Have you ever thought about yourself as a kid now that you are an adult? Meaning, the things you did to pass the time or the weird childhood rituals that you had? Back then, they seemed completely normal! However, if you’ve carried your childhood rituals with you to adulthood, you’ll be happy to learn that you are absolutely not alone, and there’s a whole Reddit thread where people share the things we all did as kids but that they kept on with well into their adult years.
Okay, so a fact is a fact - weird kids are actually completely normal; it’s just us, the grown-ups, who see them in such a light. Take, for instance, the weird rituals of saying goodbye to your plants or your pets when you leave your house. It might seem weird to 90% of adults, but to kids, it’s completely normal. So, the 10% who don’t find it weird continue to do their little daily rituals even though it might seem odd to onlookers. Honestly, in our opinion, there’s absolutely nothing kooky with saying bye-bye to your houseplants or reminding your cat that they are in charge of the house while you’re gone. Of course, those aren’t the only slightly offbeat daily rituals that people shared, but for more, you’re just gonna have to read the full list. It’s not such a bad thought, though, right?
Right, so ready to learn all about the weird childhood rituals that people shared on this AskReddit thread? If so, scroll on down below until you reach the submissions. Read them, give your vote to the ones you liked the best, and share this list with anyone who might find it relatable, if not a little kooky.
This post may include affiliate links.
"When I was younger I'd help my mum fold bedsheets, you know, we each grab an end, put the corners together twice to fold lengthways, and then walk towards each other to fold widthways. I used to always give my mum a hug at the end of it, with the bedsheets pressed between us. This would repeat for as many sheets as we needed to fold (1 or 2 or 3, you know).
Now I am 33 years old and when I and my wife fold sheets together, we end it with a hug… plus she gets a little kiss."
"When I'm on a hike I pick up a rock and carry it for about an hour. Then I put it down in a nice spot. I've done that since I was a kid so rocks could change horizons and see the world."
When I'm on a hike, I like to abduct random hikers and hold them captive in my basement for a month. Upon release, they are also glad to see the world.
"I always make sure to say goodbye to all the household pets before leaving."
fifyi comments: "I tell my cat he’s in charge of the house while I’m out."
adultinglikewhoa replied: "I have two cats, so I put the oldest in charge."
"I got my dog Snoopy when I was 10 years and ever since he was a puppy he had this love for lettuce. He would go absolutely nuts for it and so whenever I had a sandwich or a burger I would give him some of my lettuce. Over the years it became a ritual that whenever I prepared any food that involved lettuce for myself, I would grab extra lettuce for him so I could toss it to him as I ate. He passed away 4 years ago after almost 17 years together, but I still find myself grabbing that bit of extra lettuce for him."
"Make sure the tongs still work every time I pick them up."
user replied: "Gotta make the click-clack noise."
"Sometimes when I sleep, I keep one leg in the blanket and one leg outside of the blanket so I’m not too hot and not too cold. I called it the banana split."
Where does the cream go...........on second thought I don't want to know
"Saying 'ooh look cows' whenever I pass a farm. Even when I’m by myself."
"Eating cinnamon buns by turning it around in my hands so that I un-roll the bun and eat the unrolled parts."
Isn't that the way everyone eats cinnamon rolls? To do so otherwise is uncivilized! Haahaa
"Once when I was a teenager, I was all dressed up for something, in heels, and I did a little mock tap dance in the kitchen. My mom looked at me with a little smile on her face and said, 'You know, you used to do that when you were 2 years old any time you wore your dress shoes'.
Still do. Dress shoes are for tap dancing."
That’s fun. If I did that my mom would be like, “I knew you were adopted.” And my dad would just shake his head and walk away lol 😂
"Pretending the microwave is a bomb and stopping it at 0:01 like an action hero."
"Whenever I hear an airplane or helicopter I look up to find it."
Thirsty_Comment88 replied: "I still do that too. It never gets old. Sometimes you get to see really awesome planes too. I've seen a B-29 and a B-24."
"When I go to the beach I always draw a circle around our stuff... you know... to protect us from the sea bear."
