What's the worst thing your kids have done to make you want to break down?

[Burnt0utMum]

I'm working from home and kids are off for Easter holidays. Ages 6 and 5. I'm working downstairs and they were quiet for a while upstairs. I went upstairs to check on them and they had locked themselves in the bathroom. I told them to let me in but they refused to open the door. Eventually they opened it and they've used every single product in the bathroom. Soap and water everywhere to the point it's leaked through to the dining room ceiling (which is brand new plasterboard and skim only painted 2 days ago). My new make up that I hadn't opened yet and Lush gift set from my sister that I hadn't used yet have been opened and emptied. I've dried the floor and just had to walk away because I'm just so upset. They know they weren't supposed to touch any products in there and they know they shouldn't have done it but it's done now. I don't even know what punishment to give because I just feel so spent with trying to work while that's going on. DH will be moving the lock out of their reach when he gets home later and I've said they're not allowed their ipads or any of their Easter chocolate. Feeling like a failure. Please tell me I'm not alone having kids causing so much trouble!

Hmmm depends how long they had been left etc without childcare and supervision

MrsKoala

Your stories about your kids have made me laugh out loud 🤣. Especially the ones about the toy truck stuck in your hair and the plastic stethoscope to save your life.

@SignMyStookie

Oh and joined the dots on my dalmatian with permanent marker.

OMG, this is the best one yet!

@MrsKoala I remember your post with the car stuck in your hair - has it really been that long?!

MrsKoala was it you in the "strange phone calls from school" thread who now has teens and one of them has done some hilariously funny things - I'm sure one included selling stuff in school?

@MrsKoala that's adorable and sorry if I made you feel anything bad by saying what I did. I didn't have the full picture and was reading it from my perspective.

I'm glad your hair got sorted - I would've been really touched by all the support and understanding!

My 3 year old smashed our brand new 48 inch smart TV screen 6 days after purchase.
Yep, didn't even get a whole week with the tv

Yes @JackieTheFart it’s been about 6 years since the car hair situation. @itsgettingwierd no that’s not me, mine are 8,6 and 4 now - I’m girding my loins for the teenage years. The boys especially are so big and clumsy I doubt I’ll have much of a house left. I call them Father Liam, the priest from Father Ted who constantly smashed up the furniture. Even today I was mowing the lawn and asked ds1 to move a wrought iron chair and he shoved it so hard one of the legs actually snapped off. It’s part of a set we inherited so I doubt we’ll be able to replace it.

Not to worry at all @EugenesAxe I didn’t feel bad. I think when you have destructive children it does boggle peoples minds, but you have to become fairly sanguine because otherwise you turn into a total banshee. I remember when ds2 fell out of an upstairs window and i thought we’d lost him. It was 2 days before his 2nd birthday and I realised I’d spent most of his life angry. What’s that AA mantra? ‘ Give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can, And the wisdom to know the difference.’

When ds1 (3) poured the red paint all over the tiles ds2 walked through it then came toddling to me and I thought for a few awful moments it was blood. I was so scared and then so relieved and angry that I smacked ds1. I immediately burst into tears. I was pregnant and we were late for preschool. Ds1 looked scared of me. I apologised and we both cried and cuddled and I thought nothing is worth feeling like this. Being on time, Floor tiles, paint etc none of them are worth shouting and being so angry.

So I think you just have to roll with what you’ve got.

Years ago 3 year DD and her friend suspiciously quiet in the bathroom.....had made a lovely mixture of zinc and castor oil cream plus talc and massaged it into their hair, posted their socks and shoes down the toilet along with the loo roll and bars of soap.

Teenage DS and his friend tried bleaching friend’s blond hair (went orange) then started on DS’s dark hair, it didn’t go well and took yonks to grow out the patchy result. They also bleached stripes into DS’s dark eyebrows, thankfully not his eyelashes!

Bloody hell @MrsKoala that would pull me up sharp too. My children falling out of windows is one of those 'falling asleep daydreams' I have that makes me jerk awake and palpitate. I'm so pleased he was OK! You sound a fantastic Mum & you're right.

DS was an utter stinker from the ages of 2-5. Turns out he has autism and ADHD, and he’s mellowed so much in the last 5 years (thank god) but the constant banshee-screaming meltdowns, bolting in public and destruction have left their mark on my nerves. DD is a very different creature. She’s like a ninja; seemingly sweet and quiet but actually helping herself to my makeup to make hideous potions that find their way down between the cushions of the sofa (which belongs to the landlord 😬)

I think of their worst moments as karma though as my brothers and I were the ABSOLUTE WORST when we were small! There’s only 21 months between each of us, and my dad was always working and very “hands off” in a classic 70s-dad way, so my poor mum was stuck with a trio of devil spawn. Our greatest hits were getting out of bed in the night to stick drawing to the wall with Colgate blue minty gel toothpaste, pulling light fittings out of the wall by swinging on them, breaking the stereo in mum’s new car by pressing all the buttons down at once, leaving a magnet on top of the cathode ray tv to see what would happen and getting up and 1AM on Christmas morning and opening all of our presents. We used to beat each other up constantly too. Poor mum.

19lottie82
Are your work OK with you parenting whilst your logged on?

Wow, you’re such a twat 😂
And also must be living under a rock somewhere, seeing as most of the world who are working with kids have been doing just this for about a year.

No, been working from home with kids same as everyone else.

