Most parents probably know that their children aren’t going to be 100% open and honest with them. There are always going to be some small secrets between them. In some cases, when the truth finally comes out, it can lead to a lot of hilarious and lighthearted moments that you’ll be telling all your friends about for years to come.

In a hilarious viral AskReddit thread, the parents of the internet opened up about the weirdest things they found in their kids’ bedrooms. Clandestine fish tanks in the closet? Sugar under the bed? Those are just the tip of the iceberg. Scroll down for some funny and relatable parenting stories, Pandas!

Bored Panda wanted to learn a bit more about how parents can inspire their kids to be tidier and more honest with them, so we reached out to Samantha Scroggin, a parenting blogger and the founder of Walking Outside in Slippers. You'll find her insights below.

#1

My mom once found my fish tank full of fish in my closet. I wasn't allowed to have fish.

EDIT: I called them my "illegal fish" for the longest time...

Image credits: Simplemindedflyaways

#2

Recently I found a green piece of folded paper on the floor of my 11 year old daughter's room.

I opened it and the only thing written on it was "CHUCK NORRIS".

Image credits: anon

#3

My mom found a locked briefcase in my brother's room. She was convinced there was d***s in it, so she panicked, broke the locks and opened it. She found p**n and fireworks. She was pretty embarrassed.

Image credits: bionut876

We asked parenting blogger Samantha for her thoughts on how parents can create a relationship of trust and honesty with their munchkins. She explained that there needs to be a give-and-take here.

"I think encouraging our kids to be honest and open with us starts with being open with them. When they do confide in us, we should think carefully about our response and not shame them," she told Bored Panda in an email.

"In addition, we should believe our kids when they tell us about their lives or what goes on in them. I find myself sometimes surprised with how honest my kids are with me, so I guess I'm doing something right," Samantha said.

#4

When my husband was little (talking 5 or 6 years old) his mother couldn't figure out why his room had been getting smellier and smellier over the previous 2 weeks. She finally did some searching and found a "nest" in the back of his closet. He had taken 2 eggs out of the fridge, put them in a little nest he made out of his shirts, and put a plastic dinosaur on top of the eggs to attempt to hatch baby dinosaurs. In his little kid mind, this seemed like a perfectly logical idea.

Image credits: anon

#5

I'm not a parent, I'm the baby sitter, but one time I watched a 6 year old Jewish girl who was really upset about not celebrating Christmas. Her parents were really orthodox and didnt let her sing Christmas carols or even eat candy canes. As I tucked her in, she showed me a little gingerbread house she made out of saltine crackers, skittles, and peanut butter. Cutest thing I ever saw, and I never told her parents as she would have gotten in trouble, but she was something special.

Image credits: TheUnicornIsWatching

#6

Another kid. My daughter used to sneak her friend in her room through her window.

Image credits: crabby1990

Meanwhile, many parents have trouble motivating their children to pitch in with the housework or to keep their rooms clean. We turned to Samantha for help on this very relatable issue.

She opened up to us that in her personal opinion, kids should help with the household chores. "Getting them to actually do it is another story. I am not above bribery in the form of rewards. We make it clear to our kids that they are expected to do chores as part of their family responsibilities, and they get a weekly allowance," Samantha said.

"Reward stars can be earned for extra chores that can be traded in for prizes. That said, my kids are not always pleased about doing chores. But it comes with the family territory.

#7

My parents were a bit confused when they looked in my closet found an anatomically correct wooden arm with metal bracket joints and elastic to move the individual fingers.

I took "make an anatomical model of the arm" a bit too literally in my 6th grade science class and felt really dumb holding a working wooden arm in class when everyone else had drawings. I was hiding it because I used the power tools without permission. My parents were pretty cool about it after I explained why I had wooden body parts in the closet and let me to go an engineering tech school part time along side high school a few years later.

Image credits: ryno9o

#8

My $2500+ dollar gaming system.. and desk, which was on a different floor in the house entirely.

