Dirty childhood stories

People Are Revealing Their Most Frightening Childhood Memories, And These 50 Might Give You The Creeps

I used to hang out at a bookstore/coffeeshop when I was 13-14.

I had many instances of middle-aged women hitting on me. A few offered to take me out for lunch or buy the books I was looking at. One offered to take me back to her place so we could have a dip in her hottub.

I think the thing that creeps me out the most is that female pedophiles have so little fear of getting caught, and feel like its ok to rape a minor just because their a woman.

It also creeps me out that whenever I tell people about this, 20% of the comments are "yeah wow, that's nuts.... so anyway" and 80% of the time its "SO DID YOU F**K THAT MILF BRO?"

If it was 45 year old men asking a 13 year old girl out for lunch or over for a swim in their hottub he'd be the subject of a national manhunt.

Ganglebot Report

I used to swim in the river in our town with my father . Everyone was doing it back then. I was about 7 y.o. and we went to our swimming tour. When we got out i touched something creepy with my foot and asked my dad to check. He pulled out a dead bloated guy. I had nightmares for years

marousha_n , Jan Kopřiva Report

We reached out to Laura Cavanagh, a psychotherapist and psychology professor at Seneca College in Toronto, to learn more about childhood memories and their effect on our lives. "The poet William Wordsworth once said 'the child is the father of the man,' and Sigmund Freud — who is probably the most famous figure in the field of psychology, living or dead — certainly agreed that this was true," she told Bored Panda. "What Freud meant by this was that the early experiences of childhood have a profound, lifelong impact upon us, determining our developmental trajectory and course in life."

Psychotherapist Cavanagh pointed out that the idea of our early years being formative is widely accepted within popular culture, so for many of us, it seems like common sense. But in reality, things are a bit more complicated.

"It is only relatively recently that we have understood the dramatic impact of early childhood experiences," she said. Since memories from our infancy and toddlerhood are pretty patchy, it led many to believe that what happened in that period of our lives is less important compared to events from middle childhood, adolescence, and beyond. "Freud flipped this notion on its head when he theorized that not only were our early years critically important but that they would continue to shape us for the rest of our lives," Cavanagh added.

I don't remember exactly how young I was at the time but it was really young. At the time my parents both worked full time and my very old grandmother lived with us and took care of me during the day. I was an only child at that time. We lived in flats.

Throughout the day grandmother would take long baths and I'd be seated in front of the TV till she got out and played with me. This one time she took much longer than usual. At some point after calling out to her and getting no response, I went to the bathroom door and knocked. When she didn't come out, I went in.

She was submerged to her chin. Her body was twisted. Her face was so contorted it looked like she was in agony. Her lips were completely skewed to one side of her face and her eyes were ... Idk.. just blank. I don't remember what happened next. But whenever my parents recounted the story they say I ran out screaming bloody murder out of the flat. Neighbors heard me, called an ambulance and my parents.

She had a stroke and would be bedridden for the rest of the her life. She died a year or so later I think. It's weird, I can't really remember what she looked like anymore but her face that time stuck with me. Parents told me I didn't speak for weeks afterwards.

ninja-gecko , Danie Franco Report

When I was 8 year's old I was going to the shop near my house and I was about 15 steps away from the shop when an unknown man said to me to shake his hand,I did and then he pulled me and starting dragging me, I was shocked so I couldn't say anything and then a man came asking what was wrong and the unknown man said that I was his son and he didn't give me permission to go to the shop and was taking me home and at that point I lost it,I bit his hand and he let go of me and then I said to him " I don't know you " while running back to my house.

Still haunts me to this day...

I_V_Y007 , Rémi Walle Report

i got my first bikini when i was 5 or 6. i loved that bathing suit. i only got to wear it once because the comments my dad and his friends were making were making me violently uncomfortable.

i didn’t wear another bikini until i was in high school, and my dad still makes comments about my body.

on more than one occasion he’s called me sexy and has mistaken me for not his child when i dress up sometimes and will make comments to other people.

im not sure if this counts as creepy but that’s the first thing that i thought of.

Individual-Leader-22 Report

Studies show that Freud was right. According to the professor, he may have overstated by saying that our destiny was more or less set in stone by the age of five, but was certainly correct about the outsized influence of those early years. "Research in the field of developmental psychology, particularly in areas of infant attachment (which looks at how parent-infant bonding in the first year affects our developmental trajectory), has shown that these early experiences affect us throughout the course of our entire lives. "

When it comes to disturbing and haunting childhood memories, they have a profound effect on our lives. "Whether we consciously remember these events or not, they are stored in our bodies and wired into our brains. They have the power to affect us, even if we aren’t able to recall them consciously. Frightening and traumatic experiences in childhood literally rewire our brain, so these memories have a profound effect on our behavior, even if they remain buried in our unconscious," Cavanagh told us.

I remember when I was about 12 onward I'd randomly wake up in the middle of the night to my (abusive) mother standing in the doorway. She had this look she would give when she was particularly messed up between the alcohol and opioids and sleeping pills she'd mix. It was absolutely satanic. On multiple occasions I would wake up to her just staring at me, but way longer than just to "check" on me. She would just stand there for what seemed like forever, and if I even slightly moved she'd scream at me for being awake and punish me.

One day my dad called me out to the living room and my mother is there looking pretty concerned telling him he was taking things to far. He tells me "Your mom says you've been laying in bed crying at night because you're afraid someone's going to come in your room and kill you? What's that about?"

I was totally confused and just blew it off as one of my mom's drunk/high delusions and told him I absolutely didn't. It wasn't until I was an adult that I realized that whenever my mother said something about someone else, she was projecting. Like she told me for years that she suspected that my dad was cheating on her. She was actually cheating on him.

B***h was probably getting f****d up out of her mind and thinking about killing me in my own bed.

No. We don't talk any more and I've informed her I will use whatever force necessary to remove her from my property if she ever gets it in her head to show up.

crochet4cptsd , Annie Spratt Report

I have vague memories of arriving home, changing out of my school uniform, and immediately going to bed

One of those times my mom checked me out and she saw bruises on my thighs but when she went to talk, the school principal told her not to worry

Eye, my mother couldn't change schools, so easily because I grew up in a rural area

Some time later, my mother made me go to a psychologist and he confirmed to my mom that i had been abused by a school teacher

My brain blocked those memories as a defense

They finally arrested that teacher because my mom, along with other moms, denounced the guy

HelicopterDirect5373 , crayolarabbit Report

I was nearly kidnapped by someone who drove up to my house and tried to entice me to come up to him at his car when I was about 5 or 6. I was playing in the yard by myself. Said he wanted me to show him on a map where a certain street was. Had his car door open and everything. Thank God I went inside to get my mom to help him because he was gone when she and I came back.

Suspicious-Elk-3631 , Ecin Krispie Report

While people say that kids are resilient little creatures, this is not actually the case. There’s often a delayed effect between when a child experiences a stressor and when the result of that stressor is evident. "Freud actually recognized this phenomenon: he said that middle childhood was a 'latency period' where everything seems fine, but you won’t see the impact of negative early experiences until adolescence or beyond."

Cavanagh mentioned an important case of research on the impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) by a physician Dr. Vincent Felitti who noticed that many of his obese adult clients reported abuse in childhood. "His patients recognized that their weight was a problem, but they also spoke of it as having once been a solution (for example, having gained weight to be invisible or to no longer be seen as an object of sexual desire)," she noted.

My brother was murdered by his girlfriend when they where both drunk and high. I was merely 11, by brother had been 17 going on 18. I found him. Beaten to death by her. The creepiest moment of my life will always be seeing him like that. He was just coated in blood, cold, looked afraid. The creepiest part was hearing his last, wheeze of a breath. Its obviously stuck with me. If anyone has any questions, id be happy to answer.

dying-houseplant , lokate366 Report

When I was 10 years old, a new family moved into our neighborhood. They were odd, but I became friends with their daughter, and she'd tell me that her house was haunted. I was intrigued, but given their weirdness, I thought nothing of it. One day, I was playing in the yard with her when a disheveled-looking man came running out their front door, followed by her parents. The man proceeded to run full speed into the woods, with her dad yelling at him. That man had been living in their attic and was keeping it locked from the inside. The dad finally pried it open and chased him off. To this day, I check under, inside, above, behind, and outside every house I have ever lived in and regularly clear corners when I get home.

jamesgravley , Patrick Mueller Report

When I was 16, my room was right at the top of very steep stairs. Like, you're at the top of the stairs, turn right without moving and you're in my doorway. I didn't have an actual door, it was a curtain stapled to the ceiling. My mom is obese and never came up this steep stairs. My mom and step-dad were abusive physically, mentally, and emotional.

Well, im sitting there in my room chillin on the computer, and I looked over because I saw the curtain swing open. My mom was sitting sloppily in the doorway leaning on the side of it. I had no idea at the time, but she was super high from meth and cocaine. Her face was saggy and looked kinda grey and red, she kinda looked half dead and half possessed. I asked her what she was doing there and she responded with "You should have tried harder to kill yourself, you can't even do that right. You're the reason our lives are horrible and your the reason we can't feed your brothers cuz you cost too much money to take care of. You're worthless. A complete waste of space. Try harder next time".

