These kids are crazy and completely unaware of the dangers of their actions. But they definitely make for some good stories, especially stories to tell the kids about later on in life.
Always Stay Away From A Suspicious Guy In A White Van

“My boys were about chest high. I am in the kitchen doing dishes and look outside. Both boys are in the street talking to a man in a white van. A WHITE VAN!!!
I calmly call them back to the house and ask them what was going on. They said, ‘A guy lost his puppy and needed help finding him.’ I am not even making this up! Good lord. Could it be any more textbook?
We immediately had the ‘Stranger Talk’ again.”
Trying To Drive At The Age Of Five?

“My mom and my nana took me (around the age of 2) to the (very large, US) flea market. They were both engrossed in whatever they had found. I was a squirmy, energetic toddler. So they had been letting me walk back and forth between them while they stood shopping on either side of the aisle.
I guess I got bored with that because after a few exchanges I just followed the traffic down the aisle. It took them over 2 hours to find me. Now having my own 2-year-old, I couldn’t imagine the panic and fear my poor mother and grandmother went through.
My other tale takes place at the age of 5. Earlier in the week, we had been waiting for my dad in the car. My mom let me play around a bit and eventually showed me how to start the car. Later I was bragging to my 4-year-old friend that I could drive. She didn’t believe me (probably because I couldn’t) so I decided to prove it and quietly snuck the keys from my mother’s purse. We both hopped into the car, I turned over the key and started the engine and then proceed to rev the engine trying to drive until we were caught. The car was pointed at a drop off into a dam about 20 feet away. It’s a good think my mom didn’t teach me anything about gears, lol.”
Getting His Head Stuck In The Stair Railing

“My mom had a daycare at our house when I was a kid. I was maybe 3 or 4 when she took us on a field trip to the fire station. It was really cool, we got to talk to the firefighters and try on their gear, and we also got to climb in the truck. Well apparently one of the guys left the keys in the ignition and I managed to start up the truck scaring the life out of everyone, especially my mother.
Another instance we were coming in from playing in the snow. We would enter through the basement and hang all of our wet snowy clothes in front of the wood stove. While everyone was still doing that I ran upstairs to wait. We had a sick set of metal spiral stairs with a three bar guard rail at the top. I decided to stick my head through the bars to see how everyone was doing instead of just going back down.
Had to get the fire department to come and pry the bars open so I could get my head out.
I am known as ‘the accident waiting to happen’ child of my family.”
How Her Son Almost Drowned!

“When he was about 6 we were at a birthday pool party. He didn’t know how to swim and we had a serious talk about him staying where his feet could touch. Two minutes in the pool he hops out, I’m on the other side (far side away) from where he started going with purpose and speed to a very large pool toy in the middle of the deep end.
He hopped right in and almost made it onto the toy before slipping underneath it and though he started treading water he didn’t know to put his head up. Because of his position I had to run over and jump into the pool fully clothed and drag him back out. If I hadn’t been watching him I don’t think I would have even seen he was under that toy and no other adults saw what happened, only me pulling him out. Scared the freaking life out of me.”
The Entire Congregation Went On A Hunt For The Missing Kids

“My parents used to take my sister and I to this Methodist church. We each had different Sunday School classes. I think mine was for second graders. So, I have this friend there, Justin, and we’re in the same class. Before the service starts, we go upstairs into our classroom. No one is in there yet.
I’m sort of the troublemaker of the two of us. I say, ‘Hey, we should hide in the closet, and when they all come in and sit down, we’ll jump out and be like, BOO! IT’S SATAN!’
Justin agreed that that would be totally awesome. So, we open the closet and get inside. It is pitch black. We are really quiet for a little while. Then we start whispering to each other. We thought we invented the idea of a one-way mirror since neither of us had ever heard of one before.
We didn’t play doctor or consider kissing, as we were both in very mature school relationships with Cara, his girlfriend, and Tyler and Brian, my boyfriends. But then we heard voices and got ready to spring out when the doors fling open. It’s the pastor’s wife. ‘I found them!’ she says.
Suddenly my mom storms over, with puffy eyes and a really red face. ‘You are in so much trouble!’
My dad was glaring at me. Justin’s parents were just as mad. We gave each other scared looks.
Apparently what had happened was that we had disappeared shortly before the church service, and our Sunday Schools had happened earlier. So, the service starts, and my parents figure I went with Little Duchess to her class, not wanting to sit through the service. So, the service ends, and they go to pick us up, and I’m not there. Getting worried, they start looking with the other parents, where they find out Justin is missing too.
As more and more people notice the four parents trying to find the kids, the more of the congregation goes to look for us. There were at least thirty people in the room when they opened up the closet door and found us sitting in there, completely oblivious.
So, you had the element of ‘lost kids’ and ‘dumb kids’ and “two opposite gender kids in a closet together at church.” We only went back a handful of times, but the older people still make fun of me for it.”
She Took The Wrong Medication?

