When this Examiner’s grandson was about 6 years old, he confided that he often saw ghosts at home, at school, on the streets of Hamilton, Ontario – just about everywhere. He also said these ethereal entities frightened him and at night, he covered his head with his blankets so he would not see them.
Seeing spirits at such a young age can be terrifying for children because not only do they not understand what they’re seeing, they also don’t know if ghosts can hurt them. Since I was the only one in the family who ever mentioned the existence of souls who remain earthbound after death, he naturally came to me for information and emotional support.
He was full of questions, which his parents preferred not to address, so I answered honestly without divulging too much. After all, he was still quite young and I did not wish to frighten him more. Rather I offered only positive thoughts on the subject and let him know that he had a very special gift. I also told him that he was certainly not alone, that many children were open to seeing ghosts.
Tina Carlson of north Las Vegas, Nevada also saw ghosts as a child. Her experiences were precipitated after a near death experience at the tender age of 2. Living in Iowa, Tina suffered with spinal meningitis. While in hospital in Waterloo, she lapsed into a coma. She was in such serious condition that the doctors told her parents to begin preparations for her funeral.
“While in the coma, I remember going down the proverbial tunnel headed for the white light…” she said. Almost reaching the white light, I met up with a woman. She was beautiful (with) long black hair to her waist, tan skin and a prominent nose. She took me by the hand, bent down to talk to me eye level and said, ‘Tina, you must go back now. You have many people to help guide and you cannot go into that in the light.’”
Tina said the woman then led her in silence to the other end of the tunnel, kissed her cheek and then left. But she would certainly see this woman again.
“I woke up to see her standing at the glass window of the isolation room that they had me in,” she said adding that she assumed the woman was alive. Since she was so young, she only knew that “she was the nice woman who helped me when I was lost.”
When she awoke from the coma, her parents told her she was “a living miracle,” because they thought they’d lost her but Tina’s thoughts were still on the strange woman she’d seen both her and on the other side.
“I asked about the woman over and over again but they told me I must have dreamt it.”
However, Tina later proved them wrong.
“When I was about 4 or 5, I was looking at some of my grandmothers photos. I turned the page and there was the woman.”
Excited by what she saw, Tina again told her parents about the woman she saw when she was so ill.
“Turns out she was my grandmothers sister who had died several years before I was born. My grandmother was part Native American and her sister had many of the common traits.”
My grandson and Tina are just two of many children who have had experiences with ghosts – some more often than others.
“We are all born with that ability but as we talk about what we see and are told we dreamed it or it was all in our imagination, then we start to doubt what we see. We start to block the gift and it disappears completely as we age.”
But is blocking this type of gift a good or bad thing and what should parents do if a child shares that he or she has seen a ghost? Tina has some great advice that she shares on The Shadowlands: Ghosts and Hauntings theshadowlands.net/ghost, a web site where she has been co-director for 15 years along with Dave Juliano.
A child’s ghostly experience in Hamilton, Ontario.
Child sees ghosts in Toronto, Ontario
See Part 2: Should Parents downplay a Child’s Ghostly Experiences?
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