Really obvious things you didnt teach your child (Lighthearted)

[Unorganisedchaos2]

Lighthearted, please don't come for me; I honestly do all the homework, reading etc just had a massive blind spot and looking to feel better.

DD6 had some homework this week to do her immediate family tree, lovely, she drew a big tree and we printed off some photos of everyone and it became clear that DD had absolutely no idea how all the random adults in her life were related 😅

She has a pretty typical set up 4 grandparents, 1 GGparent, 2 sets of 1 aunt and uncle and a couple of cousins, who we mix with at least weekly. I thought referring to my Mum as "Mum" for the past 6 years would have helped her make the connection but apparently not, bless her.

Anyway, it was an interesting learning activity and I think she's mostly grasped it now so no harm done ...right?

I asked my nicece when she would have been 11 or so, to stick a stamp on a letter for me and take it to the postbox down the road, just before she left I noticed she put the stamp on the bottom under the address. I just assumed she knew where a stamp would be stuck 🤣.

Live rurally, crossing a busy road, also catching a bus. When Kids went to high school these were things that stupidly I had neglected and caused the most anxiety.

FanofLeaves Jupiter coming out the back of a lorry 🤣

This is a great thread.

Another one with kids who don't understand the family link.

My parents divorced when I was very young and live have lived in different countries since. My 7 year old was talking to my mum at my sisters wedding when my dad walked over to say hello - my dd introduced them to each other. She was then shocked they knew each other and furious we hadn't mentioned they "were friends".

The world map. You’d think this would be something quite basic that they’d be taught in school, but they aren’t. Clearly, knowing that, for example, Paris is the capital city of France, a country in the continent of Europe, is boring, out of date knowledge.

Also how to use a dial phone. She once got stuck in an escape room thanks to this lack of knowledge 🤣.

I didn’t teach my kids to knit.
But I am teaching my Grand kids.

Took quite some convincing for me to think otherwise 🤣 I sometimes try and remember it when trying to explain something to my own three year old, how literally a small child can piece things together.

My Dad and Grandmother live together and have done for about 20 years.

My DD thought they were husband and wife. She is 14!!

I signed my 5 year old up to a set of ‘introduction to football’ sessions at the local leisure centre. I watched with a mixture of horror (at myself for not having taught him) and amusement as another child kindly explained to him that you weren’t supposed to pick the ball up with your hands.

Took my nephew until 21 to understand that August is month 8, May month 5 etc

My 4yo DS goes to rugby classes where they teach basic ball skills to pre-schoolers i.e. lots of throwing and catching, running with the ball etc. We’re also not really a football watching household so if there’s ball sports on tv it’s rugby we’re watching. Cue WW3 in the garden when a bunch of kids were playing football and DS kept picking up the ball and running with it to score instead of kicking it at the goal. The other kids were incensed by him and he was adamant he was doing nothing wrong. Then it dawned on us that we’d never explained that football and rugby were two completely different sports 🤣

My kids were both born by emergency section, and so were my two closest friends’ children.

I was hugely entertained, and a little mortified, when my six year old told me how he’d had to correct his schoolfriends’ - and the teacher who tried to end the debate - daft idea about where babies come from…

I have a fairly unusual surname, anybody I'd met with the same surname was a direct relation (grandparent, auntie, uncle, cousin etc.). I thought this was the same for everybody and being in awe of someone in school who had the surname Reeve and thus in my mind was closely related to the actor who played superman on the TV 😀

This is so fricking cute.

When I was little up until about aged 7, I presumed that the country consisted of my little village. Then under that, the local town. Then under that London (it’s about 4 hours away) because I had heard of London. And at the top, the sea (I lived in north wales). And that was the entire country. We used to drive to south wales and Cornwall for holidays too so no idea where I thought I was at those times

It's extra interest when you have a kid with ADHD as they don't necessarily pick up things that most people do without it being explained as such.

MIL was horrified that when DS was 10 he didn't know what 'tea' was meal wise (NB, we are southern ponces, 'tea' = cakes and sandwiches eaten between lunch and dinner occasionally). I mean, we'd had family over 'for tea' numerous times, so I just assumed he'd gathered what it was, but apparently not.

Also, when kids were younger and started to phone friends at primary school when it still involved calling parents, I realised they had no idea how to talk on the phone, especially to an adult. They just said 'Can I speak to [friend]?' and didn't know to greet and ask after the person actually answering. Of course we all grew up hearing people talk on the phone every day and also with the understanding that a phone could be answered by any member of a household so there was some protocol around that. Which had totally fallen out of use.

That you have to tie a knot in a balloon. My 15 year old has just blown up 25 balloons and lightly tied them with string.

On holiday last year, DS1 (who was 17!!!) was utterly amazed when I casually mentioned the raisins we were snacking on had once been grapes....
He couldn't believe he hadn't known this, and demanded to know what else we'd never told him 😂

My daughter asked me age 11 to explain to her what the seasons were. I can only assume it was a topic during lockdown learning that I missed 😬. I mean I kinda would have expected her to know the seasons even before that but well… she didn’t.

Same daughter (now 13) yesterday told me ‘apparently it’s going to be terrestrial rain on Saturday’ 🥰

Tried to teach my son the birds and the bees and he sat aghast looking at me and went “nah that doesn’t happen”!! A few years later when he realised that’s how it does happen he was then equally aghast that I knew this and wanted to know how 😂😂😂

When my youngest was 4 we went somewhere that had a lot of sheep and so I told him to watch out for the poo. He was so shocked. ‘I didn’t know sheep pooed! Nobody told me!’.

Not to stick metal objects in toasters 🫣🫣😳😳🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

Eldest DD made herself a mini bagel the other morning, toaster popped and she couldn’t quite reach the top of it. Proceeded to head towards it with a butter knife. I flew from the sofa yelling “Noooooooooooooo!”………and explaining how metal + electricity = boom

Brilliant , bless her 😂

Similar when I was pregnant with my youngest.
My eldest DD was entirely convinced that I’d eaten the baby and that’s how it had got in there 😂😂😂

This is surprisingly common and has been for years. I’m a high school teacher and kids often ask me the time. In the past, I’d point to my analogue clock which was clearly visible above my whiteboard. One kid once replied, “Yeah but what’s the time Miss?” He could only tell it from a digital one because his phone had one like that, as did his watch. The school had to buy digital clocks for exam venues as loads of kids doing their GCSE exams didn’t know how much time they had left from analogue ones.