“When she was about 2, my daughter overdosed on sleeping tablets. For background, she takes tablets herself daily and has done from practically birth. When she was a baby we crushed the tablets and mixed the powder with some milk and fed it to her in a syringe. As she got older she just took the tablets herself but would chew them, I don’t know how as they are disgusting.
One day we were in my dad’s flat and she was just pottering around but we didn’t hear her. My husband went to find her and found her in my dad’s bedroom with an open empty bottle of sleeping tablets. He asked her to open her mouth and she has white powder in her mouth. My dad reckoned she had eaten at least 6 of them.
She must have thought they were her tablets or something and because she is used to taking her own tablets the taste didn’t make her sick. Thankfully my dad lived within five minutes of the children’s hospital so we got her there quickly and she was able to take charcoal. She had to be kept in for observation but she was fine. I have never ever felt so scared in my life. I was initially in shock and when I got to the hospital I started babbling like an idiot and just cried.
My husband was amazing throughout and I just fell to pieces. My dad felt absolutely awful, but it was just an unfortunate accident. He must not have put the lid back on the bottle right and being a man in his 60s living on his own, child safety was not really top of his mind. She never had any problems with it but still, my heart nearly stops when I think about it.”
He Almost Lost His Toe

“My husband’s mom told me how when he was around 8 years old, he was hanging out with his buddy walking around farm/wood areas. Well, my husband was barefoot as they were walking, and stepped on an animal trap. It sliced his big toe almost completely off. Now he has an artificial joint in his big toe.
THEN when he was in his early 20s he was working at a restaurant. It was closing time and he was cleaning grease traps. Some coworker jerk thought it would be funny to spray the ground with water…..husband comes in the room with hot grease traps…it spills all over him. He has skin grafts all over his body, and it is a complete miracle that he doesn’t look like Freddy Krueger. In fact, the only reason I even believe that story happened is because his mom showed me pics of the burn boils.
I now have a son, and I am completely terrified. LOL!”
Don’t Touch The Base Of The Blender!

“She stuck her finger in the hole of my BlendTec base while it was plugged in.
I think the switch was off so she couldn’t have pushed a button and caused harm – but I’ve never ripped the cord from the wall so fast in my life. I thought some of the wall was going to rip off.
Now I always put my body between her and the blender, put the container on the base before I ever plug it in, unplug before removing the base after I’m done, and I’ve explained that this machine would have twisted her finger off her hand so I think she’s scared.”
Dragging His Brother Down The Dam With Him

“When I was about 4 years old, my parents took me and my 2-year-old brother to a dam. A park was built around it and there were food shacks littered on the edge of the dam.
My parents started arguing about where to eat when I nonchalantly ducked under the railings and wandered away with little brother tagging along. We stood on the edge of the dam (it wasn’t like the Hoover Dam — we were literally at the base of the dam) and I thought I’d dip my feet in. I got spooked by a grasshopper and lost my footing, taking my brother with me (I was holding his hand).
Little did I know the reason the water was so black was because it was 15 meters (49 feet) deep (at the edge). My parents told us this later: The only reason we’re still alive is because a food vendor saw the whole thing and was already running towards us before we fell in.”
She Just Wanted To Get To Her Diapers

“So, it’s a beautiful fall afternoon, and my wife and I had decided to go outside and work on completing some minor work on our new deck, enjoy the crisp weather, and listen to the Badgers game on the radio with an ice-cold beer in hand. Having put our 16-month-old daughter down for her afternoon nap, this seemed like a wonderful idea!
My fellow parents will likely recognize this as what’s called a GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY to return with your spouse, as temporary as it would be, to the place of calm – enjoying each others’ company one-on-one, and reminiscing about how we had done this kind of thing all the time in our pre-child era.
As a rather important aside, earlier that day we had run some errands and had picked up our usual monthly SUPER MEGA ULTRA PACK of diapers from the local warehouse club. We decided to leave the putting away for later and we left it in the kitchen to take care of later.
Twenty or thirty minutes later, our darling little angel appears at the screen door, tears in her eyes and crying out, ‘Mommy, Daddy, I got an owie.’ Now let me tell you – whatever relaxation which had crept into our lovely afternoon was instantly replaced with a surge of adrenaline as we both rushed over to see… the tiniest little nick on one of her dainty little fingers, maybe 1/4 of an inch long (~6.5mm). The adrenaline is replaced with sighs of thankfulness and parental curiosity as to how this had happened.
Well, it turns out that as we were enjoying our suds and the weather, our little troublemaker had climbed out of her crib, crawled down the 7 steps from the upper level of the house, and into to the kitchen to retrieve a 10-inch butcher’s knife from our knife drawer! What, you may ask was she doing with said knife?!?
‘I help! I try open diapers,’ she explains.
I proceeded to count the holes, and there were no less than 58 entry wounds on that poor box of diapers…
We were quite lucky to come out with just a simple cut requiring a small bandage that day, but whenever we’re at a social gathering and some new parent chats us up, complaining sharing about how their child is ‘just so mischievous,’ we recall this story for them in an attempt to re-set the bar of their expectations, and share what it’s like to raise a truly high-spirited child.”
“The Man In The Basement”