When I go to the beach, I draw stares, laughter, and a small crowd so I've decided not to push for 'Nudity is my Right' on public beaches anymore.
"As a kid, I was terrified of Vampires (due to watching the original made for TV Salem's Lot). I convinced myself that if I slept with the covers up to my chin, they couldn't bite my neck. Didn't work, but I still sleep with covers up to my neck when I lay down in my coffin in the morning."
"I smell every book I read! Both my mom and grandma used to do it with me every time we opened up a new book to see what kind of 'book smell' it has. Been doing this for over 20 years now!"
"I still imagine a man running alongside the car on trips when I am the passenger. Imagining all the parkour stunts makes the time go by faster."
"When I was 6, me and my father made a cute little handshake, which we did every day when he left for work and when he would come home. Now (27) I still do it when I see my dad, one day when I have kids I'm going to pass it down to them."
"Starting in kindergarten, when I got home from school I'd put my stuff down, go in my room, close the door, and lay down and stare at the ceiling for about ten minutes. I still do this when I get home from work.
My parents used to think this was incredibly disturbing behavior. But I've had undiagnosed (and now diagnosed) anxiety problems since I was very young, and this routine was a way for me to decompress from the day before I was forced to continue socializing with people."
"I sort multi-colored candies (Skittles, M&Ms, etc) into their respective color groups and eat them one color at a time.
But I save one of each color for last, and eat that group all at once."
I sort them, eat one at a time until each color has the same number of pieces, then eat each color.
"When my mom would hold our hands as little kids she taught us this thing. She’d squeeze your hand 3 times and that meant 'I love you.' You’d squeeze back 2 times and that meant 'How much?' Then you’d both squeeze really hard at the same time and that meant 'Lots!'
I taught it to my husband when we got married and I’ve taught it to my 2-year-old son. I’ll teach it to my daughter. But the time as an adult that stands out the most was at my grandfather’s funeral. We all had to walk out of the sanctuary after his coffin. I had been strong the whole time, but started to cry walking down the aisle - it was all so final. My sister caught up to me and grabbed my hand. She squeezed it 3 times and we went through the whole thing."
Aww! My mom used to squeeze my hand for I love you too and now I do it with my kids <3
"I always make a wish at 11:11 whenever I see it even if it’s in my head. I’m in my 30s."
Whenever I see the time is 12:34 I yell out "1, 2, 3, 4!" Gotten some weird looks over the years.
"I still play with toys in the bath for at least 20 minutes before actually washing up. Bath paints/crayons, little rubber ducks, etc.
I'm a 30-year-old woman. It's fun."
"At night I get into bed with my socks on and then once I'm under the covers and warm, I take them off by peeling each one off with my big toes."
"I’m 25 and I have this ritual with my mom and dad - if I’m home and they’re going out or going to work I will run to the front window and wave to them as they leave. They do the same when I go out.
We’ve been doing this since I was old enough to walk. Sometimes I get self-conscious about it because I’m sure my neighbors can see but f*ck it! It takes ten seconds from our day and it’s just another reminder of how much we care about each other."
My parents trained me and my younger brother to respond to a whistle. It was a specific complicated pattern, about 6 seconds long, not something you’d hear randomly. Useful for finding toddlers in crowds and while traveling and whatnot. Grown now, but I will still stop dead and find the source whenever I hear it. At some point, my dad taught it to my fiancée because it’s just damn useful in the middle of the supermarket."
Hey! I love this one! Mom had a whistle for each of us kids, and one for everyone. If someone whistles any of them, my ears perk up, no matter where I am.
"I will always check behind the shower curtain to make sure no one is there hiding waiting to kill me. I’m an adult woman and I still hesitate to open it because this time may be the time there’s someone there."
I do this, because the one time I started the shower without really paying attention my newly-wet and VERY angry kitten shot out of the tub like a bat out of hell.
"I have a special spoon, just the right weight, and heft in my hand and size in my mouth. It's especially for yogurt or when I'm feeling down and always brings me a bit of childish cheer."