I was used to hearing her say bad things about me, but she had never flat out tell me to try to kill myself again. I was honestly more shocked she was up there in the first place and concerned cuz the way she looked, and me not knowing she was on drugs, I thought she was sleepwalking.

I didn't want her to fall down the stairs, her being in that state so I went over and said "let's get you back downstairs". I went to put my arm around her to help her up and she jerked away while saying " get the FUVK away from me " and then she feel down roughly 40 very steep stairs. I was so scared for her cuz she could have died and she was sitting at the bottom of the stairs just screaming and crying hysterically in pain. From the base of the stairs to the living room where her chair was was about a 10 second walk and it took over an hour and a half for me to carry her (again, she was pretty big) to her chair. No one else helped.

Turns out she broke her ankle in 5 spots. Yikes. A few years ago, I was 25. I had gained alittle more wisdom about the world and the things that happened in my childhood not being normal/so extreme. This was not the first time s**t got crazy. I was used to it. I realized she was on drugs. I confronted her about it and she said yes. I asked her if thats why she said those things and asked if thats why the situation happened and she said im full of s**t, she would never do or say anything so awful to me. It turned into a fight until my brother spoke up, overhearing us. His room was at the top of the staira...walk bout 3 feet forward, instead of turning right and you're in his room....the stairway was right on the edge of his room and mine. He said "Mom. I was there. It happened. I heard the whole thing. I just pretended to sleep." And she was floored.

Now, im turning 28 in 1 week, and at this moment, my mom has been clean for almost 3 years (my birthday is May 1st and her "sober anniversary " is May 17th). Now that's she is drug free she has been the most caring, lovely, genuinely kind soul. We have had dozens and dozens of very productive conversations about our past both individually and collectively. She has divorced my step dad and is living on her own in the same apartment complex as me, actually. She is a volunteer AA and NA (narcotics anonymous) representative, trying to help others now that they helped her so much.

I never thought I'd see the day when I would feel her love. I work in the Emergency Room in a small town and im alone and bored most days. Even today, as I was typing this on my phone at work, I had to put my phone down because she came and surprised me with coffee to help me get through the shift alittle easier, give me hugs and kisses, and a short lovely conversation.

Things are so much better now, but I will never forget that encounter. The whole thing was bad, but I will never forget that half dead, demonic look. It still haunts me, but im so glad its gone.

sharksandsnakesalli Report

Professor Cavanagh, who has extensive experience working with addictions, sees a similar pattern with clients opening up about substance abuse. "They recognize that it has come to a point where it is destroying their lives, but they will often speak of how it started as a coping mechanism that worked for a time – to deal with haunting childhood memories, to cope with pain, or to manage anxiety."

"Felitti's peers were extremely skeptical of his observations, but Felitti was sure he was on to something important. He conducted a large-scale study on the impact of childhood abuse, and, later, other adverse childhood experiences," she continued. "He found that [ACEs] were correlated with a range of negative outcomes in adulthood — outcomes related to physical health, mental health, and psychosocial well-being." If you’re interested in your own ACEs score, be sure to check it out right here.

Used to holiday in the Scottish Highlands. Friends of the family had a cottage there in the middle of nowhere. It was always creepy just because it was so isolated. Anyway, one day I went outside and heard the most unearthly sound I have ever experienced. It sounded like a robot demon cackling insanely while simultaneously crying in agony. It just sounded...wrong. I went inside, white as a sheet, and told my dad. He grabbed a stick (LOL) said "come on!" and set off to find the source. We homed in on the sound and saw it was coming from the area close to the water tank which filled from the stream and supplied the cottage. There was clearly something not from this world stuck inside the tank. We nervously approached and circled the tank. My dad suddenly said "ahhhh" and strides confidently to the tank. Now, I don't fully understand the setup of the water system, but there was some kind of small vent pipe on the tank. A large leaf had got stuck in the pipe and created a reed (like a woodwind instrument) and the tank was acting like a giant amplifier/ reverb chamber. The sound was channeled down the valley the stream was in and straight to the cottage. I can still hear the sound in my head as I type this - absolutely demonic. I still want to know how my dad thought he was going to tackle a slobbering hellbeast with a 3ft stick!

ActiniumNugget Report

Going to the bathroom in a department store. Sat down on the toilet to poop and just had a weird feeling. I bent down to look through a hole in the divider wall and I saw a eyeball staring back.

Konebred , Mario Heller Report

I was in grade 11 and left school a little later than I usually do for no reason that I can remember. As I almost got home I deviated from my usual path home for some reason. I rounded a corner and saw my neighbors little sister talking to a strange man (she was in like grade 5 or 6 at the time)...she looked over and saw me and had this look of extreme relief and screamed my name and ran towards me and hugged me. The man ran away. I never forgot that day and always think about what could have happened. I walked with her when I could to and from school for awhile after that.

thelightningthief Report

"What I find with my clients is that it is not so much that people can’t recall their unpleasant childhood memories, but that they have difficulty contextualizing them. People will minimize what has happened to them, underestimate the seriousness of what they experienced, or compare themselves to someone that they think had it 'worse'. Talking about it helps to put it in context. When people are able to acknowledge a memory as painful, it makes it easier to process how it impacts them today, and how to let it go."

Okay so there’s a few bits of context;

Growing up I looked older than I was but it doesn’t change anything really, I was around 10 but I looked about 11/12.

I usually walked an old lady’s dog at the time, small pug around the block and she was super nice and payed me £1 for it.

I decided to go to my local shop which was only a 5 minute walk from my house.
Some guy came in while I was looking at the sweets and started talking to me, it was a long time ago I can’t remember the conversation but I remember parts of the more creepy bits.

He offered to buy me sweets, and a few fizzy drinks.
And being the glutinous 10 year old I was I accepted, payed around £20 on sweets alone.

He somehow knew I had a much younger sister and asked if she liked Bon-Bon’s I replied that I didn’t know but she probably couldn’t eat them yet.

And then when we got to the drinks he asked “what school do you go to?”

Keep in mind I’m 10, I’m alone at this shop and I didn’t know this guy.

I just pretended I didn’t know, but then he said my school.

“You go to [school]” right?”
My heart dropped for a second since again never seen this man before in my life.
I stupidly (probably put other kids in danger if this man had bad intentions.) said I went to a school down the hill from my actual school.

He then asked where I lived, and then it sorta clicked for me.
If my parents knew who this man was and he lived around the area he’d probably know where I stayed so why did he ask?
I replied next to the train station (opposite) and again he replied with another answer that scared me.

“I’ve seen you walking from [my street]”

As a 10 year old I was terrified not only from the fact 1. Why would he spend £20 on sweets alone (all together the drinks,sweets, crisps came to almost £30) but why is he asking questions to me, someone he didn’t know expecting an answer he knew.

I nervously laughed and once he payed he asked if I wanted him to walk me home since it was late.
(It was mid summer between 7-9pm so still light enough I could see)
I declined and told him my dad was waiting for me.

I walked down a certain street that turns to the trainstation but also turns to my actual street, also the same street friends, and other people who knew me lived so I felt more safe.

He did however walk me to the start of the street, but before the turn I said my dad was at the end waiting for me in his car.

I ran home, never talked about it to my mum.
She did question me about where I had gotten the stuff from I lied and said I found money.

Never saw him again, like EVER so I assume he didn’t even live near me.

Might not be super creepy but still creepy enough to myself to wonder wtf he was doing.

Aveble , Nielson Caetano-Salmeron Report

When I was about 14 years old I was home alone while my parents were out visiting some friends. Around 9:30 at night, I suddenly hear some voices downstairs. I knew all the doors were locked and no one besides my parents could get in, so I was afraid the house was broken into, so I start to listen. It sounds like at least a dozen people having some sort of dinner party, though I can't make out exactly what they're saying. I make it halfway down the stairs, and I still hear the voices all talking. Finally I yell out "hello" and all the voices instantly stop and I didn't hear anything again.

Craziest thing I've ever experienced.

Dork_Helmet , Ewan Yap Report

I always had this early childhood memory of a time we went to visit some family in Florida. I don’t know how old I was, but somewhere between 6-8 years old I think. I went on a walk around the block with my uncle, and he said something like “hey my friend lives here, let’s stop in and say hi for just a minute.” The next memory I have we are in the living room, the furniture, carpet etc is all that very 80s brown/green/mustard earth tones, and it is dimly lit because the curtains are closed. I’m sitting on the couch being bored or something while my uncle talked to this guy, not paying attention until I could hear my uncle’s voice getting louder. I hear his friend saying something like “come on man I’ll trade you an 8 ball for an hour with the kid.” It stuck out in my mind because I knew what an “8 ball” was in the context if the magic type, and didn’t understand why this guy wanted to give one to my uncle. My uncle seemed mad and I didn’t understand that either, and we left right after. I don’t remember talking about it with my uncle, I think because I could tell he was mad and that confused and scared me.

My uncle had a crack and cocaine problem that eventually gave him a heart attack and killed him when I was about 19, and it wasn’t until then that the memory clicked into place and I realized what had actually almost happened to me. I have no idea why my uncle thought it was a good idea to bring a kid to a pick up, but I’m grateful he didn’t pimp me out. Yikes.