Just walked in from work one day and noticed it missing, was about to freak out when I saw that my 10 year old and (almost) 16 year old had moved it, and the entire contents, up to their room.

Thought it about it for a few moments, not even upset when I noticed how much more room it gave me down stairs, and hatched a plan.

When he turned 16 a week later, I said, "Happy Birthday! It's yours now!" and purchased him $100 worth of games on steam to rock the system with.

... now I'm planning a nice gaming laptop for myself ;).

Image credits: mr_majorly

#9

My friend's mom found his box of dead baby raccoon skulls in his closet. I stopped hanging out with him pretty soon after.


**Edit**: To clarify, he admitted to tying baby Raccoons he found in his dad's garage to a fence then [ending] them with a crossbow.


**Edit 2**: If I get another message in my inbox about him being a future serial [criminal], I'll shoot *you* with a damn crossbow. Come on people, read the damn comments.


**Edit 3 (Aug 2016)**: Not sure if anyone will ever see this, but he just received a life sentence for [unaliving] somebody. F**k.

Image credits: ngtstkr

The world would probably be a better place if everyone was more honest. But let’s not be naive: lies, deception, exaggeration, and secrecy are core parts of the human experience. In short—they’re not going away anytime soon. The best we can hope for is that we can lead by example and inspire the people around us to be more transparent, trusting, and trustworthy.

From a very practical perspective, it would be useful for parents to know that their children can turn to them for help and advice. The goal is to have a wholesome, supportive relationship where everyone’s open so that you don’t have to stumble upon packs of bacon under the bed or hidden stashes of cat food. Some small secrets can be playful, but others are just messy.

According to BabyCenter, kids who are 6 years old already know the difference between the truth, lies, and stories. By the time they’re 7 or 8 years old, even though they’re still developing, they can be held accountable for their honesty. They should know that they’re expected to tell the truth.

However, Jane Nelsen, author of the Positive Discipline series of books, notes that kids this age might be scared to tell the truth about doing something wrong. They might be afraid of disappointing their parents or they’re scared of punishment.

#10

Cat food! My daughter (18 mo.) is obsessed with eating the cat food....she started taking handfuls of it and sneaking it into her bedroom....my husband found her stash next to her crib. She's a strange one :).

Image credits: L_Abernathy

#11

My parents found a crack pipe in my room when I was in like 3rd grade...I found it on the playground and thought it was a treasure.

Image credits: CAKE_OR_DEATH_

#12

My cousin's parents found a full package of unopened bacon under his bed. He wanted it all for himself.

I can't blame his reasoning, but the execution was a bit sloppy.

Image credits: Mostly_Aquitted

Broadly speaking, the cooler and calmer guardians are, the better for everyone. What parents can do is avoid labeling their kids as liars, not ask questions about things they already know the answers to, and avoid emphasizing their bad behavior. Furthermore, they can work together with their child on the things they’re lying about, whether that’s doing homework or chores.

It’s not just mutual trust and transparency that parents have to worry about, though. If you keep finding random bits of food or trash in your kids’ rooms, then it’s a hygiene issue, too. To put it very simply, if your children keep hiding food that goes bad, it’s going to affect the entire home in a very bad way.

Clinical psychologist Anjali Gowda Ferguson, Ph.D., explained to PsychCentral that cleaning can reduce stress and anxiety, improve your mood, and give you a sense of control. Furthermore, if your children get into the habit of cleaning, it gives them a sense of responsibility, builds their self-esteem, and also promotes living skills that are useful throughout their lives.

Ferguson advises parents to encourage their children to clean things on their own to promote their independence.

#13

I found a chuck of brown sugar the size of my fist under my 4 year old's bed. My daughter likes to sneak candy or cookies into her room when my wife and I aren't looking, but this was a first.

Image credits: Wamptastic

#14

Not a parent, but a nanny. I found a stash of dresses and make up under a five year old boy's bed. He had raided a box of old clothes that their mother was donating and took his sister's dresses that fit him, he found the correct sizes for his age and everything. He said he used it to be a "sassy girl".