But now it's open, if I'm working I'm working and my kids have to be at school/at childminders/at holiday club/being looked after by dad/grandparents

I'm on annual leave during this holiday.

Do you just expect to be able to work with kids at am home every school holiday now as 'that's what you did during lockdown'. ?

@sparklefarts I wasn't able to find a holiday club to cover the holidays as they are still very limited. Their dad works outside the house as his job can't be done from home. Grandparents live too far away to provide childcare. Work have been clear that they're happy for me to have the kids at home during holidays and after school. We work on the basis of as long as the work is done it doesn't matter and I often work earlier or later if I need to take time out for the kids during the day.

[quote Burnt0utMum]@sparklefarts I wasn't able to find a holiday club to cover the holidays as they are still very limited. Their dad works outside the house as his job can't be done from home. Grandparents live too far away to provide childcare. Work have been clear that they're happy for me to have the kids at home during holidays and after school. We work on the basis of as long as the work is done it doesn't matter and I often work earlier or later if I need to take time out for the kids during the day.[/quote]
Ah OP my last post wasn't really aimed at you. It was at the people who were calling me a twat for asking out of curiosity! 😊

@SimonJT

Used a rock to draw a picture on the passenger side doors of my brand new car. I spent a lot of money getting it repaired and for an extra kick in the teeth it was stolen less than a week later.

Playing with my wallet in the car and threw it out of the window, we were in a small coastal town in Wales on a Sunday, no apple pay, no banks open. Not enough petrol to get home/buy a snack. I had to approach strangers until one agreed for me to send her money via paypal so she could draw it out of a cash machine for me. I now have an emergency £60 in my car at all times.

Threw a toy car and smashed a pane of glass in an internal door of my partners parents house, it was the first time we had met them.

Wow! Talk about kicking a man while he's down, Simon!

My Mum likes to remind me of the time that I painted the actual window pane in my bedroom with pink paint

I also did what your kids have done OP but not when I was so young. As a teenager when I'd fallen out with my Mum I went into the bathroom and emptied every single bathroom product of hers down the sink

We were moving house from a very large Victorian rectory style property. We had just had the downstairs freshly pannelled and painted. DS drew a pencil picture/scribble in every. Single. Panel.

He also scribbled in brick on my car on three sides.

To be honest I was so shocked I wanted to laugh.

Re the bath products it will seem funny in retrospect and you will think you should have kept them safe with a child lock. The kids were having fun!

This isn't child related, but it's a good anecdote.

My cousin (let's call her Barbie) and her husband (let's call him Ken)...

Ken had bought Barbie a particular spec of a very snazzy car. So particular, in fact, that they waited about 6 months for the dealer to track one down.
Plenty of moolah involved...

Now Barbie was no flake, she was always sensible and had her head screwed on. So she had a minor lapse of concentration...
I talk about her in the past tense, as she died a few years ago.

First day with the car, off she pops to do some shopping and she parks the car and goes to Sainsbury's.
20 minutes later, she realises she can't find her car keys and realises that she left them in the ignition of the car.

She hustles back to the car, which has (of course) been stolen.

She scuttles home in a cab and has to confess to Ken what happened.
They didn't argue, he just walked away, cos he didn't even want to look at her.
Needless to say he wasn't happy and didn't talk to her for a few days.

Barbie was a bit 😬 and felt dreadful, bless her.

Then her mum (let's call her Sindy) had to sit Ken down and tell him that he has to get past it.
It was only a car, at the end of the day and nobody was hurt, etc.
Otherwise the incident would have continued to be a black cloud in their relationship.

Under the circumstances, it was the right thing to do, I think; and their relationship did bounce back, thankfully.

@Chocolateandamaretto

My now 7 year old was an absolute horror for cutting her own hair if you weren’t watching her. Literally I would go to answer the door and she would’ve cut her own fringe off with the sodding kiddie scissors. No idea why!

Same child also emptied a very expensive bottle of bubble bath down the toilet “to see if it bubbles when you flush”

And did it??

@ShoesEverywhere

When mine were probably 2 and 4 they were playing with a friend and found two 25kg bags of flour and basically turned a small room into a snow scene.

Had to use my Shark guarantee as it ruined the motor. Also had to be recarpeted as they decided to add water to make bread.

Worst (parenting) day of my life!

My son did that with talcum powder in my bedroom...it looked like Pablo Escobar's front room!

Caused a coup at a playgroup....we were asked not to return. 🙄

@delilabell

Caused a coup at a playgroup....we were asked not to return. 🙄

We need more info, it sounds amazing!

Ah OP my last post wasn't really aimed at you. It was at the people who were calling me a twat for asking out of curiosity!

Yeah, that wasn't what you were doing Sparkles. 😐

I didn't call you a twat, but there was no curiosity in saying
Are your work OK with you parenting whilst your logged on?

Even the use of the godawful 'parenting' as a made-up verb shows your passive-aggression.

The thread wasn't about this. Your introduction of it not-so-subtly implied OP shouldn't be working while her children were in the house.

Some childcare options are available. Some people can structure their work so it is possible to work while children are around, as OP explained.

Whether OP was working or not, her kids could have done what they did, as evidenced by the many stories here.

@benorjerry

Walking across a golf course they decided to throw the balls back to the players! They really thought they were being helpful as we don't play golf.

That's excellent! 😂

How did the golfers take it??

They can be little shitheads can’t they 😂 . Mine took a sharpie two days ago to his newly painted room. The. Whole.Room.