YaBoyfriendKeefa , Siavash Ghanbari Report

She stressed that trauma is defined more by the effects it has on a person than its outward features. "Of course, its effects depend on the person who experiences the event — their particular psychological vulnerability and neurological wiring. Because children’s perceptions are filtered through their own context, events may be traumatic because of how they were presented to a child — either explicitly or implicitly."

For example, if a child loses a pet as a result of an accident, it may not be traumatic in nature. "While sad, it is a normative event, part of the ups and downs of life," Cavanagh explained. But if the child is blamed for the accident, the guilt and shame they experience may be overwhelming and can lead to trauma and a lasting psychological impact. "It is not so much about the loss of the pet, but the context surrounding the experience. So while the person might say, as an adult, 'well, lots of people lose a pet in childhood,' the reality is that not many people face ongoing hostility and blame from their family around this loss. It is the context surrounding the event that can lead it to be traumatogenic."

Walking with my grandmother at night along a gravel road close to where she lives out in the country. We where heading home to my grandparents house. 6 year old me turn to my grandmother and ask who the lady who ran across the road behind us was. She turns around, see nobody and ask me to describe her. Down to a tee I describe a cruel woman who used to live not far away who was now 10 years dead.

I didn't live there so I didn't think much about it but according to my grandfather, my description of the lady I had seen was so on point that my grandmother never walked alone there after dark. That was 29 years ago and she still refuses to walk that road alone at night.

ValkyrieUNIT , Pat Whelen Report

When I was around 3 years old I fell into a 44 gallon drum filled with water that me and my little friend were looking into, I remember it being a beautiful sunny day and how clear the water looked.
Apparently my friend somehow pulled me out after I fell in but honestly I don't know how another 3 year old could do it, I don't remember anything else about it, I'm not sure where mum was and dad was at work.
For years I had nightmares about rust coloured clouds ballooning up, dark rusty clouds....it took me 30 years before I clicked it was the rust being stirred up by me trying to get out of that drum.

IfHomerWasGod , Amritanshu Sikdar Report

Me and my two friends build a "treehouse" in the forest, near our houses. It wasn't really a treehouse, since it was on the ground, but good enough to play. We were all about 6-7 y.o. and this happened around spring because there was snow on the forest.

We were playing and I went outside of our treehouse to gather something and saw a man about 50 meters away from us. NBD, there's plenty of trails and people jogging, walking their dogs and so on, so I didn't think much of it and went back to our treehouse.

He followed me and I didn't catch him.
We were playing and he came to look our treehouse, complimenting it and kneeled to the "door". Then he asks if he could show us something and pulls his d**k out. He asks if we want to touch it, go on, you can touch it. We wouldn't. Then he "peed" in front of us and I remember thinking how strange it was that his pee wasn't yellow, it was white.

We told him to leave and I think he might heard some dogwalker, because he left. We went home and told one of our dads about that man and he called straight to the cops. Me, being the oldest, descripted his clothes to the police and they went on looking. Sometime later cops called back to my friend's dad and said they might have caught the guy, would the kids be able to ID him? We looked at the balcony, but it wasn't him. IIRC they never caught him.

I don't think it traumatized me or anything, because nothing really happened and I was too little to understand anything besides that peeing someone else's treehouse was rude. As an adult I have realized what he did back there and ran some scenarios thru my head what COULD have happened. It's been nearly 30 years and I can still see his smile when he looked us, and it kinda creeps me, because that smile wasn't anywhere near normal. I remember what he looked like and what he was wearing.

Peikkotytto , Linus Bohman Report

After all, the first step of the healing process is admitting they impacted our lives by sparking fears or causing a toll on our mental health. Because when we bring hurtful memories to light, they lose their power. "When we talk about our traumatic experiences, it moves those memories from the 'survival' part of our brain to our logical, rational cortex. It doesn’t mean that those memories are no longer painful, but they don’t have the power to send us into fight-flight-or-freeze anymore."

When I was fourteen I was on my way to swim practise when a lady asked me for directions to wherever the f**k, I can't remember.

I was a dumb, stupid, naive dumbfuck who didn't question why the f**k she later asked me what my name and age was. I've never, ever told strangers my name, I give whatever fake name pops into my head, but when I said that I was fourteen she turned to the man she was with (her boyfriend) and said, "She is fourteen." in spanish. (I spoke the most basic of spanish back then).

He replied something I didn't understand, but I got this really uncomfortable feeling so I said, "Sorry, I need to get to training." and rushed away. I memorized what he said then called my (hispanic) friend and asked what it meant.

She said, "It means, "s**t, too old."

Bro, I've never been so terrified in my f*****g life. Even now, almost nine years later, if some random stranger asks for directions while I'm out I give the quickest answer I can then f**k off. I don't f**k with random people outside anymore

MyUsernameIsMehh Report

When I was in elementary school (probably 8 or 9), we were all on the playground. Probably like 100 kids throughout all the outdoor areas of the playground, teachers, etc. basketball court, jungle gym, random field areas, etc. middle of the day at recess. Bright and sunny and not a cloud in the sky.

I was looking across the playground and all of the sudden there was one “flash” where everyone was running inside in unison, and then almost immediately, another flash where everybody was f*****g GONE, not a single other soul on the playground, and the sky was suddenly very dark and cloudy and stormy, and at the second “flash” there was an extremely loud crack of Thunder that rumbled and echoed for what seemed like minutes. It was clearly later in the day and I was so f*****g confused.

I made my way back to the classroom and it was probably 5 minutes before the final dismissal bell rang. The teacher was asking me where had I been? And I got in trouble.

I’m guessing I fell asleep or something but holy s**t man. I’ve never experienced anything like that before or since.

Umbra427 , Dave Sherrill Report

I'd legitimately blacked it out, because it was so traumatic, but as an adult, a beloved aunty brought it up for some unfathomable reason, and ever since, I can't forget it.

When I was small, like still in diapers small, my working mother had to hire out babysitting for me while she went to work to earn a living. Sometimes, my grandmother would pick me up from said babysitter's and take me home where we all three lived. This day, my grandmother noticed that I was sullen and more taciturn than usual. I now know I was autistic, but rural Indiana in the 70s, no one knew what autism was. She reached across the bench seat in the car to try to touch me and I recoiled. When she got me home, she checked me up and found bruising all up under my diaper. Like serious bruising. Sexual assault bruising. She took me to the same hospital where I was born, and I guess my mom met us there. I don't remember any of the exam, or the abuse itself. I just remember the "babysitter's boyfriend" as the culprit. It was later discovered that he was A.W.O.L. from the Army (this was after Vietnam), and eventually disappeared from the area altogether.

I remember taking college classes and learning that in our lifetimes, 20% of women will have experienced at least one sexual assault. I wondered why that statistic bothered me so damn much. Now, I know, it's because I didn't make it out out diapers before mine.

GunzAndCamo Report

"In addition, there are effective psychotherapeutic treatments for traumatic stress disorders. Cognitive processing therapy (CPT), prolonged exposure therapy, and eye movement desensitization & reprocessing (EMDR) are evidence-based interventions that show excellent outcomes in trauma treatment," she said, stressing the importance of finding an experienced provider to lead you through your journey.

When I was a kid, I was misdiagnosed with cerebral palsy, and my parents took me to the "psychic" - some weird middle aged guy in a shabby flat who promised to help my condition. I remember him touching my neck and pulling my ears, and it really hurt, I was scared and wanted go home. I don't remember how it ended, but apparently after just two or three seances my dad went to this guy's house and seriously beat him up.

the_amateon , Caleb Woods Report

When I was 9 or 10 I was laying in my bed wish was next to my (open) window, I was about to fall asleep when I heard inconsistent foot steps like someone had a limp, I thought it was my dad as he had a tendency to to get up at night and have a smoke and he also had a limp from a football injury so I brushed it off when I heard it again I started to wonder what it was and when it got closer to my window and stopped I freaked out and slipped under my blankets after maybe 5/6 minutes the noise moved away from my window it kept going on for an hour or two. The next morning I asked my parents if they went for a walk last night neither of them did, when I told them what happened they shot each-other a terrified look and told me to keep my window locked from then on

Sid_the_gay_sloth , Vojtěch Prouza Report

Someone rang once as I was getting out of the shower and so I answered the phone in a towel and a shower cap. The caller started saying disgusting things to me. I froze until he said he could see me and I realised he couldn’t see me because then he’d know how hilarious I looked so I told him to f**k off and hung up

But man I was frozen in fear for a while there. I think I was 11

zeldasusername , Jakayla Toney Report

While opening up about our past experiences helps us cope with their impact, there’s a certain sense of fascination that draws people to consume these stories. The professor told us there’s no doubt we want to soak in the mysterious and dark elements of life. "This is really a cross-cultural phenomenon that stands over historical time: people like to get a little freaked out! Some evolutionary psychologists say that sharing horror stories helps to promote the survival of our species: we get to warn people how to avoid or survive danger without them actually having to be in harm’s way. We get to learn how to cope in the face of fear, in the absence of an actual threat to our survival," Cavanagh concluded.

