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?

My 9 year old asked if he could run his own bath. We agreed and sent him upstairs. 20 minutes later the tap was still running so we went to investigate. He was sitting in an inch of water with the tap on. We hadn’t ever told him about the plug!

Not me but we had a lady bring her daughter to a hobby thing at the local pool to discover the daughter couldn't swim. The mum was a swimming teacher and completely mortified. She had never taken her own kids swimming and had believed the school when they said her daughter was doing really well at swimming lessons.

What my 9 year old doesn't know about the evolution of global politics and international relations isn't worth knowing but he has no idea how to tie a shoelace. I simply forgot to teach him. (I want to be clear that I also didn't teach any of the other stuff either he is just ND and very interested in it)

This reminds me of my mum's friend. At the grand old age of 45 she said to my mum one day "did you know that if you run out of frozen chips, you can just use cut up potatoes??"

She genuinely had no clue that chips were made from potatoes, yet clearly fed them to her children regularly! Heaven knows what she thought they were made from!

Bit of context, we live in a very safe village and know all our neighbours, and DD is a rule-following type of kid who doesn't take a lot of risks. Also the living room faces directly onto the front garden, but the curtains were drawn on this day.

I came downstairs and DH was sitting in the living room reading, I asked where DD5 was, he said she's out playing in the front garden. I said I don't think she should be in the front unsupervised, she's only 5. He said the gate is locked and she was occupied with her tuff tray, and anyway, she was not silly enough to go off with anyone.

I called her in, and I said, "What would you do if a nice man came along and said to come and look in his car and you could have some sweets?"
Her response was, "Say yes please and thank you very much."

We had to have a big chat about not going anywhere unless Mummy or Daddy had specifically said it was OK!

DD was never toaught how to ride a bike and can't swallow tablets whole. I have to have soluble paracetamol in the bathroom if she's got cramps. She hates the taste of it but somehow that doesn't motivate her to try tablets again.

I did once buy her a bike but I worked a helluva lot when she was young and I just never got round to properly teaching her. Her father can't ride a bike either.

My friend was shocked to know how much yoghurt he'd pointlessly thrown away over the years after watching my son stir in the thin bit at the top.

I was talking to my 12yo DD about periods and period pants and she said "wait, pants have a front and back?"

She actually has quite a collection of pants in different shapes and sizes and she kept complaining these ones are uncomfortable/don't fit. I never even thought to check she had them on right.

Definitely 😂😂😂

DD is one of those kids where she’s really academically bright…..but some of the common sense fell a tad by the wayside. Never occurred to me that I’d need to have that conversation 🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠

I had a similar thing with a friend and peppers. She cut them straight across the top and bottom and lost about a quarter in the process!

My eldest dd didn't know the difference between a chicken and a turkey

She thought they where the same animal!

She (at the time) was 19

I'm still taking the piss and she's 28 now

My friend, who must have been at least 28 at the time, pondering how two other mutual friends of ours could look so alike, despite one being Japanese/White American and the other being mixed Inuit/Danish heritage.

"Strange, isn't it?" He said with genuine wonder, "When Canada and Japan are literally on opposite sides of the map!"

We didn't have the heart to tell him about the world being a globe because he was already pleased with himself for knowing that some Inuit live in Canada and not just in Greenland.

My friend was well over 40 when she discovered raisins were dried grapes. Oh I did think they tasted a bit like wine, she said, gobsmacked.

I was soooo excited to start school: my mum stayed at home with me and I couldn’t wait to go to school as I wanted to do everything my older brothers did (including pee standing up - trust me, I tried 😳🤣😇)

Imagine my disappointment to find that the “Elephants” School did not have an entrance with massive stone elephants on their hind legs, trunks entwined, as a portal to what was actually the “infants” school! 🤣

Bit random but a pharmacist once told me I should make my iPad password my mobile number as it helps kids learn it super quick...... Very clever!

I thought for a long time growing up that the immersion heater was the, "Emergen" heater because you put it on in an emergency when there was no hot water.

Honestly so common (as a secondary teacher!), it makes teaching how to tell the time in other languages a nightmare! Especially as a lot of test questions show pictures of analogue clocks.

My DS is tiny so another one from teaching, knew a 13yo who couldn't tie her shoelaces... And yet had lace-up school shoes! I taught her how to do it when she asked for help tying them

dc’s school banned mobile phones during school time. The amount of secondary aged pupils who couldn’t read clock was astonishing. I spent Covid lockdown teaching dd to read a clock. Ds has had analog watch for years so he wasn’t bothered.

How to catch a public bus, as in, stick your arm out at a bus stop.
We'd only caught a bus previously from the main depot, where they start from so no need for indicating you want to get on.
DS was therefore late on his first day at high school.

Until I went to Uni I had been failed in learning from parents that scrambled eggs can be made on hob - only every in microwave in our house.
Mind. Blown.

After crossing roads safely with DC for years, them walking to school safely solo etc, I really thought they knew not to cross the busy road we lived on by coming out from between parked cars.

Turns out they didn’t and they got hit outside our house. Luckily fairly minor….but was a horrible way to learn the lesson so wish I’d hammered it home.

DD was very cross with me when she went to University at the other end of the country and discovered that some of the words and expressions commonly used where we live are not, in fact, standard English.

We have friend and family living all over the UK, and with lots of different dialects and obviously she hears different expressions/accents etc on TV and when we go on holiday. But somehow she had assumed that everything we say is the standard and I should have told her if it wasn't.

I can remember a conversation with my dad where he had obviously explained family relationships and asking him, "So, my mum is your sister?" I was about five or six.

We seemed to be practising tying shoelaces every now and then for about three years with DDs. I wondered if we should have started earlier or more diligently.

In a similar vein - mum said don’t put tin foil in the microwave. She never explained that it was because it was metallic so I merrily put the butter in its wrapper in there aged 11. Cue flames and me throwing water in the microwave whereupon I was reminded that electrics and water are also not a great pairing…

Don’t worry. I grew up rurally. I didn’t know how to catch a bus until I went to uni!