“My 3-year-old son as we’re about to go upstairs to put him and his 18-month-old brother to bed.
‘Daddy what about the man in the basement.’ What man? ‘The man, he came today, he’s hiding until you go to sleep.’ What? ‘He told me it’s a secret.’
My wife and I looked at each other creeped the heck out. She took the kids upstairs, I went and checked the basement. Everything was fine but oh my gosh…was that legit scary!”
Consumption Of Toilet Bowl Cleaner

“My sister and I still lived together with my then 16-month-old niece, whom we were diligently trying to wean off of bottles. She was only crawling with intermittent toddling at this point and she often times followed me into the bathroom. Because she would often try to get into cupboards, we had recently moved all of the chemicals to a tall shelf behind the toilet. When she refused to leave the bathroom with me, I flicked off the light assuming she would follow me out. She was not a fan of the dark. I hollered at my sister to come and grab her and went about my business.
Not two minutes later I turn around in the kitchen and there my niece is, standing tall… and happily sucking away at a bottle. What?! She stops suddenly, drops the bottle, and begins this heart-stopping cough. It’s freaking Clorox toilet bowl cleaner and I’ll be damned if she didn’t wrench the child proof lid up enough to drink it. To make matters worse, we were preparing for a St. Patrick’s Day party the next day, so all the light bulbs in the house had been replaced by green lights. Trying to calmly answer the questions from poison control while discerning if her coloring was off, we became frantic and futile.
The three minutes following the incident were the most panicked and terrifying of my life. It’s all a choking screaming green blur. Fortunately, we have a children’s hospital in my city and she was rushed in in less than 15 minutes after the incident. She was fine. No stomach pump, no terrifying tubes or alarms or any other scary hospital things. They said that because it was not industrial strength and she had consumed less than an ounce she would be fine. Still. Her breath smelled like wintergreen for three days and the kid couldn’t fart without us inspecting every last inch of her.
I guess what had happened, is that she had pushed the magazine basket up to the toilet, climbed onto the padded lid cover, and shaken the shelf until the bottle looking item fell free. I saw her trying to do it again a week later! (All chemicals were discarded by this point and her shaking only dislodged some towels).”
This Kid Disappeared At The Worst, Most Frightening Times

“One day when I was 3 my mom was giving my brother a bath. He wasn’t sitting up securely yet so she was busy. It’s important to know we lived on a very busy street. So my mom is washing my brother when she hears the front door open and her blood runs cold. She calls for me and I don’t answer, so she wraps up my brother in a towel and dashes out the front door with him, but I’m nowhere to be seen. In a panic, she calls for me again and hears me answering from the backyard. I had forgotten something in the back and using a 3-year-old’s logic I used the front door to go outside and get it. Without asking, of course.
Then there’s the time I decided to run to away at high speed from my parents in the middle of a busy international airport. Mom was pregnant and can’t run due to her bad leg so my dad had to take off after tiny 2 year old me, who fit between people’s legs and thought the whole thing was terribly funny. I was one of those kids with a leash after that.
When I was four we moved to Nicaragua for my dad’s work. The first week there my brother pulls a vanishing act in the supermarket’s parking lot. Mom speaks no Spanish yet and is terrified. It’s a third world country, it’s before cell phones, she doesn’t know how to ask for help, and has no idea what to do. She’s having a panic attack when my brother finds her, smiling and proudly displaying the bag of cookies he ran off for.
This is why my Mom’s hair went gray when she was 35.”
Scaring Her Parents In The Middle Of The Night

“My dad always tells the story of when I was 3 or 4 years old, he put me to bed after a bath with damp hair. Being young, I still had a habit of sneaking into my parents’ bed at night, and this night was no different. My dad slept on the side of the bed that faced a window, and in the middle of the night I got up to go get into their bed, only I couldn’t find the room so I decided to wake my dad to ask him to move over.
Now imagine waking up to the sound of a child’s voice, turning around to face the window, and all you see is a little silhouette with horns EVERYWHERE (the horns being my damp curly hair dried into weird bed-head). My dad started freaking out and kicked my mom, giving her a charlie horse, who also proceeded to scream ‘WHATS WRONG WHATS GOING ON?!?!!’ all the while I climb into bed, and drift peacefully to sleep.”
He Didn’t Realize He Was Playing With Copperheads

“When I was around 4 or 5 years old my family lived out in the country, miles from anything that resembled a town. While playing outdoors one day I had been digging around in the dirt of the landscaping beds relatively close to the house. I’d apparently found a knot of worms in the dirt and had decided to take them inside to wash them off in the bathroom sink. I don’t really remember the details about that part of the story.
Where my own memories take over the recounting of the event was the part when my older brother, who was nearly a decade my senior and a nature enthusiast, walked in and noticed the worms were swimming as I pushed at them with my fingers. I clearly remember that because I felt he was being a jerk when he, over my protests, calmly pulled me away from the sink and out of the bathroom. He pushed me ahead of him all the way to my parents’ bedroom and announced to my mother, who was the only adult home at the time, that I had just been playing with a sink full of baby snakes. Later, after Mom stopped the 120 dB shrieking and my brother had handled the snakes, it revealed that they appeared to be baby copperhead snakes.”