Everyone has had an encounter with a "weird kid" at some point in their life. Maybe they were the kid who at glue in elementary school, maybe they were the smelly kid you rode the bus with, or maybe they were creepy kid in the neighborhood that scared everyone. These kiddos were the rest of the kids you knew growing up, but one thing we always wondered was what were they like at home? They had to have parents and families, right?

Well, they do and they took to Reddit to share the moments they realized the moments their child was not-so-normal. Content has been edited for clarity.

Not A Normal Crush
Not A Normal Crush



This causes him to have a panic attack, because it's 'part of his identity.' His exact words were: 'If I'm not the boy who likes then I don't even know who I am. That's me, I'm the boy who likes.'


His parents are worried about where this will go, so to try and combat it, they have pulled him out of school and he's in serious counseling. He's a sweet kid, but holy cow does he have some major fundamental problems."

A Creative Genius
A Creative Genius

"When my son was around 6, I was cleaning his room, and came upon a very big ball of thread, inside of a sock, intermingled with Cheetos. I unraveled it, and discovered he had tied the Cheetos at intervals along the thread, creating a kind of Cheetos garland. I asked him about it, and he said he was going to try and eat them one at a time, and then poop the string out, and floss himself. Flawless logic.

Another time, he decided to give himself a trim, as one does, and lopped a generous chunk of hair off the front of his head. When I noticed something looked off, and casually asked him, he said he was working on his spinning desk chair like a mechanic, and his hair got snatched up in the works. He then ran off to his room, and tried to put the pieces of his hair that he had hidden away, back on his head with tiny pieces of chewing gum, and then sticking it to his forehead. It was imperceptible."

Thank Goodness For Mario Kart
Thank Goodness For Mario Kart

"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.

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."

A Young Hannibal Lecter
A Young Hannibal Lecter

"Not my kid, but my nephew.


You know that disappointed look of 'Oh, it's just clothes' you expect from young children who get clothes as a birthday present? We get that for toys, 'Oh it's just toys.' For his 4th birthday, he wanted a chemistry set and fossils. For Christmas the same year he got an electronics set, he couldn't read the instructions, but sat for hours matching the pieces by appearance to those in the schematics and happily built circuits (it was only basic stuff, like a light bulb and a button to turn it on - but still at 4 and on his own I was pretty impressed). From as early as he could express an opinion, he wanted documentaries on TV rather than cartoons, usually nature or biology but was happy with anything scientific. For bedtime stories, he wanted physiology and anatomy books!

Here's where it gets creepy:








'So I can watch your heart stop.'



Ahh! Monsters!
Ahh! Monsters!

"My 3-year-old daughter loves old monster movies. I was in the habit of putting a movie on while I clean the house. I plugged on King Kong (1933). Next thing I knew, my daughter was enthralled. She couldn't stop creaming, 'Whats that? A Monster!' and she started crying...CRYING when Kong killed a dinosaur. I asked her five 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."

Happy Birthday Cake
Happy Birthday Cake

"About 11 years ago, when my son was 3 years old, we purchased a small affordable starter home. I was getting used to the new surroundings and was just starting to feel safe and secure in our neighborhood. He was a very active boy, but he was an extra boost of espresso. Bedtime was always a challenge - he had a hard time winding down and sleeping. It took HOURS to get him to sleep. I would have to ensure nothing could distract him, having to stay right by him so he wouldn't keep partying all night long.

So there I was at 1 am with no tv, no music, no lights, just darkness. The faint moonlight was shining through his doorway. My son was still wiggling, playing with the shadows with his hands, and mumbling toddler nonsense. As I was running my fingers through his hair, he stopped suddenly and as if he aged 10 years, he clearly said, 'Mom that lady is so sad and wont stop crying.'

I instantly froze. I was too scared to turn around and check. I chose the brave approach and asked, 'What lady?'

In the softest saddest voice he said, 'That lady over there in the light. She is crying because she got burnt on her birthday cake.'

I was paralyzed from fear, but he is my son so I had to pretend we were talking about ice cream. I didn't want to know anymore and was barely able to whisper 'It's late. Time to close your eyes.'

As I lay there, trying to prevent a massive heart attack, my adorable baby boy laid completely still with his eyes closed whispering, 'Happy Birthday Cake, Happy Birthday Cake, Happy Birthday Cake...'"

Kids Say The Creepiest Things
Kids Say The Creepiest Things


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?' or something cute like that.




There's No One Else Like Him
There's No One Else Like Him

"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 4, his 'summer plan' was to teach himself mechanical engineering and physics....I could go on.

When he turned 3, I started to suspect he was 'different.' It scared the doody 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.

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."

She's Always Been A Little Different
She's Always Been A Little Different

"Of my three children, the middle child and only girl is definitely a bit off. I knew she was different than other kids at a young age. Yes she was introverted, artistic, and intelligent, and that explains some of it, but that can't account for it all.

As an infant, she had a 'lovey,' which was not a bear or blanket, but a squishy realistic muskellunge (a hideous fish) 'suck n squirt' bathtub toy. She took it everywhere and slept with it as well. Baby pictures of this angelic little girl with huge blue eyes and curly blond hair inevitably also featured this ugly fish thing that she refused to part with. We have a laugh about it now of course.

As a toddler, my daughter would sometimes hide during playgroup (so well that she could not be found and the police were almost called) and maintain complete silence while everyone went mad looking for her. When asked, she said she was 'playing dead.' At gatherings with friends or family, she'd lurk off to a deserted corner with a single toy, book to read, or paper to draw on rather than enjoy cake or play with friends. I didn't push her to socialize, so we would bring a couple of special toys for her to recluse herself with.