My dad and I (probably 8 at the time - too big for a booster seat, too small for the front seat so I was still in the back) were driving home from something. It was a two-lanes-each-way divided highway and there were a lot of tractor trailers. My dad went to pass one, but we ended up getting boxed in. And it wasn’t just a slow-truck-slowly-passing-another-truck thing, it went on long enough that it was clearly on purpose. So here we are, one truck purposely going slow in front of us, one blocking the side of us, and our “open side” was against solid rock as they tried to push us off the road. I remember my dad being freaked out and trying to get the license plates of the trucks to give to the police, who he couldn’t call at the moment because we were in a cell phone dead zone. I looked up from the book I was reading and made eye contact with one of the drivers - he had a big white beard and looked straight at me with sinister smile that, had I not already stopped believing in Santa Claus, would’ve made me scared of Christmas.

Eventually we got to a town and were able to get into a parking lot, where my dad called the police. We waited ten minutes or so to get distance from the trucks, then got back on the road and thankfully didn’t cross them again.

poachels , Rene Schwietzke Report

I remember about a few DAYS ago, I was being the average 14 year old. Listening to songs and playing video games. When I heard a set of footsteps in my kitchen. It was 3:00 AM and everyone was asleep. I didn't hear a door open or anything. I just heard footsteps. I open my door look left and right. Then I decide that I'm being stupid, and get some food. But then I heard footsteps going down the stairs. So I rush to my front windows look outside, and I see someone running away from my house.
Literally the scariest s**t

New_Willingness7714 Report

A man yanked me off a swing in a play park (my Dad had taken my brother to pee). Luckily my dog reacted, snapping her lead she barked and snapped at him, he bolted.

Waste_Isopod3368 Report

I was walking through the woods with a couple of friends and we came across a clearly abandoned car, I have no clue how it even got there, it was deep in the woods. We were all kinda creeped out, but I decided to go in for a closer look. Some of the windows were smashed, some were covered in filth & grime. I peeped through a smashed window and saw what was distinctly a human leg. I screamed and ran, we all ran and never went back.

I never told anyone, but I still think about it all the time.

HuffleSlut_ , Patti Black Report

I woke up and it felt like someone or something was on top of me stopping me from being able to move or breathe. i could hear heavy breathing but it wasn't mine. on top of this, i could not move how hard i tried. i kept trying to say 'go away' but no words could come out. when i eventually was able to move i relaxed again and felt the pressure again and heard the heavy breathing that wasnt mine. i had to get out of bed after that. still to this day i remember it clearly. sleep paralysis is something else. whats more is later that day i was walking to school and i see a man covered in blood on the pavement. needless to say that day was the creepiest day ive ever experienced.

Specialist_Salt7974 , Annie Spratt Report

I only vaguely remember this but my family remember it well

I was very small, maybe about 4/5 and I lived with my mum and my Nan. My nan rushed out of the house one day and came back a few hours later.

I was sat on the stairs when she came in and I could see my auntie Rita behind her waving at me but she wasn’t speaking. I asked nan why Rita was with her..

She had gone to the hospital. Rita had died an hour previously. Still gives me the heeby jeebies to this day

Lalasunshine91 Report

Had a regular babysitter that I still know and despise until this day for shady behavior, when I was small (no idea when because of how small I was but I think under 5y/o?) he used to grip me by the sides of my head and swing me around until I was crying so hard he would slap me "for being upset. "

At 16 I found out I had a brain injury most people are BORN with that had no logical explanation.

I went though years of extensive therapy and ended up remembering a lot of horrible stuff, including that. Made the connection, talked to my neurologist who had been trying to solve my migraines for almost a decade at that point, and it was too late to fix it with surgery. So, now I have a brain injury that could kill me with no notice for no f*****g reason.

Thanks, Anthony.

ETA; I experienced a lot of abuse that was ignored or accepted at the time by my mom. I was unable to remember a lot of my life before this particular immersion therapy.

TheTastySpoonicorn , Kelli McClintock Report

(We are gonna name the friend nick.)

I was about 5 or 6. And I was in my room dead asleep and I heard something being pushed off my tv stand and I sat up and saw my brother's friend which was my friend. But he looked f****d up. Not drunk. Well a little. But his left side of his head was bashed in and his face was a bloody cut up mess. His clothes were ripped and dirty with dirt and blood and his right arm looked broken because it was bent at his elbow and his forearm. I said "Nick? It's bed time I need to sleep!" (He was always a trickster so I thought he was planting a prank.) But he managed a smile. I vividly remember his words and his voice sounded like he was near sobbing "You aren't going to see me anymore. Tell your family I said hi, please?" And I nodded and he just stared at me for a minute. "Go back to bed. Goodnight *my name*" And I said goodnight and rolled over and just assumed he left. The next morning my dad sat me on the kitchen counter and told me Nick had died in a car crash.

The car crash was not his fault though if you were wondering. Him and his two "friends" were at a party with other people up in the mountains at a camp site. They had a truck where the back seats were turned to face eachother. They put blacked out him in the back and started to drive down the road which had a cliff off to one side. They drove the truck off and they ditched. Truck rolled and crushed him. They dragged his body out a good 50 yards into the woods and left him there.

imherewhyidontknow Report

I was 9 years old. I lived in a small town far from the city, where we all knew each other. Summer was cold, rainy and windy. It was a rainy day and I was in my bed, until I heard a loud noise coming from outside. It was like a gunshot or a firework. I went out to check and noticed that on the glass was written "run, watch out for her" I thought it was a joke from a friend or smthng, but when I came out I heard a loud scream coming from my parents' room. I went as fast as I could, but they were just sleeping. I woke them up scared and told them what happened. My mother went with me to look at the letters on the glass, while my father went to get his gun. When we went, the glass was just badly fogged up and there was nothing written on it. My mother thought it was a dream, but I swear I heard that strange sound and saw that sentence written on it. My mother started to become more distant, until one day she left the house. Only a few months ago I was informed that my mother was in an asylum and had committed several crimes. It was the most surreal thing that ever happened to me.

(I used translator, sorry if the english is bad, and this is a true story just its very sumed up)

RevolutionaryEvent79 Report

The park down the street my mom took us to play and walk the dogs....it was large with some very isolated areas that became the woods once you took certain paths. We lived in a bad neighborhood but I didn't really understand that. Lots of creepy s**t went down there but we never stopped going and generally went almost daily.

Some examples....

A certain isolated section was a hangout for paint sniffers. They would lay in tall grass and get high so you couldn't see them unless you were basically on top of them. They were sketchy, disheveled, high as f**k and usual had metallic paint on their hands and faces. Hearing spray paint cans rattle still gives me chills.

There was what looked like a kids stick fort but was clearly where a homeless person was living... Obviously homeless people aren't inherently creepy but my mom let us play in it amoung their things. That was irresponsible, potentially dangerous and rude. We never saw the person or people living there somehow. But I wonder if they saw us?

We came across several sort of traps on the paths to the fort though. Metal wires strung across the path fastened to branches at neck height....sharp sticks stuck up in the ground... Stuff like that.

This was in the Midwest and there was a lake right there too, so when it iced over during the winter we walked on it but my mom also let us walk on it when it started to thaw. I remember walking on it seeing the water bubble and move underneath and feeling how soft the thawing ice felt. I was nervous but I didn't fully know better or how incredibly dangerous this was.

One year there was a serial killer operating in the area and the secluded woodsy place was where he was burning and dumping the bodies of his victims. We still went there all the time.

Looking back I low-key wonder if my mom was like trying to kill us. Like not really but kind of. She was in a terribly abusive relationship and when I think about her life then she must have been really unhappy. Aside from what I'm describing here she was a great mom who was incredibly loving and responsible but this all makes me absolutely cringe and get goosebumps when I think back on it.

Connie_Damico Report

When I was about 9 or 10, there was a child abductor and murder that was in the local news. Both of my parents were local police officers, my dad was working on the case, I think. My parents talked about it a lot in passing. One thing they specifically talked about was the white van with a circular window on the side of the van.
Well during that time, I was in a knee brace due to recurrent knee dislocations. However I was an active child, so I didn’t let it keep me from going out anywhere. Well one day I decided to go with my sisters and their friends to collect paper money for our paper route. Well as we were walking, me limping, a white van with the circular window passed by our group. The first time we didn’t think of it because we lived on a main road. After the 3rd time seeing it, we all got a little scared. My sisters and their friends were saying how they can just make a run for it, they’ll be fine. At that point, I started sobbing cause I knew I wouldn’t get away cause of my knee. My sisters ended up walking me home and told me to lock the door, then they left me by myself.
I remember spending the next couple hours avoiding windows and doors, in case the van saw where I lived. It was pretty terrifying as a child. When I think about it now, I wonder how much my sisters might have exaggerated what they saw in order to scare me, so they wouldn’t have me tagging along.

SioMac81 Report

This story is not paranormal, but still freaked me out.

