Is it normal for all the nice things you plan with kids to end up a fiasco??

[SiobhanRoy]

Example: Halloween. They love Halloween so this year I’ve gone to lengths to make it fun and exciting for them.

Tonight’s activity - pumpkin carving with Dad. Started so well. Everybody happy.

Ended up with dad carving the damn thing himself while the 7 year old had a screaming tantrum because he wouldn’t let her use the sharp knife herself. Meanwhile the four year old flushed a whole toilet roll 🤦🏻‍♀️

Or a trip pumpkin pumpkin picking last weekend. Mud. Tears. Exhaustion. I want to go hoooooome mummy.

Play date for four year old today with her bestie. They barely played because 4 decided (after being excited all day) to sit and draw and completely refuse to engage with her pal. She’s an awkward wee sod sometimes.

So yeah. I mean why bother.

😆😆 yep, this is pretty much my experience. I feel like I always set my expectations of lovely family activities way too high!!

Thank you OP, I needed this thread today. I spent an obscene amount of money trying to do something nice with my kids today and honestly felt like I might have a breakdown by late morning because they were being such hard work. Hardly feels worth the bother! Nice to know I'm not alone at least.

Oh no, definitely not alone how old are yours?

Yes - dd in particular gets overwhelmed with excitement about things and ends up ruining them for herself

Yep.

And activities that I imagine will be so cute with my two girls usually end in hair pulling, name calling and screaming.

In my head they will be giggling and cuddling each other. It never works out this way.

I think my eldest is a little like that. It’s not so much excitement it’s more like, she has an idea in her head of how it’s going to be and if it doesn’t conform she can’t handle it.

So with the pumpkins I think she thought she would be carving the thing entirely by herself. For obvious reasons (I.e. inevitable loss of at least one finger) this could not happen.

World. War. Three.

Mine ends up getting ruined due to bickering. I’ve got 2 pre teen girls and it’s been horrendous lately, they spoil things for themselves. I’m the type of parent who follows through with every threat as well. If we’re on our way to a big day out that’s been planned for months and I’ve threatened to turn the car round if they carry on, then that cars getting turned round. When I feel they’re about to start I’ll calmly say to them ‘I can see where this is heading, I’m advising you to just ignore each other so we can still do X because otherwise I’ll get annoyed and we’ll go home/you’ll go to your rooms’, but they can’t. Drives me mad because there’s no need for it at all.

Yes the bickering is painful.

Friends of mine saved all year to take their three year old to Spain for a week for her first holiday. The first day said three year old decided that she hated sand to the point where she got upset even walking on it in shoes or having grains on her, and the only thing she hated more than the sand was water, so she screamed like a banshee at the slightest dip into pool or sea.

I think they spent most of the time taking it in turns to watch Peppa Pig with her in their hotel room while the other one ground his/her teeth on a sun lounger.

Op have you looked at actual pumpkin carving tools? I bought a set out of Asda that has a mini saw type tool with it, I’ve also got a 5yo boy and I was comfortable with him using it under supervision. I thought he’d find it difficult and give up after a minute or so, but he was determined to persevere and ended up doing quite a good job

@SiobhanRoy

I think my eldest is a little like that. It’s not so much excitement it’s more like, she has an idea in her head of how it’s going to be and if it doesn’t conform she can’t handle it.

So with the pumpkins I think she thought she would be carving the thing entirely by herself. For obvious reasons (I.e. inevitable loss of at least one finger) this could not happen.

World. War. Three.

Yes totally. My daughter has high expectations eg yesterday I painted her face for a Halloween party - it was alright not amazing but alright. She didn't say anything and said she liked it but I could tell she was disappointed with it because it wasn't what she'd envisaged which is likely way way past my skill set

Everytime, I always wonder if it's just my kids but obviously not

Never, ever try to paint your own ceramics. Holy crap that was an expensive and hideous hour of kids whinging and crying about wanting something different to what they've already started painting, refusing to do it, arguing over paint, blah blah....

Keep your expectations low... No, lower.

Then anything is a bonus.

Sounds normal. My DS and DH had a massive pumpkin carving drama this morning with lots of tears and shouting.

And then when they do play together nicely (usually at something that's totally spontaneous and also likely to be free 🙄) you can't believe the peace and quiet.

