"We’ve all heard the stories. A television that flips channels on its own. The house that echoes with a baby’s cries, despite no baby actually living there. A bar stool that skitters across the floor when no one is near. The piano that plays itself at all hours of the night and day. As a self-professed chicken and proud scaredy cat, I ordinarily will these events into a tidy explanation: an unreliable storyteller, an electrical short, or perhaps a curious nocturnal pet. But, sometimes, I’m willing to entertain the question: do ghosts exist? Turns out, if we want an answer, all we need to do is additionally ask, can kids see ghosts?
“Kids are more susceptible to ghost sightings because they have a much greater sense of awareness than most adults,” explained Intuitive Healer Dr. Kim Peirano. “This leaves them subject to picking up on energies and events that go unnoticed by most. We tend to have a belief that because our kids can’t always communicate [their thoughts], that they are unaware or unconscious of what’s going on around them. This is anything but the case.”
Dr. Kim Periano
Dr. Periano is a transformative healer dedicated to guiding her patients on their personal growth, healing, and transformation journeys through the depth and power of East Asian Medicine, Acupuncture treatments, medical hypnotherapy, and more. She harmoniously integrates the body, mind, and spirit to unlock the full potential of healing.
To put Dr. Peirano’s theory into practice, I put out the call to moms far and wide looking for ghost sightings as reported by their little ones. My inbox immediately overflowed. Here’s what these women anonymously had to say.
The pajama-clad boy
“When we were looking at condos to purchase our first place, our daughter Claire was just shy of her 3rd birthday. We brought her with us to all of our showings because we wanted to see how comfortable she was, as it would be her home too. When we walked through the door of the place we ultimately bought, the second floor of a 1911 Chicago brick three-flat, we all knew immediately that it was the right place. That evening, I asked Claire if she thought that place would be a good home for her, and her response was, ‘Yes! And the little boy that lives there is really nice too.’
Her response took me aback, but I tried to remain calm. I asked her what she meant, and she said there was a little boy in his pajamas that she saw in the dining room. She said he had waved at her, he was about her age, and he was only in the dining room. She knew his name (which I don’t remember now) and that he was afraid of water. After she went to bed that night, I looked up ways to clear the energy of a home, how to communicate with a ghost so they don’t bother your family, and anything else I could find to make sure at least I could be comfortable living in this otherwise perfect condo. Claire never talked about him again, not even the next day when I asked her to tell my husband the story.”
The visiting ‘sky mama’
“My son (age 3) has a ‘sky mama’ who visits him at night. She is bright like a star with wings on her back (he has no previous reference of what an angel looks like), is tall, and has short hair. Apparently, she is very nice and during the day he says that he misses her.”
The cemetery sighting
Trigger Warning: This next anecdote touches on the subject of the loss of a child and could be potentially triggering for some. Please skip ahead if you feel it might not be for you.
“My son was around 2 years old at the time. We were driving past a cemetery when he said, ‘Look, mama! Dead people.’ I responded, ‘Yes, darling.’ Then he matter-of-factly said, ‘Kids!’ And sure enough, we were passing by the children’s section of the cemetery. Curious, I asked if the kids were happy or sad. ‘Happy, mama!’ he said. ‘They are running around that daddy.’ I looked over and saw a man standing alone with his head dropped. It warmed my heart, honestly.”
The friend in the historic home
“We bought a new (to us) 120-year-old home last year when my oldest was 2.5 years old. On the day we got the keys, she was running around exploring and having a great time. As it grew dark outside, I told her it was time to go and she started talking to someone named JoJo. I asked who that was and she said, ‘My new friend, right behind you!’ Needless to say, we got the hell out of there quickly that night. She continued to talk about JoJo every time we were at the new house painting. So spooky! Eventually, she stopped mentioning JoJo and we haven’t seen anything paranormal, so I’m hoping it was an imaginary friend—but it was definitely unsettling!”
The lingering grandmother
“We bought our current house from a man who was married for 40+ years. His wife passed away a couple of years before we bought the house. One evening, while tucking my 2.5-year-old into bed, he said, ‘Mama, night-night to the grandma,’ while pointing to the hallway between his room and mine—what was her room back then.”
The childhood home encounter
“My 3 year old was walking with me in the basement of my childhood home when she stopped in her tracks, stared straight ahead, and said, ‘Don’t hurt my mommy!’ When I asked her what she saw, she said, ‘A woman.'”
