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.

An outing to the nearby heritage-heavy town when the kids were year 3 and year 5. This was half term homework for younger DC, and project work on it was also required. 20/20 cynical hindsight reckons this was a way of getting parents to do cheapskate school’s dirty work and fit in an extra outing without school having to run it. However that may be, I tried way too hard with my ghastly permasmile and fake enthusiasm, it was cold, it was wet, I dragged them round a whole lot of worthy sights/sites, one of which was a pizza joint on the site of some Saxon building or other, where I got them lunch, and nobody was hungry. And, as is often the way with these things, I worked very hard on the ensuing poster. I don’t think they learned very much. And I know it was a waste of time.

Crapgoat We did try to talk her out of it. Explained it was meant to be scary. That there was a mechanical shark etc etc.

Wasn't having any of it, determined to go on it.

She has form, this same child at age of 1 chose a Cruella Da Ville doll as her Disney present 🙄 the looks we had when people saw her cuddling it 🤣

Some of these are hilarious! 🤣🤣

I feel much better about my biscuit fail. Although I'm now slightly worried about the Christmas train experience we've got booked next month.

Went to a family Christmas party. I thought, "It's christmas, I'll unclench and let her have whatever chocolate she fancies at the party", cue child vomiting all over me and herself.

Gds’ 5th birthday treat was Legoland and he was bursting to go on some Ninja ride - he had talked of nothing else, so excited.

In the event he was absolutely terrified, crying almost hysterically and desperate to ‘get off’ - but we couldn’t.

To be fair, the graphics were very scary, horrible evil-looking faces and figures coming right at you.

I was at the Christmas market with my DC last week. Complete waste of time. Overcrowded, overpriced tat, way too small. And spent £10 on a hotdog that he wanted. I did buy a nice Christmas ornament though, which I've since now lost and can't find it

I took my kids to a Christmas lights trail THAT DIDN’T EXIST last weekend. I can only assume they hadn’t taken down last year’s website but we walked for bloody hours before I admitted defeat.

^^

Wins thread
🤣

DS was about 10 and obsessed by gaming and Minecraft. There was a special exhibition at the museum of computer games since they started and you got to play them. We thought DS would love it.

Nope.

He ignored all the other games and sat waiting to play Minecraft. The boy playing it just would not get off - no idea where the DPs were. With the benefit of hindsight I would have asked him to get off, but I didn't and we waited for about 20 minutes.

Eventually boy goes and DS starts playing, two minutes later a child asks if he can have a go, DS - who is very polite- relinquishes the controller, then proceeds to have an epic meltdown.

DH is annoyed because he has had to interrupt his Donkey King game and cannot understand why both DS and I want to go home straight away.

I have two that are spectacular fails.

Took DD aged 3 to Prague Zoo. A few minutes after we arrive, we come across a door to an enclosure called ‘Animals of Indonesia’. Assumed we would be going into something that houses orangutans or similar. Wrong. It’s a fucking bat cave. DD screamed the place down at the dark and the smell. DH scooped her up and ran through to the exit, a bat flew into his forehead and scared DD even more. She spent the rest of the day refusing to walk, refusing to look at any other animals and shouting “I hate animals, they stink”.

Second was a long weekend to Disneyland Paris in March 2020, two weeks before the U.K. went into the first lockdown.
People were starting to get really worried about Covid, but at the time, the flights were going ahead and the travel agent was very much “if you choose not to go, you lose all your money”.
We flew into Paris early on the Friday morning, went straight to Disney and had a normal, pretty much full day in the park. We were staying at one of the Disney hotels. Got up next morning, went down to breakfast, all seemed fine. Headed to the theme park gates to discover that it was closed because Macron had put the country into lockdown overnight.

People are bastards. That’s horrible. I hope they were ashamed.

When my eldest was a toddler we took him to in the night garden live. Couple of hours journey and cost a fortune and he was absolutely terrified of the giant versions of the tiny characters he was used to watching on tv. We ended up sat in a small corridor watching it on a TV screen 🙄

Took DS's primary school friend to family member's farm to see the lambs quite some way away. Discussed this with friends mum - no issues brought up. Before we left friend reacted very badly to our sleeping elderly cat - making frightened noises and wouldn't go into same room. Thought maybe had had a bad experience with cats. Got to farm and he practically sh*t himself when (very friendly non-barking) dogs came out to say hello to us (not him) and he climbed on top of a high wall crying his eyes out - nearly giving me a heart attack. Dogs were immediately locked up. Looked at lambs from afar but wouldn't go near them. My DS wouldn't either as wanted to stay with his friend. We cut the visit short and went home. Total waste of an afternoon, family members time and petrol money. We were quite pissed off with friend's parents. No allergies.

Yes I agree, rubbish. On a similar theme I recently got some cookie stamps from the middle of Lidl. Looked decent. Was a bit dubious whether I could make them work as I don’t cut out, I roll into balls and squish down a bit, so didn’t know whether I could get my cookies big enough to use the stamps on. But me and ds managed it, imprints looked great. Then they all just baked out in the oven and you couldn’t see a thing. Not sure how the whole premise of that product is supposed to work 🤷‍♂️

DF loves the Farne Islands so took me and 4 year old DS to visit the one with the lighthouse - TBF DF hadn't been to that one before. So we spent about an hour on a crammed exposed boat on very choppy seas. Boat too full for DS to move around so had to keep him entertained on hard wooden bench. I was pregnant and threw up most of the way there. This island is basically a large rock with the famous lighthouse on it. Had 20 minutes there, but walked around it in 5 and then stood around. Then got back on crammed boat for return miserable journey where I again threw up all the way back. DF paid for us and I don't think it was cheap. DF was very apologetic. It was something to endure not enjoy and a complete waste of time and money.