She had toys of all kinds, but zero interest in dolls or action figures. Instead, she preferred rubbery monsters, bugs, and lizards. This never changed over her childhood. If it was within our budget, we bought her whatever she had interest in to keep her well rounded, but as she had brothers, she also had access to their things.

If she didn't have an interesting toy, she brought one in from outside. In these cases, she was told to please put them (any living thing) back outside so it 'can go home to its mother.' I tried not to visibly recoil at the slugs.

At age 3, she declared her Halloween costume was going to be a 'pink and purple flying weasel' and I fortunately had a talented relative who could sew this design. She wore it constantly after Halloween until she outgrew it. Then she carried 'my weasel skin' around as her lovey for another year or so, as it was made of a soft velour.

Once the weasel skin was put away, we thought to indulge her love for the outdoors by staying at a cabin and visiting a trout hatchery. A boy of about 14 walked by with a stringer of fish he had caught. My daughter trots behind him, calling out 'I want to eat the wiggly one!' The boy thought she was cute and indulged her. She intently watched him clean all the fish. He handed her the tail and she put it in her mouth and probably would've eaten the thing had we not intervened.

Then she got the head somehow and stuck her little fingers up inside it and made 'a puppet fish' for herself - never mind the fish gore running down her arm. She and fish head had conversations. The 'fish voice' sounded gravelly and ridiculous. I did get photo evidence of it and that's in her scrapbook (this was all pre-internet).

I let her play with it for about half an hour before insisting she turn it loose 'so someone else can have a turn' (if she had thought I was going to throw it away she would have clung to it for the rest of the trip).

At 6, she insisted her father bring home a dead opossum they'd come across on a trip to the lake so she could bury it. I thought she perhaps felt sad for it, but her motive was to dig it up later for the bones because the opossum 'has a scary skull and I want it for my room.' Ultimately, this did not come to pass, though we did give her space in the garden to plant the dead things she found. I did not buy her a box of dermestid beetles like she requested, but she does have a collection of bones now.

She has always loved Halloween and dressing up as odd things. Never a 'pretty/provocative' costume either. At 8, she wanted to be Samara from the Ring and spent days perfecting a creepy disjointed walk. Another year, she was a plague doctor. It goes without saying that she went as Wednesday Addams. It helped that she was a dead ringer for Christina Ricci. She didn't even have to act for that one.

As a preteen, she finally confessed to having a crush on a character in a Star Wars movie. It was General Grievous. Peer pressure never seemed to afflict her, because you have to care what others think in order to feel the need to conform. Pretty sure there are zero ducks given in that regard.

As an adult, she has no maternal instinct regarding human children, but does find the young of cats and chickens to be cute enough to nurture. She doesn't watch regular television at all and hasn't for years (her own choice). It's not like she was raised without one. She'll watch movies though and gravitates toward the scary/creepy ones.

Right now, she's uninterested in pursuing higher education right now as she watches her older friends graduate in debt and unable to get a job. I'm hoping she'll pursue art. It takes her awhile to get going sometimes. She has a black humor and excellent sense of comedic timing (her nickname for awhile was the Snark Knight). She's fearless about bugs and other vile things, so maybe forensics.

Just to be clear, I did try to raise a normal girl child. She had a quality education, was raised with a library of books in the home, dance and piano lessons, was on the swim team, etc. It seemed though that she was 'different' from birth and it would show itself despite going through the motions of normalcy. She never got creepy enough to cross into 'worrisome' or dangerous behaviors. Her interests are just a part of who she is. I'm not even sure that the rest of the internet nowadays would even find any of this 'weird,' but it was noticeable by friends and family enough to be a conversation starter."

He Lives In The Moment
He Lives In The Moment

"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. He 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. He was 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.

We had to be very careful with movies. If things got sad, like when Bambi's 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.

In 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. He had to have cold blankets aka sheets, at night to cover up. He 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; he said other kids bothered him.

We had him evaluated and yup, he's autistic, not Aspergers because 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.

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. 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."

An Extremely Gifted Kid
An Extremely Gifted Kid

"He didn't really demonstrate any unusual behavior, besides the fact that he was an extremely quiet baby, until around age 8. In less than a year he went from barely reading at grade level to reading at a level his teachers told me would be 'advanced for a college student.' When I asked why he was suddenly so interested in reading, he just said that he'd 'finally found books that interested [him].'

I had my old engineering textbooks in my office, and he started reading some, but knew he didn't understand them. So instead he went to the library and got a bunch of physics textbooks. Then he goes to school one day and explains to his teacher that he's created his own modified design for a hydrogen bomb intended to act as a shaped charge. She calls us, concerned, and I explain that he's just really into physics. He was still 8 years old.

When he was 12, he was conversing with physicists at CalTech (I'd never heard of the school, so I didn't realize until later that this meant much of anything) via email about gravitational warping of spacetime and other things which I do not understand one bit.

Then he wrote a novel 'for fun.' Then he wrote a play. That play has since been performed three times by theater companies in the city where my wife and I live (he's in college now).

He ended up being diagnosed with Asperger's and now he's in college studying more majors than I can keep track of. Last I heard he was working on a treatment for a certain class of brain tumors. Most of his friends there are professors.

I'm an engineer, and this kid makes me feel like Forrest Gump."

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