing. the mom couldn't see him or exactly where the boy was pointing due to her vantage point. She said what is he doing now? The boy replied, coming downs the stairs. this chilled the mom and then the boy adds, ask him to go away. She said out loud, for the man to go away. That was instance number one.
The second time was just two days ago. The boy was heading up stairs to get some socks on to join his dad outside, doing what his mom said was sort of singing, "gotta get my socks on"  As he is on his way upstairs he calls for his mom to join him. Halfway there, he stops and says "Mommy will you come with me? the man is there!"
mom was right around the corner in the kitchen, and asks "the man is there? where?" he points again up the stairs by this time he has made his way back down a few steps... She says "what's he doing?" and he says "playing with the lights" so she says "okay, let's go up.." trying not to make a big deal out of this, they climb and then he says "okay, he is gone". 

this is so cool to me as an investigator yet I am worried for the boy if this is bothering him. Luckily he is so young so as not to dwell on this like us adults do. What do you think of this? Very detailed stuff. Teresa

[ttjoon]

Wow, Teresa.  That is absolutely amazing.  I don't mean to "hijack" this topic from people that have much more knowledge about these things than I. And I don't know if I am qualified to give you anything other than my opinion.

If the little boy is seeing these things when he is asked to do chores or tasks that he isn't trying to get out of, or trying to stall from doing, like going to bed, brushing teeth, picking up toys, etc, then I would be inclined to believe him. You always wonder whether your child is telling you the truth when they say things like this.  I wonder if his description of the man is the same every time.  It sounds like the Mom is doing a great job by keeping calm.  That in of itself will set precedence for her son on how the occurrences are handled. 

What I asked my daughter about her experience is this: Does the man in the laundry room that you saw need anything?  Did he say anything to you?  She told me that he only looked down at her and smiled.  I asked her about the other man, and she stated that he acted like he didn't even see her.  Like she wasn't even there.  Makes me think it is a residual.  Also compounding that theory is the fact that my husband has seen him many times just go up and down the stairs and then disappear. 

I guess every situation is different.  I wonder if the little boy is seeing this apparition at the same time everyday?  Same length of time?  Same day of the week? Does it coincide with another activity?  What are the common denominators?  I wonder if there is anything about the land that might be the root cause of it.  Part of me thinks that is what is causing the activity in our home.  Then again...who knows.

[AVGH]

I know, we as a gh group have wondered why now. But that is most likely the wrong assumption. I now think now is the perfect time to "come out" as it were. Meaning, if the spirit all of a sudden realizes the child can see him he wants more, meaning he is tryig to get the famiy's attention. And the way to do this is to turn a light on and off, wave at the child, etc. A few things have happened since even my last post. The client told me this am that she now realizes  that the other day there was a clear whistle she and one of the kids heard. They both reacted because dad often does that when he wants the garage inner door opened from inside when he arrives. They both heard it and thought it was him. Then after reflection the mom said she now thinks it was the male spirit because the dad didn't actually arrive until 15 min later and said he didn't whistle. The best part is what happened last night. The mom and dad were watching tv in bed and kids were asleep for 30 min. One child calls to mom and dad then comes into their bedroom. He says someone was walking in his room. they play it off to not scare the child and he says NO, and proceeds to stomp around the room recreating the steps he heard. The rooms are heavily carpeted.
We are going to this place to invesigate in Feb and hope it continues and gets stronger w/o frightening the family. They are taking it in stride so far because they have me to at least explain what might be going on in theory.
There is another spirit who roams around at night I have not mentioned yet. It is a period woman in a purple jacket, ringlets in the hair and she is intellegent. She bent down to look at a guest sleeping. She has been heard and seen/felt by all who sleep in a particular room. We are staying in that room while there.        

[ttjoon]

Teresa,
This case really does sound interesting.  Because I have a young child who is being affected by what is happening in our home, my heart goes out to the family when I hear about children being involved.  Hopefully the activity the boy is witnessing will stay mellow but it sounds like it is definitely escalating.

