What things did your parents do that you look back on and think ‘that was clever’?

[Geekster1963]

My Mum used to give me and my sisters a fruit gum each on long journeys (the old Rowntrees ones that used to be hard), to see who could make it last the longest. We thought it was great as we were getting a sweet but it stopped us from arguing. Clever.

I remember when my first baby tooth came out I lost it in the garden and was devastated my Mum told me to write a note to the tooth fairy and put it under my pillow. I was so excited to see she had been and left me some money and said she’d found my tooth in the garden

This is completely outing if any of my siblings or the neighbour kids are on here...

My dad & stepmum used to take us on a run to Braemar to see the deer. A picnic lunch & then a stop at a chippy on the way home. We loved it & even the neighbour kids would just outright ask "Mr Sourpuss are you going to see the deer if my mum says I can, can I come too?" To which dad always said "aye go & ask" so we'd end up with about 10 kids there were 6 of us already piled into his old ford cortina estate car in the days before seat belts so it was a mad rush to get into the boot so as not to be squished in the back seat.

@Tronkmanton With the tube and underground thing, how soon did you realise?

There was a time when my mum suddenly demanded (in her "let's get this room tidied up" voice, which put me on the defensive) six complete Lego people from my Lego box, which was a mish-mash of bricks, and legs and bodies of people, all separated. She said it was because the people should be kept whole, not in bits. Later she brought out my brother's sixth birthday cake (castle-shaped), with the people on it. I remember feeling torn between thinking it was a nice imaginative thing to do, and angry that she'd lied about why she wanted them, when she took a very dim view of lying. I expect I wouldn't have minded if she'd told me what they were for! But I kept my thoughts to myself, I didn't spoil the party.

My mum is adored by her grandchildren for so many reasons.
Chopping fruit and veg into tiny bits and putting them on a plate on the floor in front of a blanket draped table so the giggling "rabbits" underneath could poke their heads out and eat.
Allowing small children to eat their tea in the bath!
Fronting up a conga line of grandchildren all walking like penguins and singing a silly song
Being able to kiss away painful bumps and bruises
And recently, wowing her now teen and adult grandchildren by having a spin on a huge Harley at the ripe old age of 83!

My DD would buy us a choc bar each Friday (pay day) and when he returned home from work we left the living room whilst he hid them and then we had an exciting couple of minutes hunting for them.

Each Christmas there was a joint gift from F.C. for all of us to share (board game etc). I do this with my DC still.

We used to burn our letters to F.C. in the fireplace each Christmas Eve as F.C. could read smoke.

We have continued the burning letters to F.C. on Christmas Eve tradition but my DC also ask F.C. questions in their letter. Luckily, F.C. has the time to respond to each of my DC each year. He writes back on black card with gold pen and always seems to know extra details about my DC eg he mentions how proud he is that DD always makes sure the family dog has water in his bowl or that DS helps his younger sister with her times tables. As the DC get older the tone has changed slightly eg F.C. one year told older DS (teen so non-believer) to take advice from his younger sister (believer) on how to keep his bedroom tidy etc. FC's letters are kept and put out each year as part of our Christmas decorations. We video the DC reading out and burning their letters to F.C. and reading his responses each year.

The family dog always gets the DC a new piece of sleepwear each year (PJ or dressing gown, depending on what's needed) wrapped in his own paper. When younger SC never questioned how he managed this, only how he knew their sizes!

I paint pale pink glittery nail varnish on coins that are from the tooth fairy so they are 'magical' coins.

I had an uncle who did a "helicopter ride" for me and the other children, which was scary but amazing, and we kept on asking for him to do it again! I was about seven at the time. We "the passengers" would be shown a toy helicopter, and be told we'd have to be blindfolded, be a bit brave, and use our imagination a bit. We'd be taken one by one into another room for this ride, with my mum and aunt also there. When it was my turn, he got me to stand on a chair, asked me who I wanted to blindfold me: I chose my mum.

He'd put my hands on the shoulders of my mum and aunt, who were now standing beside me. He'd announce "we're going up!", and I'd feel the shoulders moving downwards, and also the chair rising into the air, and I would hear a commentary: "Oh, we're above the fields now, look at those tiny houses, we're flying over London now," and I remember that I felt as if I was really high up!

