5 year old hearing voices?

[Emlou07]

Aibu to be concerned or is this normal?

So my eldest turned 5 in October. Recently she's been having lots or bad dreams, sometimes waking up crying hysterically.

She will also randomly become upset and say things like 'Mummy I'm thinking about horrible things'. This evening she started to cry and said that she was thinking that she threw me in a dark cave with a bear. After discussing it she said the boy told her to and that she has to love daddy more. Where as the girl says that she has to have nice dreams about nice things.

Does this sound normal for a 5 year-old or something possibly more sinister? She's never ever mentioned an imaginary friend of any sort before.

Had she suffered any trauma

To be honest I’d be concerned.

My 5yo has the occasional bad dream but nothing like that.

Has she suffered any traumatic episode? Who do you live with and who does she spend time with? Could any of those people have scared or upset her?

I’d try and find a nice close moment and see if she’ll open up to you.

Poor little girl
Would you be able.to take her to GP to be assessed?

What has she been watching?

It sounds like she’s distressed by it so I think a chat with the GP would be sensible. A lot of people have thoughts about bad things happening but can move on from that thought and a lot of children have vivid imaginations (my son had a planet he would happily talk about visiting) but when it causes distress I’d be concerned.

Ow this is so scary and sad
Sending you strength

I would try adding a night light to her room as the dark can make things more scary

Is she being bullied and are you having relationship troubles?

Poor little thing

I had dreams similar to this when I was around the same age. There was no trauma in my past and no inappropriate TV watching. I don’t know what started it but as an adult I can see that my dreams all suggest a fear of abandonment. I had wonderful, loving parents so I’m not sure what caused this but it was very real at the time. Lots of love bombing and reassurance is needed here.

not normal imo, none of my 4 have been like this

Speak to the GP. 5-7 is often when a lot of serious MH can start.

As a child i suffered with intrusive thoughts and OCD and had to see a child psychologist. Turned out it was because my mum moved me to a carbolic school at age 6 and I was traumatised by how strict and obsessive it all was.

Oh my! A carbolic school has to be the greatest and most accurate description of a Roman Catholic school I have ever read!

Dd woke screaming every night from 2 til 7, I'm not kidding! Dr wasn't concerned at all despite her vivid dreams and daydreams. Well adjusted almost adult. Night terrors are common, as is the cross between daydreaming and reality - do see your gp but please don't panic

And I do think a GP visit might help, OP. Sorry I reacted to the auto-correct first.
It must be extremely scary for you and I wish I could send flowers - it’s horrible when you don’t know what is causing such traumatic feelings...

My 5 year old has suddenly become anxious about death and tells me that she has dreams about horrible things happening to me. I've been reading up on it and these kind of anxieties are apparently very normal for children of this age so I'm sure what your dd is going through is very normal as well, although obviously keep an eye on it. I bought my dd some worry dolls off amazon and she sleeps with the bag of them under her pillow. She's told them her worries a few times and I've also discussed her worries a few times with her as well. She's not been so upset and worried since so I'm hoping we're over the worst of it. We'll see.

My son had a spell doing similar ages 7 or 8. He would be waking crying, disorientated, agitated, wandering round the landing, saying he heard voices and shouting.

No trauma in his life.

Dr very nicely said that when her son was the same age the rule was no devices during the week. Can’t say we have stuck to that rigidly but we did cut back and he appears to be over it.

We don't have a lot of information and we don't know how long has this lasted. Consult your GP.

Omg carbolic school! 😂

I read somewhere a weird statistic that 12% of children report hearing voices. So I don't think it's that uncommon, but as she's clearly distressed maybe speak to the health visitor or GP? Poor mite. :(

Talk to your GP. A child I know had similar and parent was told it can be a normal phase so don’t panic yet. Do keep a note of when she’s having these episodes and exactly what she is saying, whether the voices are male/female, how many there are etc as it will help if you need to consult with other medical specialists later on.

Oops sorry about the autocorrect!

Hearing voices is not necessarily the same as auditory hallucinations so not necessarily really serious. It might be partly her confusing her inner voice and thoughts and hearing them out loud. The fact that she knows they aren't real is good, although remember that at this age there is all sorts of magical beliefs going on so even when they say something is real it doesn't mean the same as an adult. Consider too that she is probably unaware that it is socially unacceptable to say you hear voices, yet some adults do hear voices without being otherwise mentally ill, it is just not socially acceptable to admit it. The chances are that it is intrusive thoughts about some incident/ concern. Might still be worth seeing GP.

The themes also suggest that she is maybe wanting to get away from /stop something you do which Daddy doesn't. One common theme at this age is homework/ school issues. Often the mother does lots of homework chivying so she might be stressed about that and wanting to get rid of it for example.

Sounds similar to me, aged about 7. Had weird obsessive 'bad' thoughts that I couldnt shake off (one I remember was comparing God to a poo - which seemed like unforgivable blasphemy). I shared them with my mum and we just called them 'my thoughts'. They passed. I can see now that I have some mild OCD traits and, e.g., still obsess madly about any bad decisions I make, so it was possibly the start of something that grew to be a (luckily non-serious) part of my personality

Poor thing. It is common for bright, sensitive children to have such vivid imaginations inc. night terrors. Just continue to reassure her and this phase will soon pass.

My four year old has been coming into my bed every night for the past fortnight. The reason? Terrified I’m going to go to jail. No matter how much I tell her I’m not going to jail, and explain about jail, nothing seems to shift this.

I know where it comes from. The wee boys in her nursery class play games about throwing people in jail. She has a vivid imagination and she overthinks.

She’ll come through it.

My DD2 (6) has night terrors too. She constantly worries about me dying at the moment and hates me leaving her before she goes to sleep. She also comes into our bed if she wakes up during the night.

In her case, it's easy to see where her anxiety stems from, as she and her older sister are both adopted, though she's also very easily upset by anything she finds scary on TV.