When I was 4 or 5, my parents would take me to my grandpas house every weekday so I wouldn’t be home alone. My grandma had work, but she would come pick me up around the time my sister got out of school so we could both go home. My sister wasn’t feeling well one day, so we both went to my grandparents house. Everything was normal for a few hours, he made us breakfast and turned on cartoons for us. My sister wanted to watch something else so she turned around to him and asked him to put on her favorite show. He didn’t respond. He had a weird look on his face, like he was spaced out but angry at us at the same time. He clearly wasn’t himself. It was only a bit unsettling, so my sister asked him again. He started making groaning sounds, like he wasn’t fully aware of what was happening. My sister got up and dragged me down the hall. We had to pass by his chair and when we did he grabbed my arm. It wasnt like a playful thing, he was holding on tight. It hurt really bad so I tried to get away. I eventually did and we continued running down the hall. We got into the bathroom and my sister said he was playing a game. She said he was a zombie and we need to find a cure for him while staying hidden. We stayed in the bathroom for ten minutes and then we tip toed back. He was totally normal when we got back and it seemed like he had no memory of what just happened.
This happened again when I was alone with him. I didn’t know how to use a phone because I was so little, so I just grabbed his flip phone and hid behind his chair. I tried to call someone but I obviously couldn’t. I had to sit behind his chair while listening to him make that scary groaning sound. My grandma eventually came home and he was just suddenly normal again.

My family says he has a sickness. They call it a seizure, but I’ve tried looking for a seizure that has similar symptoms to the way he acts when he has them, but I’ve had no luck. Looking back, it probably isn’t that scary, but it has stuck with me for a long time.

Low_Sherbet_8150 Report

Being in the bath with my disgusting stepdad and my mum and my brother. All in one bubble bath. I must’ve been about 3 and I distinctly recall not liking it, feeling weird and not wanting to be naked around the stepdad. My mum maintains that this “didn’t happen” … but it did.

BeEccentric , Thomas Despeyroux Report

I was riding bikes with two friends on a road that cars rarely drove on. We were all boys and about 13 years old.

An old guy in a van slows down next to us and says in a slow voice, "hey, I know your parents wouldn't want you to accept money from strangers... But it's ok this time." He had some cash in his hand and showed it to us.

We declined a noped the f**k outta there

Adriendo , unsplash.com Report

I used to have a lot of febrile spasms, and some of them were quite dangerous. I vividly remember waking up in a hospital, with a green curtain around my bed, thinking I was dead. Then I realized people talking, I recognized the voice of my mum and tried to make some noise but I just wasn't able to. It felt like they didn't care, while in hindsight they were discussing further procedures to deal with the situation, thinking that there is no way I would be awake considering the data they had from my medical assessments.

FaKeDerEchte , Hush Naidoo Jade Photography Report

Went to my friends grandads when we were like 12. He had painting of huge c***s in chains and stuff all over the walls. Needed to go and he tried to lock me in. I was crying so much and he was saying "everything was fine until "FagnusTwatfield" started being an arsehole. My friend (who was defintly in hindsight being abused) begged him to let me go) he relented and even got me a black cab home with him in it (as I type this probably to find out where I lived) the kicker ? My mum said I deserved it.

That's the abridged version.

FagnusTwatfield Report

I was in Kindergarten and my family had just gotten back from Disneyland..so it was pretty late. I remember being in my room I shared with my brother, when our dad asked me to go back downstairs, retrieve an item ( can’t remember what) from the duffle bag on the table, and bring it back upstairs. I comply. When I get to the duffle bag, it begins to violently move—as if something was trapped inside and was desperately trying to get out. I was horrified and ran back upstairs. When I returned without the item—my dad was upset and went down and got it. My mother asked what was wrong and I told her. She tried to say it was the cat..but the cat was with my brother when I left the room AND when I returned.. when I said this, she attributed it to me still being half asleep from the car ride home.

I know what I saw.

DitaVonTz , Broughampromo Report

In my old hometown, we weren't allowed to play out of the yard. The highway was at one end and the bayou at the other. Like alligators walking down the road was a normal occurrence ya know?

So anyway, there was a girl who would ride her bike up and down the road and we'd chit chat. She was maybe.....7? 8? I know I was like 5 or 6, we weren't too far apart. Anyway, she would come and talk and then we would part. Sometimes she came with other kids, sometimes not.

One day, she invites me to her birthday party. I saw I have to ask my mom if I can go. She said she lived a couple houses down, no big deal. Mom says no. You don't know her, she doesn't live on this street, etc. I was upset, so unfair, she's my friend! I never saw her again and thought she was mad at me.

I went back to visit family and brought up this story with my mom and aunt about how weird it was I never saw her after that. They got really quiet and my aunt tells me that there was a girl by that name who was found in this guy's house along with a bunch of other kids. He did awful things to them and they died.

Here's where it's creepy: they would have been dead by the time I was talking to them. I never felt so cold and we all agreed to never talk about it again

adorablecynicism Report

Nearly died with my kid neighbor on a sled when we were little, Somehow it veered off into the road and the car almost didn’t stop. Realized I was ok with dying, and shielded the kid because there wasn’t enough time to throw her off the sled without her getting seriously injured.

GloomyFrogs Report

So... I nearly got kidnapped

And My least favourite teacher saved me.
Basically I was late leaving from my school so no other kids were around.
Then a man came up to me and offered to bring me to the sweet shop I said no but he urged and urged me. My teacher was on the other side of the parking lot when she noticed and kept her eye on me.
And he kept looking over to see if my teacher was gone yet but she stayed to make sure I was there.
Eventually I walked over to her to try to detour the man and it worked.

I didn't really understanding the implications of what could of happened since I was 7 but this now scares me to think about

Edit:I forgot to finish story but I actually went to the sweet shop after once I saw him leave lol
Which probably wasnt smart but eh all for sweets amirite

Edit: For full stops

AgshSA Report

Okay, I probably never have ever told this to anyone. So. I'm kindergarden aged, family is at home at the evening, I am in the hall, probably hear something or want someone to pay attention to me or something, so I open the door leading to the kitchen and I see my dad and brother, who must have been around 16, holding my mom by her arms and legs, bending down and... like... banging her to the floor. Mum has a painful expression on her face, dad and bro are looking serious, concentrating, not violent or anything, but the process itself looked pretty violent to me. I look at them in terror and say: Hey...Don't fight... Dad tells me to go back to the hall, I get back, just sit there in the dark alone, listen to mom wailing, and... Fifteen years later I still have no clue what the hell that could have been. Physical violence or abuse or anything never really occured in our family when I was young, and even when it did later it wasn't that tipe, and if I asked them now they would propaply say wtf am I talking about.

But really, what COULD that be? Is there any sort of medical aid thechnike like that or what?

Sorry for typos and/or bad English.

Current_Complaint703 , Sharon McCutcheon Report

I’ve lived in a small mountain town in Colorado for 17 years. when my friends and I got our licenses, we’d drive around in the mountains when we got bored. This one area we went to frequently is beautiful, but it’s known to be pretty sketchy—people shoot guns in the wrong areas, there’s a lot of drug use when people party, and bodies have been occasionally found back there. We were driving around one night when we suddenly passed a man walking on the road. It was weird because we hadn’t seen him in the headlights initially, it was more like he appeared out of nowhere as we were passing him. I thought he was walking a little weird as I looked back at him so I asked my friend to stop, maybe he was hurt or something. He paused for like 10 seconds when we stopped, and then he started RUNNING at the vehicle. Not a “oh s**t let me catch up to them real quick” jog with a wave or anything like that, a full blown sprint like he had a personal vendetta against us. It freaked us out and my friend hit the gas again. We did call the police just to make sure we didn’t leave him in danger, but didn’t hear anything else about it.

And this is more lighthearted, but when the game Until Dawn first came out, I was freshly living alone in my own place for the first time at 22. I was PETRIFIED of the dark for weeks after watching the playthrough. I had to start sleeping with a light on because I was having nightmares, and I was genuinely so terrified of the monsters in that game potentially busting in through my sliding door windows. I couldn’t even bring myself to move around in my bed to adjust and get comfortable. I knew it was ridiculous but just couldn’t shake that fear for weeks.

EuphorbiasOddities Report

won’t forget this. i was getting ready for bed one night, mom was in the living room watching her show, and as i’m laying down i heard someone whisper my name as if they were directly in my face. it was pitch black and my door was closed so i instantly yelled for my mom, and when i told her what happened she said “it might’ve been me saying something to myself”, which would make sense since she was watching her show, but idk. it honestly felt LITERALLY in my face

anon , Go to Di_An_h's profile Di_An_h Report

I have a memory of tall man wearing a red and blue paisley suit appearing, watching, and telling me that everything was okay. I have never seen this man in my life but I think it might be a ghost that supposedly follows my mom. It was creepy and scary but it would always calm me down upon awakening. I still see him in my dreams today usually in times when I'm extremely stressed and depressed, which is all the time but usually when it peaks, it still calms me down and make me feel better when I wake up. I might write a song about it sometime.

anon Report

Note: this post originally had 78 images. It’s been shortened to the top 50 images based on user votes.

