To think a 12yo should know better?

[WibblyWobblyJellyHead]

I cleaned the whole house this morning, for context.

DD (12) asked if she could do some painting. I said yes, but only in the garden and only if she cleared everything away afterwards. I left her to it and played Lego in the front room wth my 4yo DS for the rest of the afternoon.

I've just gone out to start dinner. Omfg. There is paint all over the patio. She had painted her entire forearms with green paint. Obviously tried to wash it off at some point and completely trashed the bathroom in the process, leaving a half filled painty bath and handprints everywhere. Still has green arms.

She's made 'goo' out of a whole bottle of washing up liquid, most of the salt, a tube of toothpaste and some glue. It's all over the patio table. We now don't have any washing up liquid, toothpaste or much table salt.

She's also papier mached a balloon which she has hung up to dry on the washing line with the clean clothes. There are torn bits of magazine all over the grass. Glue everywhere.

All the painting stuff is strewn around the garden.

I lost my shit and she is now sobbing and petulantly clearing up. She has been incredibly rude to me and DH about the whole thing. I will have to clean the kitchen floor again as she's been in and out with wet bare feet and it's disgusting.

I seriously can't do six more weeks of this shit. AIBU to think by now she should know better? I'd expect this sort of behaviour from a 4yo, not a nearly teen. She'll be in yr8 in September ffs.

AIBU?

It's not just the mess which is annoying though - the actual projects seem odd for ac12 yr old. When DD was 12 'painting' would mean doing art work - actual paintings or collages - not making gooey mess and papier-mâché. Someone 12 at this stage of the year would be finishing Y7, so well used to unsupervised time, surely?

Did anyone catch war surgeon David Nott on Desert Island Discs or Chris Packham's memoirs? They got up to worse shit than a bit of green paint on the patio. But you don't have to be famous to enjoy making things, including a mess and your mum doesn't have to be a martinet either. A simple: 'Would you please tidy that up?' usually suffices.

Do you talk about her in 'real life' the way you've done here? If so, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if it was her "twisted" way of getting a bit of attention.

Oh FGS, no-one is saying that she needed supervising as such! I just meant that a head in the room where she was, once during all that time, asking "how are you getting on? Are you creating a masterpiece?" type of low-key, tongue in cheek question rather than hovering over her like an anxious parent at soft play.

A bit of interest might have meant that she could show you what she was doing, and you could head off total disaster in the interior design department!

Only on MN could comments like my original one be so misconstrued and twisted so that it becomes "you should have been supervising."

Because it's not my hose she messed up, this is really funny.!

She sounds delightfully creative!

You're not on your own. Dd makes a mess wherever she goes and never engages her brain thinking that "I didn't mean it" and batting her eyelashes will get her out of it as that's how she gets round stbxh she's ruined two cakes this week by not asking when she wasn't sure (i'm not in the kitchen as she loves to pretend she's presenting a cooking show) and I got mad tonight. I know it's all part of growing up but it's bloody wasteful.