I had a special glass growing up that was only used by me. When it broke I was in mourning for days
"This is going to sound silly but every night before I fall asleep I lay in bed and write stories in my head. I thought I would grow out of it eventually but now the stories are just way more complex, lol."
angrytapes replied: "I thought it was just me. I have an elaborate sci-fi story going on and have done it for years. I never remember any of it until I start falling asleep."
"Always take a sip of the water before I swallow a pill with it. Gotta make sure the throat works."
"I scrape my ice cream bowls and yogurt and pudding cups like it's crack, and lick the bowl/cup clean."
"My dad would offer me the ‘best bite’ from whatever he was eating. The bite of the cheeseburger where the cheese is curled perfectly over the edge of the hamburger, the center bite of a steak, the endpoint of a piece of the pie. He would let me examine his food and point to the best bite which he would then feed me. I do the same for my kids and my husband and I do this for each other."
You have a great Dad! I still do this with my daughter, grandkids, and now great grandkids.
"When I was a kid my dad would surprise me with 'Junk Nights' with my sister. We’d go to the grocery store and he’d buy us anything we’d want for the night. Candy, popcorn, surge soda, ice cream, etc. Then we’d get pizza or McDonald’s and a video rental and have fun all night. He only did it like twice a year but it was always a surprise and so exciting! I still do that with my girlfriend and I’ll do it for my kids when I have them."
"If there are any biscuits with layers that Im eating (ex. Oreos or wafers), I would always eat most of them by taking apart each layer and eating them one by one."
"I still get f*cking giddy at the sight of snow."
"When I was a child my mother made a large round rug out of old pants. It's beautiful with lots of bright colors. We loved racing around it as children pretending it was a round race track or doing an 'Indian dance' around pretending that the red center was our fire. As an adult, my mother gave me her old rug (I saved it from being trashed as it had no special meaning to her) when I'm pacing my house while talking on the phone or thinking I catch myself walking around in circles on the rug. It's like my own personal sticky trap."
These are called rag rugs if you didn't know. I'm currently making one.
"I still shake the milk carton before pouring it.
I think this came from when my dad left and all we could afford was powdered milk, but I honestly can not drink milk if it hasn't been shaken. I feel like it won't be uniform."
"I still bite the head and legs off of animal crackers before eating the rest of the cracker."
iamstargirl comments: "I always eat the legs first so they can't run away."
CptHammer_ replied: "I like to hear them scream too."
And Peeps - they a;ways taste better if you eat the heads first and that is a hill I will die on.
"Run for a split second after I turn a corner, to confuse the people behind me."
"I pick at my lips when they get a little chapped, which makes them really chapped, which makes them a bit calloused/chapped, which makes me pick at them. Done it since I can remember when I am nervous or anxious."
"Whenever I eat a sandwich I start from the crust, so I have all the fluffy part in the end. Been doing this since I was 5."
"I put milk in my ice cream.
My dad grew up very very poor and always moving around, so even as a kid he learned to stretch a buck. This was back in the 70s. When I was a kid though, even though my dad had pretty decent money, he would still pour milk into my ice cream and turn it into basically a big bowl of milk shake. To this day I still do the same and I'm 25, it's just how I enjoy ice cream. Makes it a little less sweet, and you feel like you are overindulging on a ton of ice cream when it's about 1/3rd milk."
"When I was a kid, I'd always eat one thing on my plate at a time. Unless it was something like corn & mashed potatoes, then I'd mix that together.
I'm a grown man these days, still eating everything individually off my plate. Apparently, it's noticeable because people have questioned me about it. These days I just tell them that if I'm poisoned by my constituents, they'll know which item was poisoned."
"I still try to chew the upper part of the lollipop stick. I don't know why but it feels so satisfying..."
I’m addicted to chewing edible, flavorless wax. Oh “edible” includes the wicks of a candle (but not the actual candle) it’s like falvourless gum!
"I’m 28 and I still use the magic thought:
If [insert something] happens, then [insert something good] will happen to me."
It's called "magical thinking" and it's a real psychological term. I do the same. Like I have a blouse that is "funeral shirt" That I always question myself wearing. Or if I drive over railroad tracks I still lift and cross my ankles quickly. Same thing as "step on a crack, break your mother's back" or having lucky socks.
