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Original poster

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

426 replies

Burnt0utMum · 06/04/2021 16:56

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!

OP posts:
EarringsandLipstick · 07/04/2021 00:07

@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.
Longdistance · 07/04/2021 00:08

Dd2 wrote with Sharpie black permanent marker on the newly bright white painted wall after we finished our extension. How did we know it was her? She wrote her name 😂 twat!

EKGEMS · 07/04/2021 00:15

DH on a week long business trip my 12-year old severely disabled son peed/pooped in his bed.every.single.day. despite using the bathroom just before bed every night.

cerealgamechanger · 07/04/2021 00:18

@SignMyStookie

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

Sorry but proper laughed at this one 🙈

Quaagars · 07/04/2021 00:19

Just Flowers and reading all the replies in sympathy!

Quaagars · 07/04/2021 00:24

Are your work OK with you parenting whilst your logged on?

WTF. what do you expect people to do last year?
You have to work from home when everything else is closed.
What should OP do, shut them in a cupboard?!
Biscuit

cerealgamechanger · 07/04/2021 00:27

We were bluelighted to hospital

Sorry but howling!

Bloodypunkrockers · 07/04/2021 00:27

All these stories. Smile

I've had fingers in paint, smearing of chocolate and cream (and nappy contents)

The one that broke me was when DD dropped two litres of milk on the kitchen floor. I had carpet tiles and the milk seeped under all the units.

I just knelt on the floor and cried

Saracen · 07/04/2021 00:30

My five year old persistently bullied another child by excluding him, telling all the other kids not to play with him. I had always thought of her as a very kind empathetic child, so I tried the "imagine how that makes him feel" approach. I talked to her repeatedly till I was blue in the face but she kept at it.

Eventually I gave up on trying to get through to her, and just stamped on the behaviour. I told her if she was caught being mean to him again or encouraging others to do so, she wouldn't be allowed to play with groups of children but only with one friend at a time. To her that was a strong threat since she was a very sociable queen bee type, so she behaved.

I still feel guilty that I didn't go straight for that solution. I let the bullying go on too long because I was so sure she wouldn't knowingly upset anyone. I didn't think I should threaten her to get her to behave. I wanted her to WANT to be nice.

Saracen · 07/04/2021 00:32

That five year old did grow into a lovely young adult, and years later became friendly with the boy she had bullied. She didn't remember her behaviour. I never had the guts to ask him whether he did.

ivelostmymarbles · 07/04/2021 00:35

unsupervised bathroom adventures never ends well. I will tell you from my own experience that when I was about 5 my brother and I were in the bathroom trying out products where he came across my dads shaving kit and decided to shave my eyebrows off Grinmy mum started to cry because we had school photos due. I remember her trying to draw eyebrows on me Grinand I remember not going school. I also remember giving my sister a hair cut which every time I cut it, it was more wonky and it went shorter and shorter. I remember being grounded and not going to my best friends birthday party and playing outside for a long time. My sister in the end got a mushroom hair cut 😂

user1473878824 · 07/04/2021 01:17

@TedTookVows

What a nightmare OP I really feel for you!

Family child hacked into my Apple ID off a device and sent obscene messages under my name on iMessage. Luckily (or unluckily for them) they were immediately caught by targeting precisely the wrong contact (my DM) and no damage was done. But I mean OBSCENE I was furious.

WHAAAAT!
Friendofdennis · 07/04/2021 01:19

My daughter is chilled and no trouble but my childhood was different. Once I deliberately wedged a 2 pence coin in the gap between my front teeth and nobody could get it out. (I don’t remember how it came out) I cut the patterns out of my mothers new curtains with scissors. When I received a lovely dolly highchair for Christmas I immediately snapped the legs off to make it into a chair.
I remember hiding behind the sofa and pulling chunks of my own hair out. Oh gosh as I’m writing this I realise I was probably disturbed but I actually had a very kind family so I don’t know why.

EugenesAxe · 07/04/2021 01:22

Wow reading some of the replies I feel like a completely shit mother, as there is NO WAY I would ever have coped with some of the tales described. @MrsKoala especially.... just how were they able to keep going at those levels of destruction?

I can't think of anything much, but when I'm red mist angry you really know it. I think my children are genuinely terrified of me in that state, so they've always been pretty well-behaved. I don't worry about them doing things like making garden potions or getting dirty, and I wouldn't punish accidents, but I really hate wanton waste or destruction.