Image credits: anon

#15

Oregano, I don't know why he's baking up there.

Image credits: FireIce31

Of course, if the munchkins genuinely need help or don’t know how to do something, the guardians can lend them a hand. But adults should not be jumping in to complete every little task or chore. A small amount of adversity is healthy in the long run.

Meanwhile, if you’re still at the start of teaching them about the importance of pitching in with the housework, you could make everything a collaborative effort. Then, slowly, you could reduce the amount of help you provide as your kids gain confidence and get used to doing things on their own.

#16

Not a parent myself, but my parents once found an empty lobster claw under my sister's pillow. my uncle had jokingly told her to take it home with her and being about 5 years old, she took him seriously. the stench was awful.

Image credits: bb_snow

#17

When I was around 9 or so my mom found a convict under my bed. Granted I didn't know he was a convict because he used to work for my dad and would give me playstation 1 games (I think final fantasy 8 among others), so I thought he was one of dad's nice friends and didn't really question when he was knocking on our balcony door asking for me to let him in (keep in mind we're on the third floor). I let him in and he asks if he can hide in my room so I'm like 'whatevs, seems legit' and take him back to it. He looks around for a while at the closet before deciding he would fit his 200-something lb, 6'5 body underneath my twin bed. To the layman, something would obviously be awry but it checked out in my little 9 year old brain, so I continued watching Dragon Ball Z in my room now instead of the living room since school had ended not too long ago and I didn't want to do homework yet. 5 minutes later my mom comes in to see how my day was and is instantly concerned as to why my bed is sticking up off the ground on 1 side with me acting completely oblivious to it. She comes over and lifts up the blanket that is also slightly off the ground, and jumps back completely terrified as a 30-something year old man springs from underneath the bed. He starts talking to her in a hurried fashion and she's yelling at him, all the while I'm getting peeved because I can't hear what was going on in the show. They both storm out of my room and I don't really think anything of it and continue watching the show.

About 5 minutes later, he blasts through my door, opens the window, PUNCHES OUT THE SCREEN, and does some crazy spiderman egress s**t that involved him jumping out the window while still holding on to the side of it so he wraps around the building whilst midair, lands on the group of Air Conditioning units (apartment complex), and runs off into the woods. 2 stories off the ground. Ok, now something's a little weird. 'Obviously he could've just used the front door' is what I'm thinking. Like 10 seconds later, 2 cops and a police dog are in my room followed by my mom, who looks absolutely mortified by what I've done. I guess the severity of it is finally setting in so I just look at her with that 'I f****d up, didn't I?' look on my face.

I got my a*s BEAT that night.

TL;DR: Mom finds fellon under my bed, guy Damien Walters himself out of my window.

Image credits: steakbird

#18

My coworker once found a ziplock bag full of hairs, all sorts of colours and length, in one of the new kid's room (we work in a rehab for teens). Kid says its his collection of girls hair for when he does his voodoo rituals.

Image credits: confusedefuse

And, of course, there’s nothing like genuine praise to keep your children motivated with their chores. You can even make the process more fun by creating a chore chart with stickers. Or you might choose to reward your children with more privileges. Whatever you decide to do, there has to be positive feedback for all the effort they put in.

So, dear Pandas, which of these stories did you find the funniest and most relatable? If you have kids, what’s the most bizarre thing you’ve found in your munchkins’ bedrooms?

On the flip side, what’s the strangest thing you kept secret from your parents when you were growing up? If you have any lighthearted stories to share, feel free to do so in the comments!

#19

This is about someone who rented a room in my house. She was so immature, she was practically my kid.

My boyfriend and I rented a house and it had an extra bedroom, so we posted an ad on Craigslist and a girl, let's call her S, replied. She had just turned 18 and was going to college 2 minutes away from the house. She seemed like a nice girl at first. Quiet, tiny (I mean like 70 pounds tiny), and didn't mind helping out around the house.