Low Down Dirty Shame | Confessions

Every adult has a horrific, gut wrenching, hell dwelling, embarrassing story from their childhood that has made them wish the neuralyzer from Men in Black was real. I happen to have one of those stories, so buckle up and prepare to have cringeworthy feelings arise. This all started when I was fifteen, at which point my was relatively boring, I had had a few embarrassing moments occur but most of which I was able to repress. Until that point, I pretty much had a handle on my life, as a kid I got hospitalized a lot with one sickness or another, or some new found allergy that had arisen.

So this all starts on a Wednesday night having dinner with my family. It also happens to be my dad’s birthday, so my mom was cooking a storm in the kitchen, all my dad's favorite food: rice, twice baked potato, pork loins, and spicy tilapia. I already knew to stay away from the pork loins as I found out years back that I was allergic to pork. If I ate pork, my lips would swell up, having me resemble a Bratz doll or someone who went a little too far with the lip injections to have a permanent pout when I pose. But I digress, so i decided to dig into the other foods at the table. At this point, I was pretty sure I was only allergic to pork, milk, eggs and dust mites, and none of those were on the table despite the pork so I dug into everything else. This happens to be my first time trying tilapia, I frankly was not a seafood fan so I never had tilapia before , so I tried it and to my surprise it was delectable. So delectable in fact, that I had second helpings, enjoying every bite. After dinner, my mom brought out a cake which my family all enjoyed ( not me, milk and egg allergy you recall), so we sang happy birthday and we were off to bed as it was a school night.

The rest of the night went by peacefully, until a sudden itching began around my privates but I was far too involved in getting a good night's rest to pay it any mind. The itching persisted, and in retrospect I should have given it more attention but I just wanted sleep.The itching died down, so i'm thinking it was probably my pajamas, my body was not used to the fabric or something. Suddenly my alarm rings, and I wake up to get ready for school, so I head to the bathroom completely disregarding the slight itch in my pants. I feel the need to relieve myself so I head to the toilet and pee without looking down completely oblivious to the itching. Finally I decided to look down, and a shiver went down my spine, because I realised what was causing the itching.

My penis had swollen all around, and suddenly felt the itching a bit more intensely. I let a scream, alarming my mom. She comes to the bathroom to know what was happening, at which point I beg her to get my dad, forgetting he had already left for work. She explains he has left and what was the problem. I refused to tell her, which only raised the panic of the situation. Now I’m freaking out and so is she,and without an alternative, I decided to tell her about my predicament. My mom, as calmly as possible,says she needs to see it in order to understand the situation, to which I adamantly refuse. She says it's not a big deal to show her as she has already seen me naked as a baby, to which I retort that there have been some changes since then and I was not going to allow to see them. She then states that she has to see it to know if she should call an ambulance, it may not be as serious as I think. With no alternative, I opened the bathroom door and with all the power within me, I showed her my mom...everything. At which point my mom, without showing an emotion decides we should try the Epipen first and if it doesn’ go down, we will hed to the doctor. She brought the Epipen, to which I demanded to do myself ( trying to reclaim a piece of my masculinity and shame that I had lost), which she obliged.

I spent the rest of the day avoiding eye contact with her, wishing a meteor would just strike me where I stood. If it was possible to die from embarrassment, I’m pretty sure I would be on a slab in the morgue with a baffled medical examiner. On the plus side, I got to skip school and my mom never mentioned the ordeal to anyone, at least I hope not, I could never come back from the shame if anyone else knew.

Modern children's stories • Arzamas

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Materials

Arzamas for classes with schoolchildren! A selection of materials for teachers and parents

Everything you can do in an online lesson or just for fun

Cartoons are festival winners. Part 2

Tales, parables, experiments and absurdity

A guide to Yasnaya Polyana

Leo Tolstoy's favorite bench, greenhouse, stable and other places of the museum-estate of the writer worth seeing with children boys named Petya

Migrants: how to fight for your rights with the help of music

Hip-hop, carnival, talking drums and other non-obvious ways

Old records: fairy tales of the peoples of the world

We listen and analyze Japanese, Italian, Scandinavian and Russian fairy tales

videos: The ISS commander asks the scientist about space

VR, sunbeams, jelly and spice cartoons

Play the world's percussion instruments

Learn how the gong, marimba and drum work and build your own orchestra

How to put a performance

shadows, reading and other home performance options for children

Soviet rebuses

Well-ups children's puzzles of the 1920-70s

22 cartoons for the smallest

What if you are not six

From "The Wild Dog Dingo" to "Timur and his team"

What you need to know about the main Soviet books for children and adolescents

A guide to children's poetry of the 20th century

From Agnia Barto to Mikhail Yasnov: children's poems in Russian

10 books by artists

The pages of tracing paper are Milanese fog, and the binding is the border between reality and fantasy

How to choose a modern children's book

“Like Pippi, only about love”: explaining new books through old ones

Verbal games

"Hat", "telegrams", "MPS" and other old and new games

Games from classic books

What the heroes of the works of Nabokov, Lindgren and Milne play

Plasticine animation: Russian school

From "Plasticine Crow" to plasticine "Sausage"

Cartoons - winners of festivals

"Brave Mom", "My Strange Grandfather", "A Very Lonely Rooster" and others

Non-fiction for children

How the heart beats whale, what's inside the rocket and who plays the didgeridoo - 60 books about the world around

Guide to foreign popular music

200 artists, 20 genres and 1000 songs that will help you understand the music of the 1950s-2000s

Cartoons based on poems

Poems by Chukovsky, Kharms, Gippius and Yasnov in Russian animation

Home games

Shadow theater, handicrafts and paper dolls from children's books and magazines of the 19th-20th centuries

Books for the smallest

0 to 5: read, look at, study

Puppet animation: Russian school

Amorous Crow, Imp No. 13, Lyolya and Minka and other old and new cartoons

Smart coloring books

Museums and libraries offer to paint their collections

Reprints and reprints of children's books

Favorite fairy tales, novels and magazines of the last century, which can be bought again

What can be heard in classical music by voices,

4 cuckoos and night forest sounds in great compositions of the 18th–20th centuries

Soviet educational cartoons

Archimedes, dinosaurs, Antarctica and space — popular science cartoons in the USSR

Logic problems

Solve the wise men's dispute, make a bird out of a shirt and count kittens correctly

Modern children's stories

The best short stories about grandmothers, cats, spies and knights

why you can't lie down on the edge. Bonus: 5 lullabies by Naadya

Musical fairy tales

How Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Prokofiev work with the plots of children's fairy tales

Armenian School of Animation

The most rebellious cartoons of the Soviet Union

Dina Goder’s collection of cartoons

The program director of the Big Cartoon Festival advises what to watch with a child

Cartoons about art

How to tell children about art

40 riddles about everything in the world

What burns without fire and who has a sieve in his nose: riddles from "Chizh", "Hedgehog" and books by Marshak and Chukovsky

Yard games

Traffic light, Shtander, Ring and other games for a large company

Poems that are interesting to learn by heart

What to choose if you were asked to learn a poem about mother, New Year or autumn

Old audio performances for children

"Ole Lukoye", "The Gray Sheika", "Cinderella" and other interesting Soviet recordings

Cartoons with classical music

How animation works with the music of Tchaikovsky, Verdi and Glass

How children's counting rhymes work

"Ene, bene, slave, kvanter, manter, toad": what does it all mean

Short stories are one of the favorite children's genres: it's easy to read and follow the plot. Arzamas chose the best collections of stories about everything in the world: grandmothers, losers, knights, spies, cats and hippos

Author Lisa Birger

Sylvia Vanden Heide. Fox and Bunny

0+. Translator Irina Trofimova. "Kick scooter". M., 2017

Stories about Fox and Bunny have been published in Holland since 1998: there are more than twenty books in total, five have been translated into Russian. As befits a book from the "I Read It Myself" series, here are very simple texts with short clear sentences, feasible for those who are just getting used to independent reading. Tae Tung Kin's illustrations are built into stories, they are placed several times on a page, and this creates the illusion of movement. And the book tells about the most important thing - about love and friendship. The fox loves the Bunny (and she is the Fox), the Owl loves the Pip-Pip chick, and no matter how difficult it is for them all sometimes with each other, love conquers everything.

Gudrun Mebs. "'Grandma!' Frieder shouts"

0+. Translator Vera Komarova. "Kick scooter". M., 2017

The German Gudrun Mebs became an actress at the age of 17, traveled all over the world with her theater troupe and successfully starred in television series until the age of forty, and in the 80s she began to write fairy tales and philosophical stories for children and became a popular writer. Her first book about Grandma and Frieder came out in 1984, her fourth in 2010, and all four are illustrated by Susanne Rotraut Berner, another great children's author. The main characters are the five-year-old tomboy Frieder and his incredibly patient grandmother. Each story is arranged in the same way: Frieder starts something, and then the grandmother deals with his ideas cheerfully and wisely. He wants to learn how to write - she makes him letters from dough, he wants to go on a picnic in the rain - she has a picnic at the bus stop. And this is again about love - more precisely, about the science of listening to and understanding another.

