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!

Reading through I've remembered loads of other stuff they've done like drawing on new wallpaper (in a rented house), throwing a Samsung tablet in a bath full of water, drawing on a very expensive, new leather sofa (it never came off), squishing my new Mac lipstick, "playing" with my Guerlain meteorites powder and losing all the balls, putting paint on my lovely oak dining table and then scrubbing it (it now has a white mark), oh and they've managed to take the leather off one of new dining chairs (that cost £250 each!), no one will own up to it, but I have my suspicions!

I can't find the tv stand photo but here is one when I left them alone to go to the toilet and in a minute my eldest had OPENED a bottle of fake tan and gave it to my youngest. had to keep checking the carpet and baby every hour to make sure they wasn't developing tans!

Another occasion where I left them whilst at my nans house to run a bath, came back and the baby who was about 6months was just upside down when I returned...

@stressbandit Great photos! Love the upside-down baby

@EugenesAxe it’s a combination of things with mine. The older 2, the boys are unusually big for their age and they have things like possible ASD, dyslexia, ADHD, dyspraxia (assessments still ongoing). They often just run down the stairs and put their foot thru a bannister. Most of it is totally unintentional. Then things like the wall drawings are not malicious and done when younger.

Last year when I had suspected covid I was really ill in bed and ds2 (5) came in very concerned for me, he went off to draw me a picture to cheer me up. He returned to tell me he’d done a beautiful drawing but I’d need to come to the hallway to see it. My heart sank. He proudly showed me a large stick man and said ‘it’s okay, I know I’m not allowed to use pen so I used this’ and pointed to a set of keys. He’d only scratched the picture into the plaster/paint using my door key. He genuinely thought he’d done something lovely. We’ve decided to save that area of the wall in the hallway. It sums it all up really.

Once when I was bfing ds2 (2mo) ds1 (just 2) came round the back of the sofa and put his switched on electric car on the top of my head. The wheels spun so quickly they gathered up a large chunk of my hair and got all caught up in the mechanisms. I had no idea what to do. I didn’t want to cut it out (I even posted a thread on here). I eventually took both of them with me a few doors down where there were builders working and asked them to help me get it out. 2 blokes carefully stood unscrewing all the little bits till they dismantled the car and set my hair free.

One time I took the rubbish out (always take my keys) and ds2 (2) ran to the door and slammed it shut. Haha I thought, I’ve got the key, I’m one step ahead. But he did it with such force the coat rack and shelf that was screw against the wall fell down and blocked the door so I could only open it a cm. Ds1 was just 4 and dd was 8mo and crawling. The 3 of them were in the house and I couldn’t get in. I had to run to a local garage and borrow a ladder and a mechanic and he came back with me and climbed over the top of my garage and got in thru the back door, while I was singing and chattering to the kids thru the letter box to distract them. They thought it was hilarious fun. Ds1 got boxes and blocked the stairs so dd couldn’t crawl up because he’s so resourceful and such a quick thinker. He was reassuring me dd was okay.

@gallileofigaro

Slashed throat with a six inch knife and almost died from the attempt. ...you asked!

That was my first and honest response to your post title.

When I read your post though I have the utmost sympathy for you as I think it's impossible to work from home and parent children at the same time, something has to give as concentrating on both at once is difficult, if not impossible.

At least the DC have come to no harm and I think you've suitably punished them and hopefully they won't do it again.

Parenting is bloody hard, tell yourself you're doing your best xx

Were there issues with drugs?

M*rsKoala
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I know it must be exhausting, and not funny at the time, but your stories of your kids are actually very cute.

The one about the wall drawing with the keys really pulled at my heartstrings, he was so much trying to do something nice ❤️

You sound great too!

Youngest smashed the tv with a broom I had left while going to answer the door. His excuse was he was trying to hit his brother. I had no money so they had to live with no tv for a long time.

Do is autistic and when he was younger (about 3/4) used to have massive violent meltdowns usually resulting in him head butting me in the face splitting my lip and giving me black eyes. One day while he was kicking off and I was trying to carry him out of a shop a woman tutted and muttered something about parents these days. I just lost it and handed him too her saying “if you can do any better you have him”. It was not my finest hour and luckily my mum was with me to take him. I’ve been on anti depressants ever since.

Just to add he wasn’t diagnosed back then and I just felt like I was a massive failure with a 4 yr old who wouldn’t look at a toilet and hurt me constantly. I was told for years it was probably my anxiety making him like when even at 9 he was still incontinent during the day. My other two were fine so I couldn’t understand what I’d done wrong. He’s since been diagnosed and now it all makes sense.

*RowofDucks
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I'm sorry, that sounds awful. Why are people so nasty? A family member was dealing with a similar situation recently & received a muttered comment too. They found it very upsetting.

I can completely understand your reaction to that woman.

@Rowofducks That sounds so tough. Glad you're in a better place with him now.