He'd say "now we've gone so high, we're touching the sky", and I felt something touching my head. Then he said "now we're going down: you can either come down slowly, or you can be brave and jump off the chair, you'll be quite safe". So, as I was told, I jumped off the chair, and it felt like I was jumping miles, like jumping off a high diving board!

It was really scary, like a fast waterslide or rollercoaster. I found out later how he did it: that my mum and aunt would crouch down while my hands were on their shoulders, they would all lift the chair only a few inches, but as I couldn't see it felt like it was really high up. As for touching the sky, a book was gently lowered on to my head!

letsgomaths that sounds lovely and great fun.

My DB lives a few hundred miles away, so the dc don’t know him that well. DH was made redundant a few weeks before Christmas when dd was a month old, and DS was just 3. We had ds’s Christmas present, but couldn’t afford any extras.i asked DB to ring up DS and pretend to be Father Christmas. I emailed him details about ds’s life first. 6 years later he’s still doing it, with more and more sound effects every year.

If my mum tried to get me to put a coat on I would refuse (like many small children ) so to avoid this she would say nothing and just let me go outside while she was getting ready, a minute later I'd come back and say "It's a bit cold today, I think I'll wear my coat."

When I was nervous about walking home in the dark at a young age, my dad said: "the moon shows you the way: keep walking, and look up at it." I did so, and saw that the moon does indeed move in the sky as you walk (or at least look as if it's doing so, relative to the houses and trees)! I thought I was making it happen.

I put glitter on ds cheek as he sleeps on Christmas night, it's a kiss from Father Christmas before he left.
He would be up at 5am, run straight into our room, lights on full checking in the mirror.

He is now 15, I shall still do it, don't care about the huffing and eye rolling, it's now my magic

When our dog suddenly wasn't around anymore my parents told us he had gone to live on a farm in the countryside as he had grown too big for our garden. Years later as an adult I mentioned it to my brother who burst out laughing because I still hadn't copped on that he had died of old age.

Ours told us the ice cream man stole children and if we heard the music we had to hide out of sight!

Bloody worked for years.

Also at xmas time we had to leave out a mince pie and a can of lager for santa!

Blimey my childhood is sounding a bit sad!

My nan and grandad used to say that if we were kind and helpful when out shopping, we could have special pop when we got back. We always behaved, carried the shopping (little money so it was a good 35 minutes walk there and back) and were generally angels because we were all so desperate to have.......water with food colouring in, you could choose from red, green or blue colouring in little bottles that my Nan kept in her special cupboard, it was magical (and genius!)
I always take my children on a animal walk, we pretend one field has T. rex s in, the next a thunderbird....they love it and I still catch my eldest two double checking. Makes walking the dog so much easier.

My grandad lived with us when I was little. My DM would take him shopping every week and I’d be his special helper. He always let me keep the pound from the trolley at the end.

I was always dragging my feet in the morning so my DM let me take my cuppa and toast to eat on the bench at the bottom of the driveway waiting for the School bus. I thought it was great. She’d pop down and collect the mug when I’d been picked up. It was a genius way to make sure I never missed the bus .

What a lovely thread.

My dad used to take us on adventures in the car. We'd make a picnic with jam sandwiches and then we'd have to toss a coin twenty times, and write down right for heads and left for tails. Then we'd get in the car and read out Right Right Left Right Left etc and he'd drive and turn the corners according to what was written on the list. When we got to the end we'd have our picnic. Sometimes miles away in the countryside and sometimes very close to home ..

Oh, and if we were misbehaving when we were really little my dad would shake his head sadly and say "I'm afraid I'm going to have to write down your name in my little black book" and we would shout "No, Dad, no!" and grab hold of him to stop him going to fetch the dreaded little black book. It was years before it occurred to us to wonder what would actually be the awful consequence of having your name written in the mythical LBB

My mum keeps a quote book; still the same one from when we were little, it's one of her treasured possessions. All the funniest things people in the family have said are written in there. I wasn't allowed to see this book until I was about eight years old, although I'd heard of it. We once counted up who had the most quotes: I did well; she herself less so, because many of them were mundane things she'd said, and someone gave a witty reply. E.g:
Mum: It's a winter day (in November).
Me: (aged 7) No it isn't, not until 21st December!
Mum: Well, it's wintry weather.
Me: Maybe you're wrong the rough way, but I'm right the neat way.

