Sometimes people forget that kids are just human beings who aren’t done growing and learning yet – not that we’re ever really done.

One of the best ways to learn is through trial and error, so how can kids figure out how to human if they don’t just, you know…try stuff?

The thing is, that stuff can seem super disturbing to adults who have more knowledge, and looking back, these 16 are sure they totally freaked out their parents.

16. This is hilarious (as long as they’re not your kids).

My sister and I would shit in jars and store them around the house. We wanted to be scientists, and we called them our specimens.

Mom found a jar one day; it was really old; she stuck her hand in it to smell.Then she let out a loud horrific scream once she solved the mystery puzzle.

15. This seems pretty normal.

A few times when I slept over at my best friends house, we would end up playing truth or dare. It would end up with us on top of each other out grinding on each other… This was early in middle school.

Other people have gotten involved in this type of truth or dare game too.. One of them being my best friends cousin… Yeah. Mostly just humping each other. Things went a bit further with just me and my friend… Just a lot of touching.

It was weird. Very strange. It confused me, too. I wasn’t into her. It ended when she asked if we can kiss. My response was we should go to bed now .-. I tried bringing it up to her but she “doesn’t remember” I get it.

14. She’s not gonna stop.

my little sister used to leave bags of cheese around the house and my mom told her that she had changed her name to cheese bag and would only change it back if she stopped.

So then my sister would introduce herself as cheesebag whenever she met someone

13. Her poop was probably pretty.

I took one of my grandmother’s diamond bracelets ( I’m sure it was just costume jewelry cause she never asked about it), took the diamonds out and then ate one every night before bed. I thought that maybe it would make me pretty like some magic pill.

Didn’t work at all.

12. What on earth.

I was told that i once played football with a sheep’s head.

11. A level head.

When I was like 11 or 12 & had recently gone through some significant abuse I secretly decided I wanted to be a serial killer when I grew up so I could kill the people that hurt me with experience in how to do it well.

I’d heard of the Macdonald triad by then, and even though I DID burn things as a small child I never wet the bed or killed any small animals. I couldnt exactly make myself wet the bed in my sleep but I realized i COULD start killing small animals.

So, one day I stole a baby bird from its nest and held a razor blade to its throat. Then I realized even if I went through with it I’d only be doing it for performative reasons, and that if I was gonna be a serial killer then murdering it didnt actually make any difference. So I just put the baby bird back and went on about my day.

10. You can’t go next door again after that.

Welp. I caught a frog and put it in my pocket. My dad took me next door to meet the new neighbors and instead of talking like a normal child I talked like ET at 4 years old and asked the neighbor in my creepy alien voice “do you wanna see my frawwwwg”?

They all laughed at me because I was a cute little curly haired weirdo and said “Sure!” So I pulled this dead ass frog out of the depths of my pocket and proceeded to pet it, menacingly, and with a lot of pressure.

My dad was so embarrassed and we never spoke to the neighbors again. He has also told EVERY boyfriend I have ever had that story.

9. Incredible.

I made all the other kids at my crèche line up against the back fence, then I ran along the line smacking them all on the bum. Also, I was dressed as Batman.

8. Someone is going to the bad place.

We’d been making documents look older in school by rubbing tea bags on them and singeing the edges, it was fun. Walking home I decided to make the posters in the church notice board look old as well.

Apparently old, sun bleached paper, and an old thin wooden cabinet burn very fast and very well

7. Definitely not a good idea.

When I was in fourth grade, my crush had jokingly threw my binder on the ground which caused it to open up and release all my papers into the wind. I vowed to her that I would get my revenge. The next day, I brought a small steak knife to school.

I had it in my backpack and somewhat forgot about it until after school when my crush, her younger sister, and myself were on the playground. I showed them both the knife, had them feel it so they knew it was real, and then told them I was going to kill them with it. I chased them around the playground which was very busy with other kids and parents and all, although I had absolutely no intention of hurting anyone in any way.

Her sister told her dad who told the school who told my parents and yeah. I never ever did anything like that again and I’m still not sure to this day why I seriously thought that was a good idea.

It’s a memory I cringe to when it pops up in my head.

6. Pure dumb luck.

I put a cardboard box on my lap and took a huge steak knife and stabbed it while it was on my lap. How I didn’t stab my legs? We will never know.

5. Why indeed?

In third grade I chased three 5th graders out a bathroom naked

I got a detention

Sometimes I look back and think: “Why did I do that

4. I cannot fathom doing this. Ugh.

I once got lice as a kid, and after two hair treatments the fuckers still weren’t gone. Child me didn’t want to have to go through the hair treatment again so I just sat in bed meticulously going through my hair pulling louse after louse out one by one and squishing them as well as the eggs on my roots until there were none left.

It worked. But it was weird and gross.

3. Oh dear.

I evidently had a rare tantrum when I was 4 and beat the shit out of a kid my mom was babysitting, with a wooden toy hammer.

I think about my poor mother having to explain to the kids mother how I wasn’t really a psychopath when her kid looked like he had been in a british bar brawl

2. An odd combination.

I used to hump my stuffed animals and pretend they were the dragons from Dragon Tales…

No, I did not know what sex was yet…

1. Not dad approved.

My dad was teaching night classes for a while, and for reasons I have either forgotten or was not privy to, I would spend his class time sitting in the back of the room (instead of hanging at home) with one of those briefcase-sized “portable” b&w tvs.

One night, there was a news report about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, of whom I was a huge fan. The news report, I found out many years later, was about a controversy centered around a tmnt puzzle that featured graffiti. One of the graffiti pieces was, what I later learned, a swastika. I was way too young to know what it was or what it represented, just for the record. The report said it was used as an Asian symbol for peace or something like that, which I was a fan of, and I had already been drawing the intro for the turtles arcade game on the chalkboard in the back of the classroom.

Welp. Seeing this report, I figure I should add the turtles-approved peace symbol to my magnificent artwork. So I did. It must’ve been a foot high.

My dad immediately put the class on a 10min break, and erases my hard work. He’s super pissed, obviously, but doesn’t say why.

I find out many years later what the issue was. he brought it up in an argument with my mom enough years later I could understand what was going on. I was never told what I did wrong (they never did, just let me know I did “something” wrong… please, don’t just punish your kids, explain to your kids what the problem is!!!)

Obviously, i learned the significance of it years later and how wrong it is. All I knew then was it seemed like a cool design, and it was turtle approved 🙁

I’m going to have to search my memory before I can answer this.

What’s a story you could tell? We want to hear it in the comments!