Basically anything with snow. Snowball fight...someone gets hit in the face and strops off. Snowman building someone does it wrong or sabotages the other's, sledding..too steep, too shallow, too cold, falls off and wants to go home but the other doesn't..... And so on. Lots of Fakebook posts on smily kids two seconds before it all goes tits up.

yes it was very adult. sadly historically accurate but adult. upset me more than the children tho.

This is brilliant..I'm reading it as a kinda How (not) to do, I appreciate your sacrifices 😁 The only thing so far that's gone wrong wth my 2 year old is a recent Christmas light installation with dangly lights n mirrors, all the other kids are loving it and she just freaks out and ran head first into a mirror 😫

A not very dramatic one was taking both kids to see a film at the cinema when they were prob 4 and 6 ish in the imax tickets cost a bomb not least with the snacks and city parking etc and elder son freaked out when the lights went down and so we left during the trailers. Turned out he'd suddenly developed a terror of darkened auditoriums that lasted a couple of years.

Friend spent a fortune on pantomime but her kids were too young they both burst into tears and they all had to leave after 10 minutes.

We took our teens to London dungeons which we enjoyed but there were people there with very young kids. It’s really inappropriate for them as pretty dark and scary (actors jumping out etc) so they cry and whine and spoil it for everyone else and end up traumatised themselves - lose / lose for everyone. I was judging those parents lack of research.

We did similar. Had a lovely day trip to an aquarium with my two year old. She loved it and we spent ages in there. Very successful day.

So we went back a few weeks later, and this time bought family annual passes on our way in (which weren’t cheap). Only to then discover my daughter had developed an intense phobia of fish in the interim since our first visit.

Already posted upthread but have thought of another. Once DS1 had started school I had a day off a week with DS2 aged 3 and really wanted to make the most of it before he started school too..."making memories" 😂 So I booked a special trip to the local underwater world place - small, not far from home, under cover, what could possibly go wrong? I had fondly imagined DS gazing in wonderment at the beautiful fish and mysterious sea creatures while I pointed things out to him with his little face aglow. In reality he paid absolutely no attention to anything in, on or under the water, his sole goal was to zoom through the whole thing as quickly as possible and he refused to consider turning back to look at anything. We must have spent about 10 minutes in the entire place. He was completely entranced by the extortionate gift shop though and wanted to spend ages in there...

These have cheered me up! The ones that stand out in my memory are the ones that would have been fun if it hadn't been cold and wet. But the afterwards bits often seem better by comparison!

So a couple from last year:

Xmas lights trail. So wet, cold and muddy it began to feel like some kind of horrific Xmas-themed DofE. Had to give my socks to DD as she was underdressed. So when we saw a heated cafe with Bailey's hot chocolate half way round it was like a mirage. But it was real!

Exceedingly soggy trip to France. Went round a potentially very interesting castle. Managed not to get too drenched but DD (limited diet) refused to countenance any of the food on offer so we had to squelch to the not very nearby shops to buy a sandwich to eat in the street in the rain. Followed by family trip to Decathlon to get a set of waterproof trousers each (after which it didn't rain seriously for the rest of the holiday, obviously...) I love Decathlon.

I don't think I can bring myself to describe Legoland Windsor in the wet a few years ago...wow those Lego brand clothes are expensive when you don't have spares...

Christmas Day years ago. Nephew got a Playmobil castle. It was vast, virtually life sized. Nephew desperate to play with it immediately. Cue 5 adults pitching in to help build but instructions were incomprensible even to nephew's architect Uncle. Finally managed to assemble part of the perimetre wall and gate house, by which time nephew had totally lost interest and none of the adults were speaking to each other. Christmas lunch was decidedly frosty and architect Uncle left early in high dudgeon because I had corrected him on what a portcullis actually was.

Then I spent Christmas evening welded to the loo with scorching diarrhea because I suspect the turkey was undercooked.

Winchester Xmas market a few years ago. Was awful. Crowded and overpriced. Watery hot chocolate that cost a fortune but scalding hot.

I took DS to greggs for a sausage roll to eat and he turned quickly and dropped in on the floor. I was so stressed I just scooped it up and put it in the bag for him to eat.

Luckily he has the constitution of a rhino so wasn’t poisoned.

At the moment EVERYTHING.

My 5 year old will not accept when something fun comes to an end and a whole drama ensues to the point its easier not to do anything than to deal with the upset aftermath that the 'fun' didn't last FOREVER.

My toddler is going through a fiercely independent stage, she will do the opposite of what she is told or tantrum like a demon if you try to force her. This means its IMPOSSIBLE to get shoes on her etc... to leave the house. She has injured both of us kicking out when trying to get shoes/coat on. Ironically she loves shoes and 'dresses up' in my shoes in the house until its time to leave then shes becomes possessed.

So between it being impossible to leave the house without one tantrum and impossible to return without another its easier to just stay home and do nothing which SUCKS.