Mines haven't done anything that bad as what I did as a child. Me and my brother smeared lard on the lino and skated on the kitchen floor, drank diluted bleach, my brother rubbed my mums car with a stone, he also emptied a pot of paint all over the stairs, threw his trike down the stairs and smashed a large window, ducked when my other brother threw a brass item at him which hit the window smashing it, kicked a football my mums most prized plate on the wall from her decreased mum (she cried about that one) there were many other small things we did to wreck the house and challenge my mums sanity. I don't know how she coped. The worst thing my son has done is coming home having had an accident and ended up with poo all over himself and the bathroom. I was very upset. My 7 year old has done loads of drawing over lockdown but he's also written his name on the wall with a sharpie. Sorry you've had a bad day. I'm sure they will still turn out to be well rounded humans and you'll tell this story to them and they'll be horrified , my brother has his own toddler now and it's very entertaining to watch him trying to stop him emptying his expensive protein powder all over the kitchen when he's not watched for more than a minute.

Made me think of Roald Dahl’s George’s Marvellous Medicine. My sympathies OP.

A dd at 3 decided to follow a local cat. We live in a close so she wasn’t near traffic and I was watching, but not close enough to stop her trying to follow the cat through a wrought iron gate - she got her head through the bars well enough but couldn’t get it out again.

Had to wait at least 15 mins with her crying, ‘I want to get OUT!!!’ and a load of the neighbours standing around - someone gave her a lollipop to cheer her up - that didn’t work - until the fire brigade, bless them, turned up and got her out in two shakes.

She was frightened of the men in their big yellow helmets and not a bit grateful. 😂

Sorry i had to smile at this, sadly its life, my mum loved to tell all and sundry of when i was little, (about 4) my dad was at sea, he used to bring things from all over the world for us when he came home. He once brought my mum a HUGE , GIGANTIC bottle of Channel no 5, Mum says i was quiet, came to see what id done, by all accounts id emptied it all down the toilet! i have no recollection of this. Put everything if you can out of reach, thank lucky stars wasnt bleach or anything they were playing with. Youve done what you can, being a parent is hard.

DD massaged my sourdough starter into our curly haired dog.

Brilliant (sorry!)

My adult son is severely autistic and I have a list as long as my arm!

Painted the whole couch with nail varnish, thrown everything in his room out of the window, thrown a chlorine tablet into the fish pond, thrown a garden table over the fence, , the whole sudocrem thing, squeezed a whole tube of bath sealant over a new oak table, taken his double bed apart, unscrewed his bedroom furniture, destroyed my whole make up bag, flooded the bathroom probably 100 times which has flooded the kitchen in the process and other stuff I won’t mention on a public forum!

These are quite light hearted as they haven’t broken me as such but definitely given pause
DD1 has sudocreamed herself and her little sister. She also coaled herself when we used to keep a few chunks by the log burner in a tub.
She also used to be able to escape the 5 point harness in the car at an early age and found that hilarious as we tried to get her back in her seat bombing down the motorway.
She opened the car door once mid drive god that one gave me a fright.
These were all young toddler age under 4 so I not sure it was done naughtily as such.
This wasn’t on purpose but once she was unwell and got up to go to the loo in the night again about 3/4 and the poo caught her on the hop and dropped out of her pyjama shorts.
When I ran in to her crying I opened the door over the poop which smeared it all over the cream carpet.
Pahahahah I’m laughing now!

@Rowofducks - I’ve just written a post above about my autistic son. He’s an adult now. Don’t let people’s comments get you down. I’ve heard them all. Even Been told he should be kept in a cage due to making loud excitable noises in a shop once. He’s a big lad and can appear scary but he’s really not. On the whole 99% of people are absolutely lovely when out and about.

@EarringsandLipstick thanks, they are real sweethearts even if they get it wrong a lot of the time. My favourite memory of this is when they were 5, 3 and 1. H was in the shower and I was choking on a bourbon in the kitchen. Properly, I can’t breathe on my hands and knees choking. The kids were watching and I was motioning to them to get daddy. Ds1 said ‘Mummy, do you need help?’ I nodded and gasped yes. They then ran off in the opposite direction to the playroom and returned with their toy drs bag and proceeded to examine me with plastic stethoscopes. As I lay on the floor expiring, with a plastic thermometer in my ear, I thought, this is so bloody apt. But I also thought how sweet they all were, trying their best to make me better. Obviously failing miserably though. H arrived just in time and all was well. We still crack up at it though.

No children yet but I did a terrible thing as a kid myself. Sooooo we were visiting some family friends, and I went to use the loo. While sitting on the toilet (and they say you have the best ideas on the toilet!) I saw a huge bag of powder laundry detergent and I filled (😈 yup, filled) all the tiles with said powder. They only realised after I left and I can't remember much but she must have been terrified when she saw the mess 🤯

DC kept throw their fav car at me and I said if you do it again I’m putting it in the communal bin..they did so I did. I feel awful 20+years later, lovely little yellow Porsche racing car given to them by a family friend.

Not my child but me! I was 3 years old and cut triangles out of a beautiful dress my mum had saved up for ages to buy and was looking forward to wearing at a work party, I'd apparently been watching a cartoon on TV where they made art out of fabric, my mum was heartbroken, brings it up regularly and nearly 30 years later I still feel guilty about it.

@frankie001

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!

I was just going to write this for DS2! We aren't related are we? Said child initials NB?