Lifestyle
Parents Are Sharing The Most Obvious Red Flags That A Kid Is Being Raised By Terrible Adults, And My Heart Is Breaking
1.
Warning: This post mentions child sexual abuse.
Recently, Reddit user charming_cupzee asked, “What’s the first sign that a child has terrible parents?”
People had A LOT to say in the comments. Here are some of the most interesting (and heartbreaking) replies:
2.“My parents told everyone that I was lying when I failed my school eye exam. They never took me to the eye doctor. Apparently, they thought I just wanted glasses. It wasn’t until I failed the vision part of the driver’s license test that they realized I do need glasses. School was so much easier when I could finally see.”
Marija Stepanovic / Getty Images
—dogandfroglover
3.“A baby bottle full of Mountain Dew. 😟”
—KatieWTFIsMyLife
4.“If they become very quickly and inadequately attached to any adult who gives them attention and kindness.”
—sparkly_dreamz
5.“I’m a teacher. I had one poor kindergartner last year with cockroaches inside the sandwich bag in his lunchbox, so his sandwich was inedible. It indicated that even the house is filthy. It breaks my heart knowing that there’s genuinely nothing I can do for these kids, but we do what we can at school.”
BlakeDavidTaylor / Getty Images
—SherbetLemon1926
6.“Someone who apologizes for their parents often.”
—BolaViola
7.“When I was student teaching, I had a little boy who had lice for two MONTHS. It got to the point where they allowed him back to school even with the lice because his mom refused to do anything about it. She threatened to get the news involved for us preventing her child from getting a fair education. We reported her, but nothing came of it.”
—Stinky_ButtJones
8.“The words they use and the topics they freely initiate conversations about. Kids pick up a lot from their environments you can learn a lot about the priorities of the adults in their life just by talking to the kid.”
Nicoletaionescu / Getty Images
—Facepalm_2025
9.“When they seem like an ‘old soul,’ it’s probably because they were forced to grow up too fast.”
—MangoSalsa89
10.“I used to work in a daycare. Some of these poor children would come in with their diapers soaked through, and their little rear ends would have sores on them from having sat in a wet diaper for who knows how long. Also, these children were so hungry for a kind touch. I would cuddle them in my lap and make sure to spend time with them, letting them know they were loved. I hated sending them home every day.”
—CallMeWhatYouWilll
11.“When a child flinches or freezes when a parent speaks or moves near them.”
StockPlanets via Getty Images
—NoraBlake01
12.“I had adults think I was a child of an alcoholic when I was a kid. I was extremely observant and cautious, and I was tied to the vibes of the adults. As an adult, I realize it was because I was the kid of a T1 diabetic with frequent and scary low blood glucose episodes. It turned my very calm, funny father into an intense and frightening person for short intervals.”
—radarsteddybear4077
13.“They push away things that are good or sabotage something good because they always expect things to go bad.”
—JackRussellsForever
14.“When the kid consistently smells like pee. Chances are they haven’t pissed themselves; it’s more likely that the parents don’t wash their clothes or change them.”
Nicoletaionescu / Getty Images
—PepsiMaxHoe
“A childhood friend always smelled like pee. I found out that she was being molested and would pee the bed to keep her dad away.”
—Brilliant-Building41
15.“Constantly saying sorry, even when they didn’t do anything wrong.”
—parasolka90
16.“Stealthy kids. Like if a child is really quiet when moving, always super careful with doors, make no sound when they walk, and are always mindful of corners.”
—CanIHaveCookies
17.“As a teacher, I had a student whose dad asked if I could hit him if he gave the school permission.”
Tatiana Maksimova / Getty Images
—Embarrassed_Put_7892
18.“All kids need to learn socio-emotional skills like impulse control, self-regulation, conflict resolution and sharing. Sometimes you run into a young kid where these skills are overdeveloped. A 3-4 year old who already knows how to defuse any situation. If their friend wants their toy, they give it up. If someone is angry at them, they pull a silly face to make them laugh. They always fawn and defer what they truly want to make the other party not be mad at them. That kind of kid breaks my heart. That kind of survival mechanism is usually only learned one way.”
—batikfins
19.“When a parent doesn’t validate their child’s feelings and uses fear to get them to listen.”
—currentlyontheweb
20.“If they’re trying too hard to take on a caretaker role with their younger siblings rather than a sibling role, it’s probably a sign their parents aren’t doing an adequate job taking care of them.”
Skynesher / Getty Images
—Same-Drag-9160
21.“My neighbors swear at their kids and scream at them. Their youngest is a 3-year-old girl.”
—Creepy_Philosopher_9
22.“When parents pimp out their children on social media, such as family channels on YouTube.”
—Geester43
23.“My mother tells her friends that I learned to fake a cough to get attention when I was a baby. Think about that. I was not getting attention by crying, so I had to come up with a new strategy. As an INFANT.”
IL21 / Getty Images
—Fun_in_Space
24.And finally, something to consider before jumping to conclusions: “Many of the signs people mentioned on this post can be indicators of poverty, genetics, or nothing at all. As a teacher, I’ve worked with dozens of kids with constant DHS involvement, and there is very little in common between them. How parental problems manifest in kids is a crapshoot. It takes getting to know the situation before you really know what is going on with a kid.”
—sedatedforlife
H/T r/AskReddit
Some replies have been edited for length and clarity.
If you are concerned that a child is experiencing or may be in danger of abuse, you can call or text the National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-422-4453(4.A.CHILD); service can be provided in over 140 languages.
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual assault, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE, which routes the caller to their nearest sexual assault service provider. You can also search for your local center here.