A couple weeks after she moved in, we noticed weird food items were missing. Not frozen pizzas or bread or anything- it was more like whole jars of mayo and sliced american cheese. We asked her about it and she denied she took anything.

When the semester was up, she moved out, and we started cleaning out her room and bathroom. When we opened the bathroom closet, this disgusting smell hit us. On the wall behind the top shelf, there were literally THOUSANDS of balls of paper towel with chewed and half-digested food inside.

She would eat a jar of mayo, throw it up into this bucket we found in her bedroom closet, and make vomit snowballs, which she tossed into the closet.

It took hours to scrape it all off. Absolutely disgusting.


TL;DR: vomit snowballs. Eck.

Image credits: burglarsonarceny

#20

Not a parent but I once found a naked Barbie, bound and gagged, in a shoe box under my 9 year-old sister's bed. The shoe box had a window cut out with rubberband bars and was lined with blankets. My sister is 17 now and no I've never asked her about it.

Image credits: GrrArgh

#21

A hamster.

We never bought them one.

Turns out, a neighbor's hamster got in the house.

Image credits: Val_Hallen

#22

I'm the kid here, but when I was 12 my mom found a shoebox full of blood-soaked socks under my bed.

I'd gotten my period and was too embarrassed to ask what to do, so I just, you know. Socks. I don't know what she thought it was, but the fact that she was relieved when she learned she was holding a shoebox full of menstrual blood and ruined Peds is probably telling.

Image credits: cadaverbonnet

#23

Shortly after my son learned to write his name I found it written on his wall with poop. He denied it.

#24

We have a wooded wet land area behind our house and every spring for a couple of weeks our yard and sidewalk gets invaded by the cutest little baby frogs. They are only about the size of a US dime. My daughter was about 5 and she caught one and smuggled it into her room in her pocket. I found her playing with it in her room. It took a bit of convincing that the baby froggie would be happier outside and away from our cats.

Image credits: lisasimpsonfan

#25

This question was tailor made for me. Since about Christmas my daughter's room has reeked of something dead. Her room is a rubbish heap of clothes and make-up nonsense. We moved a bunch of stuff, smelled around and determned the stench was coming from a particular area of the room. She reminded me that she slept in a spare room a few weeks back because she heard scrabbling sounds coming from a vent. I remove air duct vent covers, stick my nose in and give a sniff...nothing. The next day the stink is coming out of her door into the hallway. She's no longer been sleeping in the room because of the smell. After sniffing all over the place and carefully moving everything in her room we found what the smell was. An open tin of spiced octopus. She had received it as a gag gift the previous Christmas. It sat in her room for almost a year until, feeling curious, she opened the tin to have a look inside. She put the tin aside where it became covered with the flotsam and jetsam of a teenaged girls room. Eventually it was a smell that came straight from Satan's bowels.

Image credits: LittleLarry

#26

Me and my sister shared a room all growing up, and one time when my mom was cleaning it she found a detailed drawing of herself giving birth.

I'm assuming my sister drew it, but as the artistic one, I of course got blamed. It was awkward to say the least.

#27

When I was 10 my mom found a piece of paper with two columns. One column header read "Bush" and the other read "Gore" and underneath each column was a list of every swear word imaginable (at least every one I knew). E.g. Bush would say "you lying sack of s**t" and Gore would respond "go to hell you bastard." There was a little drawing of each of them looking angry at the bottom of the page.

#28

I found all of our dead buried fish from the past years in his closet.

Image credits: uuusername

#29

Well this is theoretically in between two bedrooms - but my boys had poked a hole in the wall (behind a poster board). And for three years they had deposited random items and toys in said hole.

When we moved I discovered the hole and about 4 feet of memories stuck inside the wall...

PS.. I just covered it up and painted over it - someone is in for a big surprise in 2023.

#30

My aunt once found a box of live hand grenades under my cousin's bed. Turns out he and a group of friends broke into the armory of a nearby army base. He was 12.