With the increasing activity, I wonder if there are any emotional issues going on with certain members of the family.  Just from my personal experiences, and this isn't by any means something that I know others have experienced, and it is just my opinion,  but when there are things like this that happen, activity can start to flare up.  That's how it was when I was a kid.  Whenever my Mother and I would argue, or there was an emotional situation that happened or conflict in the house, all "paranormal hell" would seem to break loose.  I could tell you some pretty outrageous stories of stuff that happened to me as a kid.  Does the little boy have any siblings by chance? Although the Mom is handling it great, I wonder how the father reacts to the things that the little boy is saying. 

(hopefully this post is making sense..I'm starting to go cross eyed from looking at my laptop for so long....) :o

[AVGH]

This is the dynamic that is the problem, not ghost related. Dad is religious and not into this stuff. In fact he will ot hear of it. So Mom has to deal with it by herself. The kids (3 of them) are unaware there are issues as they have only recently flared up. There was a severe cold spot among the eldest child last night. So things are getting heated. But they are not afraid of it and things are not dire of course. So I wait to hear the rest of the story prior to our team getting there. I'll keep you posted:)
Teresa

[ttjoon]

This is what frustrates me about some people. They say this stuff is not real and they are "not into it".  Well trust me...most people who have had first hand experience with the paranormal happening to them, weren't "into it" either when it first occurred.  You don't have to be "into it" for it to happen to you or any of your family members. Most people don't walk around saying, "Yeah...I'm into it and want to get the crap scared out of me...bring it on"!

It appears that for religious reasons, the father isn't listening to what is happening under his own roof. I think people deny the possibility of it because they are afraid of even talking about it because it will give validity to it.  It is like that "name it claim it" crap.  A very long time ago,  I had a friend who had a child and this child was so ill.  The boy was only 3 and he had a temperature of 105 for 3 days. He was pale and couldn't even get up out of bed.  She wouldn't take him to the doctor or even call the doc.  I asked her why.  She said, "Well, if I name it and say he is sick, then we claim it and he really will be sick".  Well, the child damn near died.  And in case you are wondering....it was because of her religious beliefs.  I'm all for individuality and you don't have to worship the God that I do, but when it comes to endangering a child's life, that puts it in a whole different ballpark. (Sorry..got off on a tangent there.) 

No matter what you believe, you need to support your family, listen to them and try and help them with what they are going through.  If some family members  are going through it, it means you all are.  That's why they call family a unit.  If you are a family, you are all in it together, not on separate teams. 

It is going to really put a strain on the family if the father continues to be in denial about what is happening to his son and wife.  I hope they can get through this together.  I hope you can help them and it turns out to have a happy ending and they end up having a sense of peace and understanding about it.

[Kristen]

I think it will be very interesting to see what evidence is collected.  If there is pretty substantial evidence, how will the father react to that? Hopefully it won't be denial, skepticism is one thing but straight up denial is not healthy.  I really hope this turns out positive.  It seems the household is so unbalanced.  Maybe that's why the activity has picked up in the first place, who knows.

[ttjoon]

It seems the household is so unbalanced.  Maybe that's why the activity has picked up in the first place, who knows.

Here here, Kristen!  Amen, sista! That is exactly what happened in my household as a kid.  The household was so volatile and that is when all hell broke loose.  Activity went through the roof. I think things can feed off of the negative energy and it just can spiral out of control.

[AVGH]

I think the deal is the Dad doesn't want to even acknowledge it because he fears it will open up a hole for more to come into the home. Bad logic to be sure. Deal with it or more will happen through discontent. Period. I was recently told the Dad woke up in the middle of the  night fearing unseen evil's. This scared him greatly. He also had an experience where he was in the garage at night. He was about to close the door and hear a woman say "wait, I'm in here" he was sure it was his wife but didn't see her anywhere. He questioned her as she was actually upstairs and didn't say anything to him. He thought she was playing a trick on him and he then made her swear she didn't do it. Which she did swear. But the Mom said she knew he was really rattled by the incident. So he is aware stuff is going on but because of his attitude she is for all purposed alone in this. Now if something happens in front of the family then the Dad has to acknowledge it as he is going to look like a wimp if he either brushes it off and doesn't aid his family. Either way it may take a big event to get his attention that maybe he can't ignore it any longer. To each his own for sure but geez, give your partner a hand. I mean help her deal with it so she feels validated and cared for. That's all I'm sayin. Thanks for the replies, helps me understand through dialog but she doesn't have this and I feel for her. I think his pride is involved too fyi along with convictions. Teresa

[ttjoon]

 The dad is still denying it even though something happened to him that he really cannot explain.  He is just afraid.  And with good reason.  If you have never had anything like this happen to you, of course it will scare you.  Denying something is sometimes easier to do than to deal with the issue at hand.  But easier isn't necessarily better.  In this case it will only cause additional discord as you stated before. I wonder how many more things have happened to him in this house that he hasn't revealed.