Bernard Friot. Impatient Stories

6+. Translator Asya Petrova. "Compass Guide". M., 2013

Before becoming a writer and publisher of children's books, the Frenchman Bernard Friaud worked at school for a long time and invented short stories with his students - they form the basis of five collections of Impatient Stories. Brief, absurd and meaningless at first glance, these stories represent the world through the eyes of a child, when everything needs to be turned upside down, rethought, and then, maybe, everything will become much better. Like in the story about the teacher who yelled so much at the children (“Quiet!”) that the students caught her, put her in a jar and calmly redid all her affairs while she, sitting in the jar, opened her mouth with indignation. Or about the boy who tidied up his room so well that he cleaned himself too, and his mother had to scatter everything back to find her son. A good reminder that the world is not always comprehended and measured by parental rules and that sometimes it can be understood only by turning it inside out.

Christine Nöstlinger. "Stories about Franz"

0+. Translator Vera Komarova. "Compass Guide". M., 2017

Franz grows from book to book: in the first collection he is six, in the final, nineteenth, he is already nine. Each story (there are usually three or four of them in a book, ten pages each) is some recognizable situation from a child’s life, whether it’s waiting for gifts for Christmas or a trip to a summer camp, the first meeting with injustice or a sick stomach. As always in such stories with a sequel, it is very important what the hero is like. Franz is a charming, slightly unlucky, not at all ideal child who can both lie and be stupid. And that is why the stories about him are truly funny and instructive. Whatever Franz arranges, in whatever situation he finds himself, he will be supported by a large family and true friends, so here we are talking not only about growing up, but also about the fact that a small child should not be alone.

Jürg Schubiger. "Where does the sea lie?"

6+. Translator Elena Leenson. "Kick scooter". M., 2013

In the funny absurdist stories of the German writer Jürg Schubiger, something strange or nothing happens. The pigs ask the cows how they can get to the sea. The girl got caught in the rain on a bridge in Hamburg and thought: she herself got wet, but her name remained dry. The boy put on his pants and changed his mind because he was tired. The cow is in love with sorrel. The sun and the moon created the world so that there was a place to direct the rays. All these stories have one important feature in common: they invariably provoke mental effort, the need to feel someone else's sadness or love, to look at the world around, because in fact they are still real philosophical parables.

Anastasia Orlova. "I love walking on clouds"

6+. "Egmont". M., 2018

The wonderful children's poetess Anastasia Orlova wrote a series of short stories no longer than her cheerful children's poems. Orlova has a wonderful ability to turn any everyday things into a big event. Mom puts on makeup - an event, clouds are reflected in a puddle - an event, with my mother by the hand I went for a walk, stumbled and fell on the street - also a whole thing. He drank orange juice - there was a swamp in his stomach, there was a rustle in his ears - there the janitor was sweeping the leaves with a broom. Everything around the child turns out to be alive and important, even if only socks.

Socks

I am sitting in the morning, getting dressed. I take yesterday's socks, but they are dirty. And they smell somehow impolite - yesterday's puddle. And I rather went to wash my socks with strawberry soap.

Marie-Aude Muray. "Dutch without problems"

6+. Translator Marina Kadetova. "Kick scooter". M., 2014

Frenchwoman Marie-Aude Murail wrote her first stories for children at the turn of 1990s, and today in France she is already known as the author of several dozen books. Her teenage novels "Umnik", "Oh, boy!" were published in Russian. and Miss Charity. "Dutch Without Problems" is a collection of three of her early stories. Short but very inspiring. In one, a boy who is sent to learn German for the summer invents his own language and speaks it well; in the second, two girls compare New Year's gifts; in the third, a father stays with his four sons for the weekend and does not cope very well with them. Everything seems to be simple, but each situation is in the treasury of the writer's favorite topic: all of us - both adults and children - need to learn to talk to each other, come up with the "Dutch" language again and again, which will help overcome misunderstanding.

Xenia Dragunskaya. "Angels and Pioneers"

12+. "Time". M., 2018

In the new book by Ksenia Dragunskaya, the confusion of Orthodoxy, patriotism and fear of the Unified State Examination, which the modern school has turned into, is very coolly conveyed. But the main thing is not how funny, with her signature absurdist humor, Dragunskaya plays up all this modern childhood life, but her willingness to offer an alternative - a family where they don’t scold for grades, robot schoolchildren ready to stand up for classmates, a grandfather who turns into watchdog to keep evil teachers out of the doorstep, the school where the writer teaches literature, and the sea captain teaches geography.

Maria Bershadskaya. "Big Little Girl"

0+. "Compass Guide". M., 2018

A happy example of a domestic book series for children - 12 stories (each story is a separate lavishly illustrated booklet) about the girl Zhenya, the most ordinary, but so tall that her mother has to stand on a stool to braid her pigtail. The metaphor here is understandable: maybe Zhenya looks quite big, but she is still growing inside, and Bershadskaya's stories are dedicated to this inner growth. 12 books is a year from Zhenya's life. She bakes dad a birthday cake, walks her dog, goes to the village, waits for the New Year: the simplest things always turn into funny adventures. Or thoughts, including about very difficult things: is it possible to think about a holiday when grandfather is sick? Which way to roam if you are completely lost in the forest? And what if someone left a dog on the street?

Stanislav Vostokov. "Don't feed or tease!"

6+. "Egmont". M., 2017

Stanislav Vostokov is a very talented writer and a true animal lover. He worked at the Moscow and Tashkent zoos, as well as at the Durrell Nature Conservation Center on the island of Jersey, participated in the construction of a rehabilitation center for gibbons in Cambodia ... But the point is not in a romantic biography, but in that special ironic-love intonation with which he writes his stories about animals and people. "Don't feed or tease!" - his most famous book, the stories of a Moscow Zoo attendant: short portraits, sketches of monkeys and capybaras, as well as hippos, which are not.

Where's the hippopotamus?

Visitors often ask:
— And where is your hippopotamus? Why is there no hippopotamus?
And there is no hippopotamus. And you begin to feel very uncomfortable about such an omission, as if you didn’t bring a hippopotamus from Africa.
Visitors shake their heads reproachfully:
- What are you looking at here if there is no hippopotamus? Not for monkeys.
— Why not monkeys? - you answer. — Just for monkeys. After all, some of them are also from Africa. And you probably saw a hippopotamus there!

Bart Muyart. "Brothers"

12+. Translator Irina Mikhailova. "Kick scooter". M., 2017

In Belgium, Bart Muyart is one of the most famous writers, author of more than forty books, winner of numerous awards. And so far only his Brothers, a collection of stories about childhood in Bruges in the late 1960s, have been translated into Russian. There are seven brothers, and they are tirelessly interested in everything in a row. Is it true that whistling in your ear is the echo of dancing on your future grave? How does the pipe help dad think? Is it possible to get sick if you put a bulb in your armpit? And did the king himself really drive in the royal car to give silver spoons to the youngest of the brothers? Time flows slowly in these stories, so that both the characters and the reader can look at the world around and find that everything in it is worth a separate story and full of meaning.

Victor Lunin. "My Beast"

12+. "Bering". M., 2015

Victor Lunin - poet, translator and writer, holder of the Andersen diploma for translations of children's poetry, author of the story "The Adventures of Butter Liza". “My Animal” are stories about animals that the author met at different moments in his life: an elk in the forest, a cat in the kitchen, a nightingale in the country - unpretentious, like drinking stories or family anecdotes. A simple, but surprisingly pleasant book in its unpretentiousness.

Asya Petrova. "Wolves on Parachutes"

12+. "Black River". St. Petersburg, 2017

Writing for teenagers is much more difficult than for middle schoolers, to whom most modern children's stories are addressed. Including because teenagers instantly and acutely feel falsehood. In this collection by Asya Petrova, honesty is almost overwhelming. The experiences of the maturing hero are conveyed with the utmost accuracy: these are stories about how you are afraid of death, how fantasies become larger than life, how difficult it is to trust another, how joy is inseparable from suffering, and it is always easier to believe in tragedy than in happiness. And in each story there is not insipid morality, but a life lesson, something that makes it possible to move on.

Artur Givargizov. "Control dictation and ancient Greek tragedy"

6+. Melik-Pashayev. M., 2017

In fact, it is absolutely impossible to choose the best of Givargizov's books, because all of them are a cure for boredom and sadness. And the point is not only that they are easy to read and very funny (you start laughing from the very first pages). The reader, tormented by school, work, parents and other walking on the string, is here to arrange a real holiday of disobedience. This is liberating laughter, not knowing hierarchies, not striving for education and some kind of "pedagogy", which is already abundant everywhere. It is not surprising that Givargizov is especially good at books about the school: “Notes of an outstanding loser”, “Control dictation and an ancient Greek tragedy”, “Airplane flight according to notes”, “How the director of the school disappeared”. But kings and generals, and pirates, and pensioners, he also turns out to be very charming, not without weaknesses and with passions.

Irina Zartaiskaya. "The Best Age"

6+. "Egmont". M., 2018

Irina Zartaiskaya's stories are ideal for parents who are worried about the pedagogical safety of children's reading: there are no hooligans here, and the losers are somehow unconvincing, too cute. In fact, the author's school life is not so interesting, in her stories the main thing is the family. The most traditional: mom is always in the kitchen, and dad is at work. And in this immutability of all positions one can see the guarantee of the constancy of the world. Now you can play linguistic games in it (what if instead of breakfast there is today or yesterday?), argue with puddles and go to school in tights and T-shirts, because the content is more important than the form.

