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!

I would probably give all their easter chocolate away. I would say destroy it infront of them, but that would be a complete waste.

Ds 2 broke ds1s new TV 3 days after he got it for Christmas because he threw a PlayStation controller at him and it hit the tv instead. That was pretty bad. I made himbise his chrisas money tk buy a new one, but we couldn't get the same one again.
Hes also destroyed my bed by jumping on it.
He used to draw all over the walls and furniture constantly. He still does it every now and then.
He has also ruined my make up a few times.
Hes a pain in my arse to be honest.

Painted eyelids with nail varnish resulting in emergency A&E trip
Stood on a low window sill at a first floor window and opened it fully
Threw a winged horse ornament down the stairs to see if it would fly
Burnt a hole in the carpet with the hairdryer
Drew a blue line around a newly painted room
Crawled through a hole in the hedge and hid in neighbouring garden

I don't know which was the worst, but god I was a nightmare kid!

I'm laughing so much at these stories. My 2.5 year old hasn't done anything too bad yet.

My best friend and I "burgled" my house once... putting all the valuables we could carry in bin bags and running off with them to the woods. Back in the olden days when you'd barely see your parents in the long balmy summer hols.

I've just remembered, my cousin once, when she was about 5, managed to stick her head through the bars of an antique chair back and then couldn't get her head back out. They tried buttering her face and ears but eventually had to saw the chair apart much to my Grandad's absolute horror.

A friend's children had seen some police thing on the telly where the outline of a murder victim was drawn in chalk. They replicated it by one child drawing round the other with a sharpie on the new cream leather sofa.

@Parkerwhereareyou

Nothing. I love them. They're my children. I'm their mother. They could not do anything to break me down. I'm strong always for them because that's my job. I'm their mother.

Yes sometimes crying, sometimes being annoying, sometimes accidently wrecking stuff, sometimes getting it wrong in how they say things as they learn how to grow up and be themselves but ... I have always started from absolute love, which is what I had too as a child. There's really nothing that can touch absolute love.

It's this comedy shite that keeps me coming back to Mumsnet 👏🏻👏🏻

Oh all sorts over the years. Had them pour my brand new rather expensive red nail polish all over the new bathroom sink once. Nail polish and ceramic is an absolute nightmare. Also had them use all of the milk one morning to ‘make a potion’ so I couldn’t have a cup of coffee without going to the shop. Children can be impossible at times.

@SignMyStookie We only have a cat (mainly black though we did discuss how she might feel having her white paws coloured in).

The cat gave us a very hard stare whilst we were discussing this at bedtime last night.

She says 'You feelin' lucky punk?'

DS13 just came to tell me that when he wiped his sticky hands on his bedroom carpet, loads of dog hairs stuck to his fingers.

I haven't yet found the words to deal with his first-world entitled attitude. Ffs.

@KisstheTeapot14 Ha! Even DD1 at her most audacious wouldn't have taken on a cat 😂

I have teenage sons with diagnoses of autism amongst other issues - don’t even get me started. It’s horrific beyond measure at times. They don’t understand how other work so, for example, when one particularly exploitative ‘friend’ suggested taking my car they literally gave them the keys. Neither could drive and when the police found my car after I’d reported it plus them missing the driver (the ‘friend’) scarpered leaving them and me to pick up the pieces. That’s just one example. It’s not even like I don’t use every ounce of my being trying to support them - I’ve given up a law qualification, a career and any type of enjoyment in my life to try and steer them in the right direction but none of it seems to help.

I don't have kids, but just remembered a bad thing I did when I was about 8 or 9.

I wrote a message on a balloon, "HELP! I AM BEING HELD PRISONER" with my address on it. (I think I'd just finished reading The Count of Monte Cristo.) Then I floated it off out of my bedroom window.

About half an hour later my dad called me down to the front garden, where a concerned neighbour was holding the balloon and asking for reassurance. So my dad asked me to explain I was fine.

I did, but I was such a bitch I did it in this trembly victim tone, as if I'd be beaten if I didn't comply.

DS was an angel, we just didn't realise it at the time.
DD has swung off doors and drawers in a newly fitted kitchen so they now don't close properly without scraping on the one next to them. New handle needed for back door too from being hung on.
Wallpaper peeled off, marker pen on cream carpet, lipgloss on sofa, soooo many toys broken, deliberately rocks the rocking chair too hard and chips the paint and plaster behind it, climbed so often on changing table up the drawer handles that the drawer handle ripped out of drawer front leaving huge holes that can't be fixed.
Cut little triangles out of quite a few items of clothing in my dressing room inc a leather jacket with a pair of darning scissors that she'd scaled 2 chest of drawers and hung off a high shelf to get.
She really ramped it up during lockdown 1 and I nearly broke, what with furlough, home schooling and not being able to take the little trasher out as much as usual it was a bad time. I really lost it when 4 home school days in a row she poured shampoo, shower gel and liquid soap into the bath. She also used DS's steroid nose spray to clean the mirror in the bathroom. It didn't matter where I hid or how high I put there stuff she found it.
It's been much better this lockdown though 😓
Oh and scratched my new (to me) car with a stone from the drive. I'd waited 3 months for this car (high spec, all singing and dancing mid life crisis car), DH had to fly to pick it up, it was that far away from us and had just had a coating on it that made it look beautiful. Bonnet, wing and bumper all scratched down to the white......I cried at that point and had to walk away and leave her to her father.
I'm sure there's probably more, she's only just 4, nothing else new will be bought for at least the next 4-6 years.