[AVGH]

Good point, no telling what else he has seen and heard. The news today is the mom stated outloud to the spirit that she doesn't mind him present, just to not scare the family. Since that time, all is quiet on the waterfront  so to speak. Thanks for the reply, Teresa

[AVGH]

So here we are ten days til we go to the location I have been talking about. I found out the male ghost the kid saw, was green according to the child. The kid knows his colors and if I didn't say all this already he could not see the ghost's eyes. Of course the boy doesn't use the term ghost, he just says man. We have purchased a tri-meter as used on ghost hunters international. If you saw the new ep, you saw them use it as a way to communicate. We intend to use it this way too. The cool thing is since the mom had seen increasing activity she has tried to talk to the spirits to say please don't scare my family, but it is okay to be here. And the activity has slowed. So why is this cool? he/she listened! Shows possible intellegence which I have thought all along. The client also said out loud that we are coming to see them, talk to them, and help if need be. We are planning a cleansing after our investigation to help them move on and thus helping all involved. Teresa

[AVGH]

Friday is the day we go to NorCal to the house I have referenced. I will post when we get back. We are armed with new equipment. Hopefully it helps. Teresa

[PPI Brian]

Hi Teresa,

I have been following this thread and I must admit that I am very intrigued by your description of this case. We are all anxious to hear about your experiences on this investigation. Good hunting.

Regards,

Brian Miller

[AVGH]

Thanks for the interest, I will post for sure. The dynamic is very interesting. Our client told the ghost to not scare her kids a week ago. She also said that it was okay for them to be there though. Since that time the boy hasn't had any encounters, but she gets touched on her hair daily. So either he/she is listening or there has been a shift. Time will tell but we are giddy at the prospect of seeing not one but two apparitions. I am sleeping in the room with the lady with my IR camera's trained at the door
Teresa

[AVGH]

Here is some of the skinny on our latest investigation. We went with high hopes and so far it was not disappointing. As most of you know in the GH business you don't truly know what you have til you pour over the whole of the evidence. Can't speak of specifics yet as it hasn't been posted on our own web site. But lets just say it really was a dream location in that it was rural (helps with unwanted sounds/noises) It had an "above and beyond the call of duty client" hospitality speaking, and it had about 4000 sq feet to investigate in addition to a separate house no longer in use. All these things with decent quality/quantity evidence. I can say, we have many evp's, many personal experiences and some anomolies we have yet to explain. As soon as we post elsewhere I can go into detail. We had some 10 camera's going all over the place and lots of audio recorders all over too, so we have our work cut out for us. Whew, tired just thinking about that.
I'll get back to this thread soon, Teresa

[MichaelF (FPIE)]

I actually have a question on the same topic of "kids and ghosts," I didn't want to clutter up the board with another post; nor did I want to hijack yours, so I hope this is all right.

I'll admit I havn't read nor seen as much as most of you, so if this is a common theory, feel free to laugh at me.    My question is "is my following theory a possibility of why it seems more common that Children get bothered by spirits more?"

It starts out with Science.  Our bodies have our own mini-electronic fields, in fact our brains and nervous systems are electrically based, this is common biology.  Now many other things in the world give off EM fields, including many believe spirits or ghosts.  I believe that people are able to some extent or another to sense or percieve EM fields around themselves. Probably goes back to our "fight or flight" days as a survival instinct of sensing that something is sneaking up behind you.  Now in todays modern society, we are bombarded with EM fields, many are minor, but they are there.  The air is literally thick with them.  Much like listening to loud sounds all the time, this bombardment can deaden your senses; over time causing you to sense EM fields less and less.

