What Are Victorian Murder Bottles? What Parents And Teachers Need To Know About This Kid Craft Trend
I was wiping glue off the art club tables last month when I noticed four fifth graders huddled by the sink, bodies pressed together, voices so low I could barely hear them. One of them glanced up, saw me looking, and quickly shoved something behind her back. I wiped my hands on my jeans and walked over, already braced for whatever new thing I’d find—glitter mixed with toothpaste, a frog they caught on the playground, a list of all the teachers they thought were boring. What they pulled out was a clear glass pickle jar, sealed around the rim with so much hot glue it oozed down the sides. Inside, I could see a crumpled note, a bent paperclip, a tiny shard of mirror, and a chewed gum wrapper scrawled with a classmate’s name. “It’s a murder bottle,” one of them mumbled. I blinked. “A what?”
They explained it’s the newest trend blowing up on their TikTok For You Pages. Adapted from 19th century curse bottles—what people now call Victorian murder bottles, originally buried in walls to ward off evil spirits or curse people who’d done you wrong—the modern version is way less superstitious. You put all the things that made you angry, sad or hurt inside, seal it up tight, hide it somewhere no one will find it, and that’s it. No actual curses, no actual murder, just a place to put all the bad feelings you don’t want to carry around anymore.
I’ll admit, my first instinct was to tell them to throw it away. The name alone is enough to make any teacher or parent’s heart drop. I’d already seen three local parent groups on Facebook blowing up about it, people calling it dangerous, demanding it be banned from classrooms and birthday parties. I almost did it. Then I remembered Mia, the girl holding the jar, had told me a week earlier that her best friend since first grade had bailed on her birthday party to go to the mall with the popular girls. She’d cried to me about it, said she didn’t want to say anything because it would just make everything awkward and she’d end up alone. I asked her what she put inside. She tapped the glass, pointing to the crumpled note. “I wrote down how it felt when she left me hanging. And I put a piece of my birthday invitation confetti in there. Getting it all inside makes it not feel so big in my head anymore.” Javi, another fifth grader, pulled the one he’d made out of his backpack to show me. His had an old gum wrapper his stepdad had left on the kitchen counter, and a note that said “breaking promises about quitting smoking hurts.” He told me he didn’t want to yell at his mom or his stepdad about it, because it starts fights that last all weekend, so the bottle was just for him.
That night, I went home and looked it up, sipping cold coffee from my chipped favorite mug. Sure enough, what kids are calling murder bottles now are almost identical to the original Victorian bottles archeologists dig up all the time in old houses—just with less nails and more confetti. My 12 year old son looked up from his Roblox game when I was reading an article about it and said, “Oh yeah, I made one of those. I put a note about how much homework Mr. Carter gives us. Hid it in the back of my closet.” I asked him if it helped. He shrugged and said, “Sort of. It’s better than yelling at mom about it, right?”
That’s when it clicked for me. This isn’t a dangerous trend full of violent intentions. It’s just another way for preteens, who are still learning how to name and handle big uncomfortable feelings they don’t feel safe saying out loud, to process things. Preteens can’t always just confront the person who hurt them. They’re scared of ruining friendships, of getting in trouble, of upsetting the people they love. They need a private, low-stakes outlet to put those feelings that’s not lashing out at someone or bottling everything up until they explode. This is that outlet.
But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to watch for, or small adjustments you can make to keep it safe. First off, don’t panic the second you find a murder bottle in your kid’s room. I’ve heard so many stories of parents dumping them out and grounding their kid just because of the name, and that just teaches kids not to trust you with their bad feelings. Instead, try saying, “That looks interesting, can you tell me what you put in it and why you made it?” That’s low pressure, doesn’t put them on the defensive, and you’ll get way more information than if you start yelling.
Second, swap out the dangerous supplies. A lot of kids use glass jars and grab broken glass or nails to put inside, which is an obvious hazard. If your kid wants to make one, just keep empty plastic screw-top jars (old peanut butter jars, water bottles, whatever you have) on hand, and tell them they can use paper notes, crayon drawings, bits of fabric, or old candy wrappers instead of sharp stuff. It doesn’t change what the bottle is for, it just keeps everyone from getting cut while they’re making it.
If your kid put another kid’s name in it, don’t force them to dump it out and apologize. As long as they’re not bullying the other kid or showing the bottle around to hurt their feelings, it’s just their private processing. You can say, “It makes sense you’re hurt. Would you ever want to talk to them about how you feel, or is this bottle enough for right now?” That gives them the choice, no shame attached to having bad feelings.
The only time I’d step in is if your kid talks about wanting to hurt someone, or if they’re using the bottle to bully someone else. That’s a separate issue, and it doesn’t mean the craft itself is bad, just that this particular situation needs more intervention.
Last week, I set up a small “murder bottle station” at the back of the art room, with plastic jars, paper, and safe craft supplies. I put a little handwritten sign that says all bottles stay private unless you want to share. Three kids made one after school last Wednesday. I still get parent emails asking me why I’d let kids make something with “murder” in the name. I tell them when I was 11, we had slam books, which sounded just as scary to our parents, and they were just the same thing: a place to put feelings we couldn’t say out loud. Victorians did it, we did it, now kids are doing it. History really does repeat itself. Right now, it’s working for them. That’s enough for me.
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