To give a gift-wrapped potato to DD on Christmas morning?

[Skittlesandbeer]

Was chatting with school mums yesterday while we watched kids play sport. This idea was raised, and split opinion in the group.

Given that most of us have used Santa/Father Christmas coming as a carrot or a stick to encourage good behaviour in DC over November and December, doesn’t it follow that we should deal with the bad behaviour on the Christmas present pile as well?

Is it unreasonable to add a beautifully gift-wrapped potato with a label that says that this would have been a another proper present from Santa, had the behaviour been better?

This came out of a conversation about how our kids (aged 4-8) have cottoned on to the disconnect between their mums harping on about Santa’s ‘naughty or nice’ list, and in reality there’s actually a shed load of stuff to open (even though they know they’ve been naughty). One mum said her kids sneer that Santa doesn’t care, and they know they can get presents anyway so why bother being good?

I quite liked the idea, and of keeping the potato in the ‘loot pile’ for a while afterwards as a reminder (until I can’t be arsed going to the shops and cook it for their dinner!).

So AIBU to wrap one?

And perhaps give it to DD first, if she wakes me at 5.30am on the 25th after I’ve had to coordinate 40 pairs of coat hanger/tinsel angel wings for Christmas Eve mass?

A valid parenting hack, or unreasonably mean (Christmas) spirited?

Sounds like a horrid thing to do IMO. Don't do it @skittlesandbeer

My dh once wrapped coal for me as a joke. I was not impressed

Punishment and humiliation are not effective either as a deterrent or to correct behavior at any level of society whether in parenting or criminal Justice, otherwise we'd all have perfectly behaved kids and empty prisons. Read some research.

This is the meanest, most humiliating ploy I've heard of in a long time. Grow up and parent your kids properly.

I think that is meaner than the behaviour the child is being punished for.

They are a child, what is the grown ups excuse for such cruel behaviour?

OriginalFoo
We all have them. Glad it’s all sorted.

I suspect op is just being a gf but this is the kind of thing my mum would have done to me. At 37 I'm currently having talking Therapy to try to unpick the low self esteem that's blighted my life. She meant well and still does but she parented me through shame and criticism.

evil we don't even have a real fire anyway😂😂

I first saw this post around 18 hours ago but I can't get it out of my mind. It's so awful. Making angel wings for mass and then making time to plan the ruination of a child's Christmas. So sad.

There are two things that should never be put together with 'punishment' or discipline. One is Christmas, the other (in my very humble opinion) is food.

I agree with twatty, also think OP is being a bit of a gf.

I totally agree with the posters who point out the difference between a running joke (which happens every year and which become part of a family's tradition) and suddenly implementing something to make a point.

Actually, I've realized that we do this. Every year for years I insisted on putting out "my" stocking at the bottom of my bed. Some years it was left empty. Some years Santa took the stocking and filled it with presents and put it on DDs bed. One year I got a satsuma. When DD was younger she found this very funny.

^I am a potato. I look like a bum.
Please do not use me to poke some fun^

Best post!

Hope the OP's got the message ... taties as jokes with a happy face only, to be ritually baked and filled with the child's favourite filling, and lots of hugs

Hope the OP has read all these and won't be acting on it.
OP, you've come across as rather blasé in your meanness on this post

"Oh this is absolutely hilarious!

Why is almost everyone on here hell bent on turning their little darlings into fragile snowflakes that melt at any sign of any humour/RL??

It's a bit of fun and, if done with humour, will be funny.

Not be long now before this country will be running out of cotton wool - because it is being used in shed loads to wrap cherubs/princes/princesses up in.

Oh dear oh dear."

I don't know about the poster who actually posted this, but it seems the anthem of really nasty, manipulative, mind game playing parents. It doesn't matter how much you hurt someone young or vulnerable, cos YOU think it's funny, so it must be HILARIOUS.

I don't believe in wrapping kids in cotton wool and totally believe in the need for resilience. Playing mean tricks on the ones supposedly closest to you is horrible though.

Listen to the people posting who have long memories of the pain you cause with behaviour like that.

We’ve always put a potato in their stockings. It hasn’t traumatised them, but it’s been funny listening to the two of them trying to work out which transgression it was for. I learn a lot after the potato has been found!

They also get lots of nice things- the potato is a bit of fun. They give them to me to peel for Christmas dinner.

blacktea I agree. The child is a child, with the immaturity and lack of impulse control of a child. For an adult who should possess these traits to plan this in advance seems utterly cruel to me.

Bloody hell, it's a potato instead of another gift. The kid is going to get other gifts. Anybody would think op wanted to let her daughter open her real gifts, and then set them all on fire in front of her. You lot were at the back of the queue when the grips were being handed out.

When my son was primary school age he hadn't been very good and we talked about vegetables from Father Christmas for naughty children. This happened. Then two months later I read his school book and he's written that he had got X and some vegetables for Christmas. I was mortified. It annoyed me that I cared what the teacher thought though.

I do this in a jokey way..

They get spuds I there stocking instead of coal. They never lose presents but They do sit and wonder what they would have got...
But Want a also included a spud gun last year so they where quite happy to get spuds.

Mine see the funny side but inwouldnt do it if they would get seriously upset. Christmas morning is not the time to teach a lesson

How is it a hack though?

Recently an incorrectly used word ime.

Message from the 1950's - In the night a Christmas stocking was filled by Father Christmas (Dad's long walking sock) with delights - pens, small toys, fruit, nuts in shell, oranges. If there was anything 'under the tree' it would be ONE present [stilts, train set, doll different years] - that was the present from Mum and Dad, sometimes there would be something - sweets, bathroom thing, diary from an aunt or uncle. So with a small amount of stuff, the threat that Father Christmas might not come and fill the stocking meant something. Today's affluence and overindulgence means the threat of naughty or nice means nothing. Same as Christmas dinner is only important if your diet is generally meagre and monotonous. We are forgetting how rich we are.

Possibly you should give them a card with ChildLine's number on aas well.

Good grief. You need to ASK?

I think your mistake was in not sitting them down a month ago to explain that the 'naughty or nice' thing is rubbish and you love them.

And of course you realise that impulse control is not a thing 4 year olds have developed yet?

You lot were at the back of the queue when the grips were being handed out.

And you were at the front for Mumsnet clichés

Why would you want to be so mean?