"When I fall asleep, I like to pretend I am very cold and in a cave outdoors. I've done it all my life.
When I became a mother, I couldn't imagine it without also imagining my daughter was there. But even in this imaginary scenario, I had to imagine that she was there with me, but somehow safe and warm in her pack-and-play in a safe sleep position."
This makes it seem like something happened to your daughter…?
"When I was a little kid, 6 or so I had a huge collection of stuffed animals. I gave names to them all and they all had certain birthdays. Every time it was one of their birthdays I would throw a mini party (with toys and stuff) I'm 16 now and I still do that but only to the special ones I couldn’t sleep without when I was younger."
Enjoy this sweet practice. Enjoy being a kid as long as possible. Also, my sons both had extensive stuffed animals with names. They didn't have birthdays, but my oldest son once asked me for money to pay for Tigey's funeral because his uncle (a penguin named Pingie) couldn't afford it.
"When I look at the clock I randomly do math with the numbers. So if they time is 2:46 Then I will look at the time and go aha 2 + 4 = 6. Funny. And then if they don't add up like that then I do the math to get it to all add up."
We have a large digital clock on the bedroom wall and I've found myself reading it upside down looking for words
"In middle school, when in the shower, I would always collect water with my hands cupped against my stomach and splash it against the wall to get any soap off."
"Grilled cheese sandwiches must always be cut diagonally and eaten with tomato soup. There is no other proper way to eat grilled cheese."
You can change the types of bread, cheese, or type of tomato soup, but this is generally an unbreakable law like gravity.
"Whenever I eat, I always leave the best for last."
alasagnahog replied: "Eat a little of the good part first then move on to the less good parts. If the world ends in the middle of my meal I don’t want to miss out."
"If I can't sleep on my stomach with my right knee pulled up and left arm straight out under my head, I can't sleep. Sucks when you have shoulder issues."
"Oh, man. This is gonna sound so weird and I have no idea why I did this, and sometimes still do.
As a kid, I liked to count how long I peed, but, I didn’t use numbers. I would repeat the names of the fairies in Sleeping Beauty in my head and count how many times I said all 3.
"Flora. Fauna. And Merryweather" over and over, while peeing.
Sometimes, I subconsciously still do this. It was so constant as a kid that it’s like I trained myself to recite this when I pee."
"I got this idea that being separated by a pole (eg: stop sign) while you were walking with a friend was bad luck, so I snap my fingers every time I walk past one with someone to make sure our 'aura' sticks together."
My godfather and I had a game when I was little. If we were walking and holding hands and a post or something else came between us we would let go and one of us would say "bread" and the other would say "and butter" and we'd join hands on the other side of the obstacle.
"I still visit my grandma every Tuesday and Friday, on Tuesday she gives me an Orangina, we eat, she always cooks some very hard stuff and she prepares all week for this dinner. We watch an episode of 'Lie to me' I go to my bedroom and I read my old French comics until I fall asleep..."
"When I get peanut butter out of a jar, I try and save a small area of an untouched smooth surface on the top for as long as possible, scooping peanut butter out from beside and underneath it."
"While I am drinking my morning coffee, I look at my Calvin and Hobbes books until I have to leave."
One of the greatest comic strips of all time. My group of friends, all from college from 50 years ago still use Calvin as our own private memes.
"When I was a kid I'd stand on one leg when I got nervous and I sometimes catch myself trying to stand on one leg in my adult life. It was really weird and nobody said anything even though I would do speeches in front of the class with one leg up."
"Walk along ledges instead of the footpath."
PeanutButterOnBread replied: "I still do this. I also find myself strategically avoiding cracks in the sidewalk."
Step on a crack ... Break your Mother's back ... what a warped saying
"Whenever I go up my staircase I still climb my way up."
pmags3000 replied: "My kid calls it 4WD."
"My mum taught me and my brothers about the superstitions with magpies when I was young. Seeing a magpie alone is bad luck, but you could get rid of the bad luck by saying, 'Hello Mr. Magpie, how are you and your family today?'