God yes, I learnt very quickly to keep things really low key and 'days out' to a couple of hours max when DD was little because anything more was just too much for her and would end up more stressful than enjoyable. Best advice I can give you is don't feel pressured to do 'everything', some activities genuinely aren't worth the hassle (and potential upset for overwhelmed, overexcited DC) and it won't mentally scar DC to not have every 'childhood experience' we get guilted into feeling feel they should have.

Yep… Normal. Does it get better? Kind of. I have 15y/o b/g twins and a 17y/o dd. Organised to go to the pool on Sunday when the direct sun was off it. (Obv. Australia… a million degrees already.) We haven’t done anything as a family in aaaaages. Younger DD decides to invite herself to her friend’s place instead. Ignores msg from friend’s mum stating that she was too hungover (😆 love her!) and sulked when I said no way. DD 1 was happy to let me pay for her to come and sit there and read but not swim. (Uh, no…) DD2 decided she wanted to read too, so got out of the car when DD1 did. DS was keen, thank god, or too smart to say otherwise. DH decided he had work to do at home. DS and I left, then five mins later had call from DD2 asking why we’d left. She told us that she had wanted to get her swimming gear, not read. (Both DS and I need out hearing and memory checked.) Then spent ten mins dithering about whether we should come back for her. I hung up. She rang back and asked us to return. We had half an hour to swim before closing time. Fuuuuuuck. I was determined not to lose my shit, and I didn’t, but I was very quiet and had a very big G&T as soon as I came home. (Not usually a drinker.) Pointed out that DD2 is not normally a bratty kid, but was very much one this time. DD1 has ASD, so that involved another kind of chat. DH was told that he was cooking dinner, and DS was choosing the menu.

Corkit Great advice!

I generally enjoy days out with the DC but I build in lots of breaks for snacks and for running around (eg, always go to the playground bit of theme parks)

Crafts I try to only do with one DC at a time but they are still stressful DS2 just tries to eat play dough.

I did had a conversation with my kids about how what they see on YouTube is not real life. All the videos they watch with the kids having fun all the time. They look real but it’s not. I was finding they were expecting life to be like these videos. Limiting what they watch on YouTube really helped lower their expectations. Likewise i am not obsessing about taking millions of photos for social media for them anymore. That way if the slightly mediocre home made costume/cake/whatever doesn’t quite match up with “Princess Popular’s” it’s not online for the world to see.

Sometimes kids are hard work though, I’ve got one who is going through a phase right now. Like with the poster whose child freaked out over sand and sea, she too has issues over new textures. I’ve got another who won’t wear loose clothing. Sorting out Halloween costumes this year has been a mission!

I remember my friend making pancakes with her three young children and them all ending up crying and my friend saying "this was supposed to be fun".

Oh absolutely. All the time. It’s better now they’re 6 and 8 but still annoying.

We stopped doing ‘days out’. They love to run and be free so we just go to different play areas/parks/walks. We are on holiday at the moment. We’ve just done mornings out for exercise abs fresh air and a play. Visits to souvenir shops so they can buy a few bits of tat, we went to a book shop and got new books to read at the holiday house.

Anything more than 3 hours and they’re a nightmare. I guess it’ll change when they’re older but for now just the simple things is what makes them happy so we just stick to that.

Re pumpkin carving, the old Pampered chef knives for children were absolutely freaking amazing for that... you might be able to still get some on eBay or from the US as I think it's still sold there.

I think part of the problem is forewarning kids and giving them lots of details beforehand, which allows them too much time to develop an idea that is never going to match the reality.

And honestly, keep things age appropriate! Pumpkin carving is not that brilliant for young kids if you are expecting a designed pumpkin at the end of it. Let them carve and make a mess, and then let them choose and spray paint a design on another pumpkin with a stencil - that way they have at least a bit of hope of it turning out something like they envisaged!

The one best life lesson I've learnt is that planned activities never live up to the expectation and hype!

That's not to say never plan them - you can't just zot off to a theme park or on holiday last minute!

Just more it's a mindset. You plan this whole idea in your head about what it'll be like and it never lives up to that.

So I've learnt to try not to imagine!

Oh and btw I'd have let a 7yo carve a pumpkin.