Board 8 > Im not sure what to do...(child raising related)

(+) Yeah! (+)

So I have previously posted about how my daughter has made statements that worry me, while also showing signs of personality that contradict her even making those statements. Things like her being very empathetic towards people and their feelings while also talking about deliberately hurting animals.

Apparently one night while my wife and M-I-L had taken the kids camping my daughter had threatened to kill everyone. She stated that she knows where the knives are and would use them. When my wife questioned her on it, she said that sometimes Baldi(from Baldi's Basics) would say things in here head. She had never even heard of Baldi prior to this year. I have intentions to seek some professional help because I don't want to risk this becoming something it doesn't need to be, but part of my concern also stems from the fact that I feel my daughter might just be really emotionally manipulative. She has a tendency to exaggerate events or her reactions to events to gain extra favour or attention.

I guess this is kind of a blogfaqs/vent. Anyone have any kind of advice? I know a few of you guys have commented on previous threads pertaining to my daughter.

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Maybe you shouldn't havr let her watch horror movies

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How old is she? I definitely think limiting the type media she intakes is the first step

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Heroic Bigpun posted...

Maybe you shouldn't havr let her watch horror movies

That is a very realistic possibility. And I know different people are effected by different things, but one might assume that my son playing Bloodborne at 2 and watching horror movies would have negatively effected him as well.

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BetrayedTangy posted...

How old is she? I definitely think limiting the type media she intakes is the first step

She is 5. As far as the media she consumes, we are relatively liberal on what we allow them to watch, but they don't get to watch anything unsupervised and we have extensive conversations with them in regards to the content they consume.

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childhood schizophrenia perhaps

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Whiskey_Nick posted...

childhood schizophrenia perhaps

That was one of the things I looked into and is why I am going to setup an appointment to see a psychiatrist/psychologist, I hope it is nothing. Like I mean, her behaviour mimicks a lot of my own from that age(or so I am told, I honestly have no recollection of my life prior to 10 years old)

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ah the next Raincoat Killer

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I generally support being liberal with allowing kids access to media, but every kid is different and in your daughter's case it seems like she can't handle it even with extensive discussion. I mean, I don't think it's a universally bad thing or that you're doing bad by your son.
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Heroic Bigpun posted...

Maybe you shouldn't havr let her watch horror movies

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Yeah all brains develop differently, and I'm sure the first thing a therapist is going to suggest is limiting the media. Especially since she directly referenced Baldi

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Drakeryn posted...

I generally support being liberal with allowing kids access to media, but every kid is different and in your daughter's case it seems like she can't handle it even with extensive discussion. I mean, I don't think it's a universally bad thing or that you're doing bad by your son.

Thanks, I agree with you in regards that every kid...every person is different and while some may be able to handle things with no real negative consequences, other may not be able to handle those same things with no consequences. I guess my inquiry is whether or not anyone else has seen similar behavioural patterns from thier kids and what the outcomes have been/how they handled it.

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BetrayedTangy posted...

Yeah all brains develop differently, and I'm sure the first thing a therapist is going to suggest is limiting the media. Especially since she directly referenced Baldi

And that would be fair. I guess my biggest question is in regards to why she still had similar thoughts but was never able to vocalize why she had these thoughts, but since she has seen Baldi she now attributes it to his voice in her head.

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How old is she?

My son said similar things but outgrew them. Was just a phase.

In your case, you have brought this up multiple times and every time people tell you to stop letting her watch horror movies and other types of movies. She is probably simply latching onto the things she likes to watch and not realizing the implications of what it actually means. It also probably generates a lot of attention for her because of how you react to it all the time which reinforced the behavior for her also.

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IfGodCouldDie posted...

And that would be fair. I guess my biggest question is in regards to why she still had similar thoughts but was never able to vocalize why she had these thoughts, but since she has seen Baldi she now attributes it to his voice in her head.

She's five. Not everything she says is going to exactly line up. She could just be saying that because Baldi's recent or maybe is associating Baldi with any thoughts she had before.

I'm not a psychiatrist or a parent, but I really think kids should be allowed to have some innocence while they can they have the rest of their life to deal with darker stuff.

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I would hide the knives, just in case.

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Corrik7 posted...

How old is she?

My son said similar things but outgrew them. Was just a phase.

In your case, you have brought this up multiple times and every time people tell you to stop letting her watch horror movies and other types of movies. She is probably simply latching onto the things she likes to watch and not realizing the implications of what it actually means. It also probably generates a lot of attention for her because of how you react to it all the time which reinforced the behavior for her also.

She's five, and when I have conversations in regards to what she says she seems to be a little apologetic/regretful about what she has said. Which makes me feel like it could be more of phase. I do however feel like she might just be a bit naturally manipulative. I say that because there are times when I'm watching both my kids and our son might not be giving in to her demands,and she'll turn around and exaggerate what happens. I assume that is in hopes we give him shit.

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Getting to a therapist is probably a good idea.

In the schooling system, there are lots of kids who are legitimate psychopaths (I mean that cynically) but the problem isn't who they are, but that their parents want to ignore the problem because it's scary. Address the problem head on by taking her to a professional. You hear about a lot of psychopaths in the news/popular media killing people but you don't hear about the thousands that had their issues addressed early on when their brain was still developing and went on to lead fairly normal lives.

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SantaRPidgey posted...

Getting to a therapist is probably a good idea.

In the schooling system, there are lots of kids who are legitimate psychopaths (I mean that cynically) but the problem isn't who they are, but that their parents want to ignore the problem because it's scary. Address the problem head on by taking her to a professional. You hear about a lot of psychopaths in the news/popular media killing people but you don't hear about the thousands that had their issues addressed early on when their brain was still developing and went on to lead fairly normal lives.

And this is why I am playing it as a better safe than sorry situation. I know I have my own issues and my work offers comprehensive benefits in regards to mental health. I intend to setup my own session on Monday and do the same for her.

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If I remember right, Baldis Basics is like a subversive parody of educational media, right? I think that type of thing is particularly perilous for little kids to watch, they dont have the capacity to understand yet that it is intentionally subversive, they take stuff like that at face value.

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I hope she'll turn out okay.

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Baldi's a math teacher who starts asking easy addition questions but then the numbers turn to gibberish so you can't answer correctly. Once you start to get them wrong he gets mad and chases you all around school with his ruler trying to wack you with it, you have to duck into different classrooms and hide under desks and such.

It's all very cartoony and to an adult it looks silly and harmless, but in the brain of a 5 year old it probably feels like a horror story.


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I don't have anything to add to the topic, but I just tried playing the Baldi game. It's kind of boring like all those Slender Man type games where you wander around and collect things while avoiding a horror dude who just shows up and instantly kills you. It's all trial and error and I don't really have the patience to keep redoing them since it isn't really skill intensive.

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She might be doing it for attention. If the Baldi game made a big impression on her (likely) she's probably been thinking about it. Keep her away from scary/violent stuff for a while. I don't think you have much to worry about, at 5 years old she has an incredible imagination.

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TheCatWhoSwims posted...

She might be doing it for attention. If the Baldi game made a big impression on her (likely) she's probably been thinking about it. Keep her away from scary/violent stuff for a while. I don't think you have much to worry about, at 5 years old she has an incredible imagination.

She does seem to have a bit more of an active imagination than our son. So that could be a cause.

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I read somewhere that it is something we lose with age (the ability to imagine vividly) so at such a young age hers should be really something.

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