Nice activities or outings you've done with the kids that have turned into an absolute shitshow

[Silverstoat]

Bought the Hedgehog biscuit kit from Asda for a nice Sunday afternoon activity with the kids. Instead of a cookie cutter it's a hedgehog drawn on the inside of the box that you're supposed to cut out and use as a stencil 🤨 cue meltdowns from both dc as its impossible to cut out details in wet biscuit dough. Ds dropped a big piece of dough that was immediately gobbled up by ddog, I breathed in the icing powder and almost had an asthma attack, and then to top it all off they tasted like shit.

Christmas lights switch on last night. Spent longer getting there and parking than we did watching the lights. Almost lost DS. Spent a stupid amount on a pork bap which DS then refused to eat because it tasted funny (it did to be fair) and £5 on one of those ridiculous light up things which he broke three minutes later.

Took a highly sensitive autistic child to Hamleys yesterday. Was horrific.

Took dd to the cinema. Lo and behold, we bumped into 5 of her “closest friends” who had obviously arranged a little cinema party and not invited dd.

Oh that's awful 😔

Oh that's heartbreaking.

That's terrible.

Took the kids to the library. It's usually a success.

DD spent the time twerking

We left early

Drop cookies are your friend. Just make the dough and roll into small balls. No rolling out, no cutting required.

Did that in the summer, after taking her to the theatre. She normally loves both, but it was a warm day, theatre didn't have air con ( or it wasn't doing much if it did), we'd picked the worst possible seats for getting out quickly and Hamleys was somehow even warmer as well as being packed.

Last year took friends DD to see Santa to give friend some time to present shop etc. Santa asked small child what they wanted for Christmas. Child said Barbie, Santa gave child a colouring book. Child was distraught because Santa had not given her what she asked for. I should have explained how it worked. Then had to get crying distraught child through shopping centre while she screamed "I want my Mummy, you aren't my Mummy, where are you taking me?!!!"

Took DSs (5 & 11) for a day out at a theme park. As we walked in, the child in front of us was violently sick, splattering us with vomit.

After cleaning ourselves up, I took DS1 on the giant swing boat. Felt so ill, I had to stop the ride and get off. Will never forget the humiliation of walking past all the cheering teenagers.

Then DS2 was stung by a wasp and wouldn't stop crying.

So then we gave up and went home 😆.

Oh yeh, it's happened to us. Let me think, the ones where they all end up crying.
We have had one kid head to toe covered in mud on a nice outing.
We went to a national trust place and all three spent most of the time arguing. It was horrendous. I was banning phones and doing the stern talking to with people walking past with their well behaved children. DH and I looked at each other and said why did we even bother?
DS1 dropped an entire drink with ice cubes on his lap. I had to go buy him new trousers. He was crying saying people will think I wet my pants.
At Alton Towers DS1 was a cm too short for most of the rides. He spent most the day crying. I felt really bad.

I took mine to the circus but left it late to book so could only get an 8pm performance. Both dc were knackered by the time we got there, lots of whinging and stropping. Dd got candyfloss in her (very curly) hair. Ds was only 5 at the time and found the dark and loud music too frightening so we left in the intermission. An expensive mistake!

Ice skating last year. Thought it would be a special family festive occasion. Teenage daughter had a strop and said she hated me and stormed off. I ended up crying and sat at the side. My partner spent the whole time complaining about the synthetic ice. I swore I would never take them ice skating again.

Tbh, that’s definitely just crap design that is a bit of a rip off from Asda. I’d expect a cookie cutter in that kit.

if I wanted to mess around with cutting stencils out of cardboard, I wouldn’t have bought a supermarket kit.

Not me but someone had a great story about a day at a waterpark a few years ago.

I once took DD on an Christmas lights open top bus tour through London. We got hit by a hail storm - really big hard hailstones which really bloody hurt when they pelted down on us. DD was crying, we quickly went downstairs and sat squashed up with dozens of others, unable to see anything at all as the windows were blocked by the rain and hail. Never did it again!

We took SDD to a roller disco for her 7th bday which was her choice. DH was being a bit of a Disney dad as it was the first time we have had her on her actual bday. He didn't ask whether she knew how to skate or consider whether the dark noisy environment would be ok for her (sensitive, neurodivergent assessment pathway) and it wasn't good. She cried, littler SDS cried, she chose a drink and cookie that she didn't like. I ended up taking older SDD around the disco while DH sat in the leisure centre cafe with the other 2. It was over an hour drive away too and we had to take 2 cars 🙄😭
I did gently reflect after that we need to manage their expectations and if they choose something that may not work we need to encourage something else!!

My son has adhd. When he was about 4 (before officially diagnosed) a paediatrician suggested meditation. I downloaded an app. The result was a black eye (him) and a bruised sternum (me). Never again!

The majority of activities and trips, really. Daddy's stuff was always better usually because he had a wealthy girlfriend or three on the go to pick up the tab and drive them wherever, do the expensive activity and back in a big car instead of public transport and a low income but at the same time, going out at the weekend was too much effort after they'd had the whistlestop tours of the girlfriends trying to impress him with how child friendly they were the previous weekend, so they didn't particularly want to go out in the first place. And each time they seemed to enjoy something, by the time they came back from Daddy's the following week, they'd decided whatever we'd done was shit and they never wanted to do it again.

The greatest successes were swimming (as long as one never ever got her face wet and they didn't have to actually swim, a private gym pool and guaranteed Greggs' or chips afterwards), kickboxing (as long as there was McDonald's afterwards) and Chinese New Year.

Bird world.. with a child who then declared they were scared of birds. I might as well have burnt £10 notes for all the value we got out of that trip.

There are many examples of activities we've done where it was meant to be a nice family day and it turns to shit lol.

I've tried baking with my children but they start fighting over mixing the ingredients or sneeze in the flour, or have a meltdown if they don't get to put the tray in a hot oven.

Another time was panto. We could hear or see sod all and it was full of feral kids some playing their bloody tablets.

I've blocked memories out tbh. Too traumatic lol

Also ice skating at the Cambridge "winter wonderland". It looked great from a distance, all lit up and festive. I decided I'd treat the DC and DP, so the next weekend, off we went.
We arrived on the day to a crowded, tacky square caged off in the middle of one of the parks. You paid a fee to buy entry tickets. Then had to pay for rides. The rides were a token system where you bought say, 20 tokens for £15, however each ride was e.g. 7 tokens so you would either have to buy more than you needed or have wasted money on tokens you weren't going to use.
The ice skating itself was hysterical. We got onto the rink and quickly realised none of us could ice skate. We joined the line of other joyless non-skaters, painstakingly dragging ourselves along the edge for a few circuits of the rink, looking over at the talented people in the middle who could actually skate. We each fell over, hard, several times.
Battered and bruised we were when with relief the skating torture ended.
The highlight of the day was managing to get to the front of an extremely long queue to the overpriced coffee stand to buy tepid "hot" chocolate.
It's put me off going to any other Christmas themed family events!

We did this yesterday. I’ve lived in London for around 26 years and never been, and have never taken the kids. I thought it would be like some Miracle on 34th st/ Big style Christmas experience.

The reality is it’s hot, hellishly crowded, and actually kind of dingy and dirty. I honestly don’t know what I was thinking. Then we walked down Regent’s St to Piccadilly to get a bus back to Victoria but it was packed on the streets, and the kids were crying because it was so busy and people were barging past.

We’re Londoners, fgs. What were we thinking?!

Oh that's awful 😢