None of us believed the superstition, but we still do it."
"I rub my feet together till I fall asleep.
Also, saving the best food for last. Fries and then a burger. Garlic bread then Alfredo. Also rarely drink anything while eating."
"When I'm walking on checkered tiles, I try to only walk on one color."
"Check the toilet for snakes."
"I can’t sleep with any limbs hanging off my bed or the dead dog will lick me."
"When I see the clock is at a specific hour exactly, (like 7:00), I’ll very softly say 'bong' that number of times like I’m a grandfather clock."
"When I was a kid I was incredibly skinny and small because I was so picky. If we ever got fast food my parents made me eat chicken nuggets or whatever the 'main' food was before my fries. As an adult, I still have to eat the main course before the side dish, such as chicken nuggets before fries. It's just ingrained in me."
"If I'm sick or feeling crappy I always take a long hot bath. I don't know why my mom use to have me do this when I was little and I still do it. Always makes me feel a little better."
"Run like a dog up the stairs."
on hands and feet? I hope you do not live in an apartment on the top floor.
"I cut pretty much all fat off meat. The exception is bacon."
"Walk on tip toes only sometimes or toe to heel as opposed to heel to toe."
"Walk on the side of the staircase so it doesn't creek as much, didn't want my parents to know I was up and about!"
allafaye98 replied: "Me too, I still skip the 2 squeakiest steps even though I'm grown now and don't have to sneak anywhere."
YES! The horror of hitting the creek and hearing your father tear through the house like a silverback gorilla (not really but still gotta sneak run back to bed)
"I always hi-5 a Ronald McDonald statue whenever I see one."
"Every morning when I leave the house I lock up, but for some strange reason when I lock the door, I need to turn the handle 5 times, press the doorbell 5 times then turn the handle another 5 times. I don't know why I do it but I've been doing it for so long now."
"Rushing upstairs or into bed after turning out the light."
JordyNelson87 replied: "Sometimes I try to walk to prove to myself I can do it, but then I hear something, and the adrenaline kicks in so I book it."
"Still sitting in the shower like I did when I was a kid. Hell if I’m gonna stand there for the most relaxing time of the day."
"I blow in my cup before filling it with liquid. I used to think that blowing in the cup would remove the germs."
User No 2 replied: "I do that, too (but only to cups I use for myself). I do it to remove possible dust, but in reality, I probably blow spit all over. It helps with detecting dirty cups that roommates have put in the cupboards, though."
"Stick my tongue out when playing a video game. My dad told my brother and me that's how to make the Super Nintendo work when it wouldn't read the game... Spoiler alert it does not help but I still stick my tongue out when I play games."
"My fiancee still does the St. Anthony prayer when she cannot find something:
'Tony, Tony,
look around.
Something's lost
and must be found!'"
"On car trips as a child, my parents informed my sister and me that there was a force field at state borders that causes the car to swerve back and forth.
When disputed, our father would hold his hands up off the wheel to prove that he wasn't doing it. Of course, since we were buckled up, we couldn't see his knee.
It continued well past the point that we figured it out.
My boys have figured it out at this point, but still enjoy the farce, and I would hope that their kids will too, someday."
"Say 'rabbit rabbit' on the first of every month! Learned that from Nickelodeon, thanks FACE!"
"I’m 18 years old. Still check my closet each night before I go to bed. While it used to be for monsters, now it’s for the creeps horror movies have warned me about."
It started with my dad, and now my husband and I do the same. Every time a police car or fire engine goes past with the sirens blaring, we turn to each other and say “He won’t sell much ice cream going at that speed”. Thank you Eric Morecambe
I rip the tops off frosted cupcakes and turn them upside down onto the base. Makes a little cupcake-sandwich with frosting in the middle.
It started with my dad, and now my husband and I do the same. Every time a police car or fire engine goes past with the sirens blaring, we turn to each other and say “He won’t sell much ice cream going at that speed”. Thank you Eric Morecambe
I rip the tops off frosted cupcakes and turn them upside down onto the base. Makes a little cupcake-sandwich with frosting in the middle.