@villainousbroodmare Your game of McGregor: that sounds really fun! Would all of you usually get tied up in a game, or were some of you quick enough to escape the arm?

@highlandcoo I love the idea of a random car journey, decided by the toss of a coin! It reminds me of something I used to do on my bike: casually head into an unfamiliar set of streets, and see how long it was before I came out somewhere I recognised. I'd have an A-Z so I could find my way back. I discovered places I never knew existed.

My mother told me that animals could speak from midnight Christmas Eve, as they would tell Santa if children had been good all year or not. I loved my dog but wqs always extra nice to him around Christmas!

I was also encouraged to throw down a pillow on to the floor for the resident spider (Percy) to sleep on whenever I stayed at my aunt’s house.

highlandcoo I love that idea of your Dad’s

By a curious paradox, seeing people dressed as Santa actually convinced me all the more as a child that he was fictional, like someone in a play. But I wasn't so sure about the Easter Bunny! When my parents told us that the Easter Bunny was leaving our eggs, my brother and I asked to see him, like you can see Santa. I think my parents had no intention of getting someone to dress up as the Bunny, so they told us that unlike Santa, the Bunny was very shy, and didn't want to be seen. We still pleaded, so they said we could meet and talk to the Bunny on Easter Sunday, he would play games with us while he hid our eggs, but we'd have to make do without seeing him. They wouldn't tell us anything more!

On the day, we were taken to the garden, full of anticipation, each with a basket in one hand, and a carrot in the other; we could see the lawn was bare of eggs, as the bunny hadn't been yet. Mum blindfolded us, told us that peeping was strictly forbidden, or the Bunny would never return. After a pause (eternity) we heard a scuffling noise, the Bunny speak in a squeaky voice from near the floor; he asked if we'd been good, and if we knew what bunnies liked to eat. When we answered, he told us to throw our carrots on to the lawn for him: whoever's carrot landed nearest the centre of the lawn would hunt first. My brother went first; the Bunny hid his eggs on the lawn, told him to hunt for them, and to head for the sound of chomping carrots so he knew which way to go, adding that our blindfolds had to stay on, until he had said goodbye and hopped off. Then it was my turn: I found about six eggs. He told us that the bigger eggs would have our names on, and we were allowed to see for those, but only after he'd gone. He told us we could have a hug if we wanted: the bunny felt short and squishy, not adult-sized, and we could feel his ears. Then the Bunny said goodbye, our parents took our blindfolds off so we could hunt for the big eggs, and see that there were bits of carrot on the lawn. To this day I'm not sure how my parents did this, or who did the bunny voice!

How could i forget this cracker!

When my sister or i had done something wrong and neither would own up, my dad would threaten to get the lie detector out of the garage. This was enough for one of us to own up.

It worked for a while until we were too intrigued by the lie detector and wanted to see it!

Maybe more dodgy than clever but I remember my dad was parked on double yellow lines and the car in front had a parking ticket so he put it on his car, so the parking officer would think he'd already been ticketed.

I was about four and remember thinking it was both clever and naughty at the same time! (he explained to me why he was doing it).

When visiting my aunt who lived in a third floor flat, my brother and I once really squabbled over who would press the button on the intercom, to speak to her and gain entry. On hearing about this, she took us onto the balcony, and showed us that instead of answering the intercom, she could look down and see who was calling; and if she didn't fancy them, she could pour water over them. We were less enthusiastic about pressing the button after that, and on our next visit she called down from the balcony instead of buzzing the door open!

When I was a small child my grandparents used to come for tea on Saturday just about every week. A big spread would be put out on the dining table and one of the things was a bowl of whole tomatoes. I possessed a plastic tomato from my toy shopping trolley and I would, on occasion, sneak it into the bowl on the table when I thought nobody was looking.

My grandad would get it every time, make a big show of attempting to cut it up and say to my mum, "Blimey this tomato is a bit tough!" At which I would fall about laughing and then my mum would take it from him and declare that it was plastic! I was given my tomato back, I'd take it back to my bedroom and wait until I judged that enough time had passed for grandad to have forgotten so I could do it again.

I was 15 before it dawned on me that he was humouring me and that was only because my mum pointed it out to me!