Image credits: Herzogsteve

#31

When I was about eight my cousins and I unearthed a pile of bones on the back 40. I was so excited, thinking they were dinosaur bones (they were pretty big), that I put them in my school bag and hung them in my closet, so I could take them in to my science teacher for show-and-tell. Turns out they were from cattle, but I kept them hanging in my closet anyway. When my mom finally found them she was horrified and threw them out. I kept explaining to her that it was for science, but she wasn't having any of it.

#32

A wedding ring in my 9 year old son's pokemon card box. Apparently, a kid at school really wanted one of my son's cards, so he took his mom's ring to trade. Mine was lost a few months ago, so mah boy thought it would make a good Xmas present for me. We were very surprised. It has been returned.

#33

My mom found my (I was 17) $13,000 in gambling winnings that I had been hiding in check boxes in my room. She had resigned that the only way I could have made that money was to sell d***s (I've never done d***s.) She harbored this for weeks trying to wrap her head around it, so after confronting me was relieved to hear that I had just been sneaking into the casino to count cards at blackjack for the whole summer. I think of it as an "everything went better than expected" for all of us.

Image credits: parahsalinbundtcake

#34

My mom found the BDSM lesbian Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfiction I was writing when I was 16.

I explained it away and 6 years later she still doesn't suspect that I'm bisexual.

#35

Dead Squirrel under the bed...I smelled the stench and asked my daughter what it was. She of course had no idea, I sniffed it out..she found it outside and brought it in.
Edit: she is not the girl from the you tube video, nor is she Peter wiggins.

Image credits: anon

#36

An ex girlfriend of mine (who was weird enough) had an exceptionally weird and creepy younger sister. My ex and I were 17 at the time and her younger sister was 14/15.

Now at that age I think we can all agree, some pretty f****d up s**t starts happening to the human body, particularly if you're a girl. More on that later.

Anyway, my ex's family and I are planning to go out for an evening meal in town so my ex and her sister are ordered to tidy their rooms before they go out. No problem there, my ex (with my help) cleans her room pretty fast (just a little bit of laundry and the bed to make). Easy.

While we're cleaning, the younger sister (whose room was always completely disgusting - reeked of BO, clothes and food everywhere, etc.) had her bedroom door closed the entire time. This might not strike you as odd but they were a pretty open family so doors were rarely closed and doing so was considered suspicious. Anyway, she emerges from her room not long after my ex and I are finished tidying and ready to go.

We're all running kinda late by now so in order to make the reservation my ex's mum decides to just take her daughters' word for it when they say the room is tidy. Besides, they were busy for an appropriate amount of time. I'm sure she figured she could just check when they got back from the meal.

Fast forward to later that evening. The mum realises that not only did she not check their rooms before they left, but that it was suspiciously easy to get her daughters to clean their rooms. Best investigate, just to be sure.

She checks my ex's room: awesome. Bed's neat and tidy, dirty laundry is in the hamper and everything is pretty spotless. She begins to feel bad for not trusting her daughters. Still, she's checked on one of them, she has to check on the other for the sake of fairness.

Upon opening the youngest daughter's bedroom door it appears everything is as it should be. Incorrect! *Visually* the room is spotless, there are no clothes on the floor and the dirty plates are gone. However, as with most animals, we humans have been treated to the sense of smell. Well, what a f****d up evolutionary decision that was. This girl's room stank; and not like "Dude, I just took an awesome dump and it smells like death". More like "Dude, I just killed a guy about a month ago on a really hot day and then I threw up and shat all over it".

Problem was: the source of the smell was elusive. Nothing in the cupboards, the one drawer in her room was empty and that was about everything she had in terms of places to hide things. EXCEPT behind the bed.

With a bravery and digestive fortitude I have never before nor since witnessed, the mother pulled back the bed from the wall. By this point the daughter is a rich magenta with a mixture of embarrassment and guilt. She knows exactly what is afoot.