The ghost friend
“When we moved into our house, Leo (age 2.5) was seeing a ghost. He would say ‘ghost’ and point to the dining room table. One day, I mentioned ‘Mr. Hutchinson’ to someone while giving a history of the house, and Leo said, ‘Mr. Hutchinson, my ghost friend?’ We confirmed with a house cleanser that someone attached to the home, like a grandfather figure, was here and attracted to Leo’s light and innocence. We have since had our house cleansed twice!”
The connection to grandpa
“My dad was eligible for retirement two weeks before my son (his first grandchild) was born. He retired so he could watch him when I went back to work. They spent five days a week, 8+ hours a day together—not counting family functions. They did this for 2.5 years before my dad was diagnosed with cancer. He died six weeks later. The day he died, we were eating dinner in our living room and my son (again, remember, he was 2.5 years old), looked up, scooted over on the couch and patted it, and said, ‘Papa! Come sit!’ It was so eerie and comforting at the same time.”
The extended family visit
“When we went to visit family in our hometown, we were heading to a cousin’s house where we normally stay when in are in town. My cousin’s mom passed away in 2008 and my daughter was born in 2020, so she’s never met her. When we were in the car, my daughter asked me, ‘Mommy, where are we going?’ And I said, ‘We’re going to your Tia Leigh-Ann’s house.’ And she responded, ‘Oh, we’re going to go see her and her mom?’
My husband and I both looked at each other confused because she’s never met my cousin’s mom, nor have we ever really talked about her to our daughter. When we arrived at my cousin’s house, she showed us that her dad had given her her mom’s ashes to have. She hadn’t previously told us or anyone she had them. It was very chilling.”
The rocking swan
“We were living in our Chicago condo and when we moved to the suburbs, my daughter Amelia refused to put her rocking swan (a swan that you can ride back and forth on, like a rocking horse), in her room because she said it would rock by itself around her room in Chicago. To this day, she’s still scared of it.”
The midnight playmate
“My then-4-year-old daughter would tell me about a little girl who wanted to play with her. She apparently wanted to play all hours of the day and night. When I was finally able to sort out what was up with my daughter, in the middle of the night, I left this little ghost some toys in an upstairs closet so she could play by herself. I gave her a stuffed lamb and a stuffed duck, and I used to find them moved most mornings. My 4-year-old shared a room with her sibling, so I know it wasn’t her moving the toys.”
The door-slammer
“Ender, my 4-year-old, will tell us stories about the little girl who shuts doors and turns off the lights. He can’t tell us what she looks like or where she goes. I don’t talk about ghosts or anything that would give Ender this idea. The last time the little girl was here, I heard the door slam. I ran in and asked him if he had closed it. He told me ‘No, the little girl did because she didn’t want to play.‘”
The nursery spirit
Trigger Warning: This next anecdote touches on the subject of the loss of a child and could be potentially triggering for some. Please skip ahead if you feel it might not be for you.
“We moved into our house in June 2021 and had our daughter in March 2022. We believe there is a spirit in her nursery, which recently became her baby brother’s room. She would wake up in the middle of the night crying hysterically. We’d walk around the house and if we got near her doorway, she’d lose her mind. We’ve also felt cold rushes in the air in that room.
Fast forward to March 2024 and on our daughter’s 2nd birthday we were downstairs playing with her new play kitchen and she pointed to our dining room/stairs and said, ‘What’s that?’ When we responded that it was just a shadow, she said, ‘No, there.’ I saw nothing, so I asked her what she saw. She said, ‘My brother.’ We had a stillbirth in April 2021 but when she said this I was pregnant again with another boy—but we didn’t find out his gender until birth. So my initial thought was, is the spirit in her room William, the son we lost? It freaked me out and I refused to do bedtime alone with her for a while.”
The visit from grandpa
“My husband’s father passed away several years before my son was born. He died from the flu, and my husband had always felt guilty because he had been the one to share the sickness with him. We never talked to our son about his grandpa, but one morning he woke and said point-blank, ‘Daddy, Papa Don wanted me to tell you he’s doing fine.’ We asked him to describe his grandpa and he did so to a T, despite never having seen a photo of him. He said he was standing by a fast car with a cloud of smoke around him. This made perfect sense because my father-in-law raced sports cars and smoked heavily all his life.”
Lizzie Goodman, Contributing Writer
Lizzie is an editor and writer specializing in pregnancy, child development, and parenting. She lives in Chicago with her husband and two young daughters in a funny old house filled with books.