Much like hearing is better on children, so is their ability to percieve EM fields.  They havn't been bombarded and deadened yet, so are more open.  Some spirits crave interaction, and since children may be more open this is why they may seek them out.

Third world countries and such can be used to support this theory.  Many hidden corners of the world still abound in mysticism of some form or another.  The common belief is they they are ignorant and uncivilized.  However, what if due to their remote locations, they havn't been "deadened" and hence are actually seeing stuff us "civilized" people are not.

I tie Psychics and Mediums into this theory as well, I believe they are less "deadened," or inately more sensitive to EM fields.  So are able to percieve what many cannot.

Sorry, this got sort of long winded.  Thoughts on if this could possibly be why children seem more often targetted?

[AVGH]

Wow, you put a lot of thought into your post and I am impressed. It make perfect sense. Just because we don't know all the answers to all the questions doesn't mean there aren't any answers at all. I like your idea's. In the case we investigated the child is and was 3.
A recent incident you might be interested in. While I was on the phone with the Mom of this little guy she said her son was scared to go upstairs because the man was there again. As a reminder, this boy has seen a man at the top of the stairs on two previous occasions, this now being the third. He was shielding himself with his mother's legs, turned white and wide eyed. As I am on the phone with her I said to her: Ask what the man is wearing. She relays the question saying what is he wearing, son relies "Builder Bob"
I ask another question: does he have a hat on, she relays and the boy replies, yes!
another question, this is the big one, what is his name? she relays and the boy replies, Akar.
This is not as significant unless you are privvy to the back story. In my research I found a man, Oscar Frederick Holzhauer who was married to Elizibeth in the area our investigation is in. Seems Mr H shot and killed a man for lusting after his wife. Akar could refer to Oscar in a three yr olds vocabulary. Even better than that is we did EVP's there and got Betty as a name several times. Betty is short for Elizabeth. So the pieces could fit. Okay so back to the phone call and the visit with "Akar" Eventually the boy did go upstairs with Mom after she gritted her teeth and made the trek herself, which shoed away the man. One thing interesting as a side note is the Mom used to play with her imaginary friend as a small child. So maybe your theory is correct and magnified by genes! Who knows, but I like it, thanks for the reply.
Teresa

[MichaelF (FPIE)]

Thanks for the kind words and for the update on the case.  I truly think and hope that someday we will have a universal set of "rules" that ties all of science, religion, and the paranormal together.  I truly believe that the first step is having an open mind and believing that all three can be right at the same time that all three can be wrong.  Hopefully that makes sense.

[hoodini]

I know this thread is a bit stale and I'm not sure what the final outcome of the investigation has been.  But in communicating with the family and boy, has the boy's personality been questioned at all? What I mean by this is does the boy have an out going personality and is actively involved with others his age or does he come off more of a quiet introvert and sticks to himself?  Also since the Dad is very religious, is the mother and son following his lead or are they living a different belief path?  What is the religious background of the entire family?  I had a similar experience when growing up, and I was seeing shadows first.  Then my mother followed, she wouldn't see them but feel/sense them...  while my father didn't.  Lucky enough, he didn't disbelieve what I and my mother experienced.  But I would say that I have a few thoughts on why children are more open to the supernatural.  It might not be more scientific in nature, but more about whats going on with the family as a whole that helps open children up.  Lets face it, as kids.. we are influenced by many people and events that help shape us into the adults we turn out to become.  It might not always be about the history of a location thats stirring up activity.

Chris M

[PPI Tracy]

Chris,
I don't know what happened with this case.  I did correspond with this person who posted the info for a while. (my user name used to be "ttjoon" and those are my posts in this thread).  As I said previously, this is sort of my theory.  Not sure whether it is valid, but interesting none the less.  To quote my previous post:

I think that children are more open to the paranormal.  Their little brains have not been alerted to the fact that they aren't SUPPOSED to see things like this.  Children are so innocent and I think a lot of times that is why sprits/ghost/etc appear to them and not adults.

My daughter is a cancer survivor. She almost died in the womb and then again 4 days after she was born.  I have heard the theory that people - especially children - who have had a near death experience have had one foot in the afterlife and one foot in the here and now, thus making them more of a magnet for the paranormal.

What is your take on it?