Mikhail Yesenovsky. "Main Spy Question"

0+. "Egmont". M., 2017

Writer and poet Mikhail Yesenovsky continued the absurdist tradition of Russian literature, using it for almost therapeutic purposes. In the "Main Spy Question", a very brave boy Yura enters into wonderfully funny dialogues with things that he is afraid of: a crocodile under the bed, a skeleton behind the curtain, a grandfather's portrait on the wall. And, of course, with the spy who tortures Yura with the main spy question: "Who do you love more - mom or dad?" Of course, laughter conquers fear, just like in the continuation of Tasty Yura, where the hero has his absurdist conversations with a fox and a jerboa who are going to eat him. And in "Angina Marina" Yura all the time gets sick with something, and even in rhyme:

"Sickly Yura does not breathe with health: he does not walk during the day, and does not sleep at night, and does not hear with his nose, and does not breathe with his ear, and shoots in the heel, and his neck creaks."

Nikolai Nazarkin. "Emerald fish. Mandarin Islands»

6+. "Egmont". M., 2018

The subtitle of the book is "Ward Stories": these are stories about children for whom the hospital has become everyday life. The book is partly autobiographical: Nazarkin grew up with a diagnosis of hemophilia and was in the hospital much more often than at school. The inhabitants of the chambers dream of fishing, begging each other for sausages, exchanging toys, weaving fish from filters for droppers, and the real trouble here is when brilliant green disappeared from the chamber and the fish from the filters cannot be painted emerald green. Nazarkin does not embellish hospital life, namely that he does not see tragedy in it. More precisely, he is not interested in tragedy: everyday droppers, ECG, rounds of doctors and waiting for parcels from home become only the background for a strong boyish friendship. It’s just that these boys are real knights, and “a knight must look his fate in the eye.”

Sergey Georgiev. Lilac Hippo Tamer

0+. "Egmont". M., 2017

For many happy years in children's literature, the writer Sergei Georgiev has polished his stories to absolute brevity. Some literally consist of one line: "Remember: a horse in apples is not a culinary recipe." And not only linguistic virtuosity is impressive, but the ability to create a three-dimensional picture with one movement. A few phrases - and you see a fifth grader meowing in a music lesson, or a third grader looking at a chocolate candy under a magnifying glass to make it bigger. These stories can be told like jokes, but their main task is to make the gears of even the laziest fantasy turn rapidly.

Oleg Kurguzov. "Our cat is an alien"

0+. "Egmont". M., 2017

For his first book of short stories, The Sun on the Ceiling. Stories of a Little Boy”, published in 1997, Oleg Kurguzov received the Janusz Korczak International Prize. From the late 1980s, he was the editor of children's publications: from the magazine "Tram" to the newspaper "Little Cart" invented by him. In 2003, his last book, Our Cat Is an Alien, was published, and in 2004 Kurguzov passed away. And what a pity that he did not live to see the current flourishing of children's literature! "Our Cat Is an Alien" is a book about a family in which everything is unusual: a father flies and crawls with his son, a goat turns into a dog, and a horse comes to visit for cleaning. And also a book about love, because this strange family, together with the cat, is an example of complete harmony.

Sergei Makhotin. Grunt Virus

6+. "Detgiz". M., 2014

Sergei Makhotin - the author of novels, poems, stories, historical novels - in 2011 became the winner of the Korney Chukovsky Prize "for outstanding creative achievements in Russian children's literature." The Grunt Virus itself received the Scarlet Sails Award and the Andersen International Diploma, and yet finding this book is not at all easy - but definitely worth it. "Grumbling Virus" is the stories of the inhabitants of one house, inspired, according to the author, by his childhood in St. Petersburg. The stories in the collection are both fabulous - for example, about a hairdresser who bewitched a girl's pigtails, so that whoever pulls them immediately decreases - and piercingly realistic. For example, about two classmates who were sent to visit a third one, but it turned out that he did not get sick, but went to Boston, and left a grandmother, a skinny cat on a branch outside the window, and a dreary feeling of broken conversations. Makhotin is better than many at showing that life can be both surprisingly easy and strangely sad at the same time.

Alexander Blinov. "The House That Went"

12+. "Kick scooter". M., 2018

Alexander Blinov is a graphic artist, architect and aircraft designer who started writing stories for children just a few years ago. Blinov already has six wonderful books, and in all of them - be it fairy tales, like in The Moon Who Loved Eclairs, or autobiographical stories, like in Pure Lies - some incredible liberty is felt. There are no borders, no tightness and wear, full of tramcars, inside of which a seven-story house can fit, suddenly thinking of going on a hiking trip. Paris - Berlin - Vienna - Rome and everywhere else. But in the end, the house still returns, having escaped from Hollywood to the Novoye Khodilovo microdistrict. In these stories, Blinov perfectly managed to convey the feeling of a man of the world, equally his own in Italy and Israel, and equally frivolously alien.

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Dudko Maria. Keys

So... Tick... So...

The voice of the old grandfather clock from the hallway already met me, but I could not open the door. Well, where are these keys?... Really lost? Only this was not enough, and so the day didn't work out!. . Ah, no, here it is...

The clock struck eight when I stepped on the creaky parquet of the hallway. How I missed the quietness of my apartment! I just wanted to fall apart on a shabby sofa, and lie there until the morning ... But instead, I trudged to the computer. While the old unit, inherited from the dinosaurs, turned on, I made myself coffee. Today you will need more than one mug. Article for the night, and inspiration from gulkin's nose. They also threaten to make layoffs at work. You can not delay, otherwise the dismissal cannot be avoided. And it would not be bad to update the blog, otherwise the last subscribers will soon scatter. Eh…

I worked in the editorial office of a magazine, which in our district, and in the city in general, was quite in demand. The editor - Fedot Stepanovich - always put only the best into print.

The best. Yes. It means not me. For some reason, lately my writing has not been impressive at all. Even myself. Honestly, not surprised. It looks like I've lost the spark, like there was nothing to write about. It's funny somehow: I live in a metropolis, where something happens every day, but I look as if into a void. Other people's problems ceased to excite, everyone here is a drop in the ocean. So my news is gray, alien, distant and unnecessary, in general, to no one.

What did I write about? As I then still thought, about the important. About eternal, to some extent. I noticed that the people around were so closed that they seemed to stop seeing each other, let alone feel and understand. Everyone at some point withdraws into himself and loses the key to the door he entered. Locks up the heart. Puts on a mask. Indifferent. And silently walks along the gray stones of the pavement...

I just wanted to be heard... I thought I would become the key to the world on this side of the mask. I will help those in need with my word, I will teach people to listen and hear, I will save the world... But it seems that something went wrong. And now... Now I don't even know how to save myself. So in response I get the cry of tearing paper and the famous last warning from the lips of Fedot Stepanych. Last chance. Tomorrow I will not come with a sensation - that's it. Well... It looks like it's time to forget about your reasoning for a while and plunge into the world of human intrigues. Write what will be read. What is expected of me. No not like this. What do you expect from an article in our magazine.

What are the stone jungles talking about these days? What is the wind of change carrying along their paved paths? The most discussed topic was a series of strange deaths, however, as is usually the case. For a long time now, criminals taken into custody have been dying one after another. The most different: from simple pickpockets to almost murderers, adults and still teenagers of fourteen years. Most of them haven't even been sentenced yet. And they all have the same diagnosis - poisoning. What is still a mystery. This happened with some frequency in different parts of the city, but most often in our police department. And, by pure chance, none other than my older brother, officer Yuri Diskarin, worked there.

How I could use his help now... But no. My brother and I don't get along. And they never got along. It just so happened ... Probably, we are just too different. Yurik is secretive, distrustful. He never told me anything, he preferred to do everything himself, and I felt that he did not need me at all. I must have been a little jealous of my brother. He is successful, just the pride of the family, and I grab the last chance to stay at work.

...I'm grabbing my last chance to stay at work. Although ... You can try to find out about the high-profile case first hand, so to speak. This, for sure, would interest Fedot Stepanych, but he would have to turn to his brother for help. Yeah ... And once again become a loser in the eyes of a whole family. Hell no! Even for the sake of work, I will not ask for the help of this person!

Well, nothing. I prepared, collected materials, now I will write and saved! I manage myself. If only I could make it in the morning…

GO!!!

The sound took me by surprise. It was a signal that the factory was over, from the old watch in the corridor. The matter is fixable. I got up, went to the clock, opened the lid and reached for the key with a familiar gesture. Only the key was missing. What's the strange thing? In my house, I valued order, but such incidents simply unsettled ... What should I do now, look for this lost key? Looks like I'll have to...

Casting a sad glance at the computer, I began to remember where I could put this old piece of iron. So I have already climbed several shelves, looked into the boxes and ...

What is this? There was an envelope in the dresser. And, if I was ready to see the key to the winding mechanism among the socks, with my absent-mindedness, then there’s no strange message at all. Although, maybe I'm too naive? Oh, I don't like it all...

Naturally, I opened the envelope and immediately recognized Yurik's handwriting.

"I'm not sure I wasn't followed. Check your mail. I never forgot your birthday!
Yu.»