I think my DS may have once unrolled toilet paper fairly frequently? My DD has drawn on her bed and wall a tiny bit but that's her own stuff to an extent. That is the worst I can think of.

EugenesAxe · 07/04/2021 01:25

They both cut their own hair but that doesn't bother me... kind of a rite of passage in a way Grin

Mincepiesallyearround · 07/04/2021 01:34

One day OP you’ll look back and laugh.

One weekend when my sibling and I were bored (parents asleep/lying in) we painted a giant monster on their verandah wall. Complete with a giant cock. We had to pass it entering and leaving the house for ages until it could be better painted over. We were about 6 and 7.
Another time we got hold of a pack of butter cut it into pieces and had a fight with it, lobbing it all over the place so it splatted on walls. Seemed fun at the time but looking back, so naughty!

doubleshotespresso · 07/04/2021 01:39

My primary aged (SEN) child physically beat me up almost daily, and I do mean beat me, extreme levels of violence and in the heat of those moments really meant every bit of it, but then collapsed sobbing immediately afterwards. DAY AND NIGHT for months on end. Was a horrific few months and I honestly now don't know how I got through it.

frankie001 · 07/04/2021 01:42

Nephew started peeing in the cat litter tray. That poor cat nearly went to the vets for a probable uti but we caught him at it!

Xboxstolemychildren · 07/04/2021 01:47

We've all been there, my sons both decided at about age 4 to set fire to the posters in their bedroom.
Smeared a whole tub of butter over my freshly painted walls, it took me weeks to get the grease off to be able to repaint.
Although those are quite bad, one thing they done that really hurt me. I was a single parent and struggling with money, but I'd recently got a job and was given a bonus so decided to treat myself to a pair of rayban sunglasses that I'd been wanting for ages. I hadn't even had them a day when ds popped the glass out of them snapped the frame and threw them in the bin, I was devastated.

crowsfeet57 · 07/04/2021 01:52

At a family wedding, DS2 somehow discovered that the beautiful balloon arrangements all around the edge of the dance floor were weighted with water filled balloons. We didn't suspect a thing when all the balloons started floating about 6 foot off the ground, but when everyone started slipping over while dancing, I just knew he was involved and eventually found him and a cousin's son hidden behind curtains in an alcove throwing water bombs onto the dance floor. We made a hasty exit!

user1473878824 · 07/04/2021 01:58

@thebillyotea

The only thing that ever broke me involved injuries. As long as I don't have to rush a bleeding child to A&E, I am not that bothered. They get told off accordingly, but as long as there's no blood/injury or possibly a fire, it's all good.
I’m slightly amazed by this. The newly decorated ceiling was damaged but that’s okay because they’re not bleeding?!
crowsfeet57 · 07/04/2021 02:07

DD always had a horrendous temper. Once when she was about 3 and DS1 annoyed her in the car she snatched his book out of his hands and threw it out of the window.

Her childhood tantrums paled into insignificance when she was a teenager though. When she was about 14 she decided, one day, that she wasn't well and couldn't go to school. After trying to persuade her to go I finally gave up and got ready to go to work. I was about to leave when she asked for money to meet her friends in town after school. I refused and said if she was too ill for school, she was too ill to go to town. I was about to start the car when I realised that she was standing in front of it. She refused to move until I gave her some money and when I didn't she screamed "You c*nt" at the top of her voice. Beyond her I could see a woman taking a little boy to school who was too afraid to cross the road and pass our drive.

Ten years on she is a lovely adult. But it was many, many years before I could talk about this incident without sobbing in shame. Even now I'm crying while writing about it.

PuppyMonkeyBaby · 07/04/2021 02:21

One weekend when my sibling and I were bored (parents asleep/lying in) we painted a giant monster on their verandah wall. Complete with a giant cock. We had to pass it entering and leaving the house for ages until it could be better painted over.

Oh god, that brought tears to my eyes Grin Grin

user1473878824 · 07/04/2021 02:29

@EarringsandLipstick Oh my god. I’m so sorry. I hope you really, really punished them for this because I can’t see a single funny bit about it.

Hannsmum · 07/04/2021 02:36

@SignMyStookie

Oh and joined the dots on my dalmatian with permanent marker.
😂😂😂😂😂🤣 this killed me