And what, pray tell, was behind the bed? A year's worth of **excessively** used sanitary towels stuck to the wall. Cemented to the wall and harvesting a rich and developed ecosystem all of its very own. Oh, and when I say "excessively" I mean they were used in such a way that they were more blood than towel. She had the door jammed shut constantly to pen the stench in.

TL;DR Sanitary towel swamp creatures.

EDIT: Accidentally invented sanitary walls

EDIT 2: Added a TL;DR.

Image credits: stillnoteeth

#37

My daughter lost her thumbnail due to shutting it in the hinged part of the door. That nail turned all kinds of colors and then finally fell off. Months later, I was cleaning her room and found a 6x6" box. It rattled when I shook it. I opened it and there was that damn thumbnail, named "Thumba." .

#38

A bloody dissected teddy bear. It all started when my 4 year old son was watching T.V. with me a few years ago, when I switched to a science channel showing doctors operating on a patient. I quickly switched channels again to avoid frightening my son, but he already saw it. He wasn't scared, but he asked me what the doctors were doing, so I decided to tell him in a way that won't disgust or traumatize him. He enjoyed learning something, then he went off to play in his room. Later that evening, my wife asked me where was the ketchup, so as I was searching, I ended up in my son's bedroom. Upon seeing me, he said: ''Look, daddy, I'm playing doctor with Waffy!'' (Waffy is how he called his teddy bear.) I looked at what he was doing, and I saw poor Waffy, cut open with all the stuffing spurting out and with scissors lying beside him. There was also a the ketchup bottle, with the not-so-stuffed bear dripping with ketchup. My son said: ''The ketchup is the blood!'' Then, he grabs a big piece of stuffing covered with ketchup and says: ''This is his heart!'' He then proceeds to run around his bedroom, chanting ''I cut Waffy's heart out, I cut Waffy's heart out''.

TL;DR: After witnessing a surgical operation on T.V., my 4 year old son tried doing the same thing with his teddy bear ''Waffy'', using scissors, ketchup for blood and a piece of stuffing for his heart.

#39

After I had surgery (and had been given a little too much anesthetic for my weight) I told my parents about the hedgehog I had been hiding from them for over a month in my closet. I was 18 at the time. The conversation went about like this from what I've been told.
Me: Dad, come here...
Dad: what?
Me: There's a hedgehog in my closet...
Dad: Jordan, no there isn't...
Mom: (My dads name), go check... This sounds like something he would do...
Dad: Fine...
(My dad walked out for a few minutes and came back to the room I was in)
Dad: (My moms name), He has a hedgehog in his closet...
Mom: (dads name), no he doesn't.
Dad: yes, he does...
(Mom walks out, and comes back with a look of shock)
Me: Dying of laughter...
The End.

#40

Not a parent here but my youngest sister used to eat ladybugs, spit out their shells, and stash them by a vent in the corner of her room.

#41

Not my kid, but my little sister. She was probably 6 at the time. It was during the summer in Kansas, and my mom kept seeing my sister trying to catch some houseflies that were buzzing around near the screen-door of our house. Every so often she'd actually catch one, and run off excited. After another day of seeing her do this, my mom decided to follow her and see what she was doing after she grabbed these flies. She waited till my sister ran into her room with her fresh catch, then followed her in shortly after. She was in the closet. She could hear her giggling. She opened the door and discovered my sister placing the fly into a sandwich sized Tupperware container.

"Jessi... what are you doing with those flies? What on earth is this?"

"These are my pets! :D"

The container had about 25 dead flies in it. and one newly caught addition still trying to escape. -_-.

#42

I'm sure this will be buried as f**k, but oh well. When I was 14 I bought a set of jay & silent bob dolls from my local record store that said funny things. They came with a fake bag of weed about the size of a postage stamp. So my mom went through my drawers, found it, smoked it, & then I got in deep s**t bc it got her high. It took me about a week to get her to believe that she had actually smoke plastic. F*****g parents man!

TL;DR - My mom smoked fake plastic weed & got high off of it.