Now that I’ve offloaded my troubles I shall add that the very worst things I have done are:

1. Touched the Polaroid camera shutter button after being told not to by my aunt when I was about 7. Sister and I had been left in the car for 5 mins with express directions to sit still and NOT TOUCH. Evidently I couldn’t resist so freaked out when a bloody photograph came trembling out the bottom of the thing. I hid it up my jumper, denied everything and blamed my sister to this very day.
2. Spent about 3 weeks during Geography lessons age 11 planning how to obtain a pet hamster (without permission). I forged a letter to the pet shop owner, bought the hamster while at my friend’s house for tea and then took it home when my mum collected me by car using my school bag (which was shredded by the time we got home. I talked all the way home to disguise the noise of the hamster’s chewing and scrabbling about and then oroceeeded to house it in a hutch made out of tissue boxes I’d saved (stuck with sellotape). When genius me realised that the hamster wasn’t going to stick around in my cardboard accommodation, I de-camped him to the shed - very secretively - and made up reasons to visit the shed from there on in so I could feed and water it. I did not enjoy hamster ownership due to fear of being found out. I think the hamster had the life of Riley having a whole shed to run around in. To my knowledge, my parents never knew and I’ve never told them. My dad is dead so he’ll never know.

@Mumkins42 - it is clear to me that you were sympathising with the OP about how hard it is to work and look after kids at the same time - a genuinely kind thought. I’m baffled as to why this has caused upset.

Not one of my kids, but my sister (who is on MN) :

Was waiting to go to the park (or similar outing) but my mum was trying to finish the housework when the health visitor turned up. She (aged about 3) asked mum what was left to do, and was told “hoover the toilet”. Clearly mum meant hoover the carpet on the floor of the room the toilet was in, but sister stuck hoover attachment down the toilet. The “boom” when the water was sucked up was magnificent.

One of mine poured talc all over the kitchen and herself. Probably the worst.

Not my kids but I was a massive dickhead as a kid.
At the age of 3 I crashed my dads car. He'd left it parked on a hill in 1st gear with the handbrake on.
Mum and dad left older sister and I in the car and went to collect fish and chips.

I undid my childproof seatbelt, climbed in the front, knocked the car into neutral and clicked the handbrake off.

At the age of 41 I can still remember my dads face as he pelted down the hill after us and my poor, 8 month pregnant mother standing at the top of the hill.

I've just realized my kids are angels in comparison, aside from accidentally breaking the bathtub water spout, an outdoor tap and DS2 drawing a self portrait of us in biro on the laundry room wall. We look like potatoes with stick arms and legs!

My DD (18 months at the time) covered herself in sudocrem, but I thought that was funny. 😅
I'm sure I have many just can't think now
My 2 year old ds broke our TV 5 times in 1 year.... This was last year, luckily we had insurance so it got fixed each time but had to buy a new one as the last one was written off and couldn't get insurance as accidental damage is not included anymore 😭.
Had to buy a screen protector for the TV... So far no breaks. 🤞🏻

Mine once covered my entire kitchen with a 1kg bag of icing sugar in the middle of summer.
It was a nightmare to clean up, everything was vaguely sticky for weeks and there was ants. So many ants.

We had saved for ages to get new hardwood flooring throughout our downstairs,’2 says after it went down DS and a fitness were racing RC cars. what I didn’t know was they were colouring the tyres with black sharpie and making them skid across the floor to see who could leave the biggest skid mark

My friends son gave her a hair cut whilst she took a nap. It was awful n bits sticking out everywhere. She had to for a short pixie cut. She always had long hair all her life.

Hey SDTHisan..l will hazard a guess it is because an awful lot of people are angry right now with the situation we've all found ourselves in the last year. The words triggered and projection all apply here. Good luck OP. Holidays are nearly over 😁

I thought my DC were pretty good TBH but this thread has brought back memories.

• On my own with the DC in an airport, queuing to go through security. They must have only been nearly-2 and 4. It took ages. Nearly-2yo DD kept clipping her Trunki strap onto the belt loop of the man infront. DS kept trying to run away every time I went to stop her. Finally got to security. DD freaked out and refused to go through the metal detector so I had to carry her through, dump her on the floor screaming her head off, and go back to go through again by myself. Then get dressed and repack liquids etc. with screaming devil child and runaway boy doing their thing. Nightmare.

• Same DD decided she wanted a purple dress. She achieved this dream by putting on a different coloured dress and then emptying a tub of purple glitter all over herself and rampaging through the house. There was glitter everywhere and I was finding it for months. I now refuse to buy glitter on environmental grounds

• Same DD again, now 7. Sneakily snipped bits off my not-yet-worn wedding dress to make bandages for her toys. I wasn't even cross, such was the sense of disbelief.

Me, dh and dd went abroad (all havw different surnames). Security looked at the pasports and asked dd if we were mum and dad, her being 8 years old i wasn't worried.

She then pulled a smirk said 'maybe' and winked at me, she thought it was hilarious, us not so much!