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!

DD as a toddler covered herself, DS2 and the floor in copious amounts of baby oil and also once smeared the solid contents of her nappy all over the playpen she was in at the time.
She also gnawed all the wood slats around her bed, makes potions with any creams/moisturisers/blutack/makeup she can get her hands on and regularly smashes crockery. She is almost 11.

We discovered that DS2 had been peeing on the carpet at the base of the ladder for his cabin bed because he was "too scared" to leave his room to go to the bathroom (which is next door to his bedroom) at night. We had only just finished doing his room up with new everything, including floorboards, to find he'd been pissing all over the floor! He was 7 at the time. He also then twisted off the lightshade from the overhead light and nearly fused the electrics.
He is also responsible for all the little groove marks in our brand new kitchen countertop, he had been sawing it at it with all our kitchen knives "to see if they work"

My oldest and youngest DC are a walk in the park compared to my middle two. DD and DS2 are definitely the spawn of satan and still need to be watched carefully despite being nearly 11 and nearly 10

Mine have done the sudocrem thing,drew on cream sofa,drawn on walls(still do this!),broke two TVs. My youngest has had about it 6 iPads and smashes them in temper. My oldest ds came home drunk a couple of years ago and was so drunk he had massively crapped himself.
If I had my time again Im not sure I would have kids.

My daughter has Autism and can push me to my limits frequently. However in the boiling hot summer of lockdown and living in a masionette, with all windows opened wide. My daughter kept repeatedly shouting 'you're a pervert' ( a newly discovered word). I remember just thinking I cant cope with this.

My youngest emptied nearly a whole bottle of talc all over the downstairs bathroom in the space of 2 minutes, he was only 2 at the time and absolutely delighted with himself, I couldn't help but laugh when I went in because he had the biggest smile and was giggling away in delight, but it took me an absolute age to clean it up.
My eldest decided to draw a nice swirly picture on the living room wallpaper
My youngest hit a stick of the passenger side door of our car, the dent looked tiny but because of the paint finish on the car it equated to £400 of damage, suffice to say we T cut it out and left the little dent there.
My old neighbour had a new fireplace fitted, her eldest DC decided it wasn't complete without a drawing of a lovely aeroplane on it and she couldn't get it off for love nor money, so it became a permanent art installation.

[quote MrsKoala]@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.[/quote]
I love this!! That's both sweet & terrifying 😂

When mine were about 5 and 3, the older one accidently broke the glass Livingroom table which resulted in glass everywhere and while I was frantically trying to prevent anyone from getting hurt, the 3 year old decided to smash our new TV screen with a toy wooden hammer I did cry and my husband sat in the garden for hours and hours.

Incredibly stupid to have a glass table with small children, I know

@Shinyletsbebadguys

Ds2 executed a genuinely impressive heist to get hold of the felt tip pens (through bitter experience at bedtime they were removed from him and put on a high shelf). The little horror had clearly been planning this as in the 1 minute gap where I was in Ds1 room and DP had gone to put the boiler for my bath on (we are somewhat creatures of habit) he had dashed in , moved a chair , climbed it and picked up what he thought were "his " felt tips.

He had then stashed them under his pillow. Both DP and I heard running but I thought DP was with him and he thought I was. Honetly it was a couple of minutes at most and I walked into his bedroom and merrily read him a story.

Cut to half an hour later when I we to check on them. To be face with a little face drawn as if he was a tiger. Bright orange , surprisingly well drawn whiskers for a 5 year old , black smudges around eyes. It was genuinely a work of art. "For the children at the circus" he maintained.

I was relatively (errr relatively ) calm ....right up until I retrieved the pens to realise they were not "his" pens. They were my permanent markers that I used for training materials.

He was due in school the next morning , I was very very tired and I sat in the hall and cried out of sight of the sad little tiger sat on the edge of the bed trying to explain to DP who was trying very hard not to laugh that he had only planned to run away to the circus and wanted to make the children smile.

After DP calmed me down , gave me tea he admitted he had come up the stairs to be faced with a little tiger faced boy and a sobbing DP sat on the floor and was completely confused.

We have all been there OP you have my utmost sympathy. It can take 3 seconds for them to do something that if they get you at the right time can break you.

In retrospect I laugh my ass off at my little tiger cub but my god I was so tired that night.

This is the BEST story, I'm crying !!!

We were selling our house on a tight timescale and budget, open house viewing. Come the day both me and DH wake up with some lurgy that’s really knocked us for six. Nonetheless, we soldier on as you have to putting the last things away, cleaning....against the odds finally manage to get it passable . The doorbell rings for the viewing and a small crowd has assembled outside.
I go to the front door to let them in, and en route my attention is drawn to an artwork on the hall wall which was not previously there. My DS (3) is standing on a chair with sharpie and biro - so working in both high contrast AND in relief - putting the finishing touches to it. ‘Look!’ Says he ‘It’s a castle with a tower and on top there is a cannon shooting bullets!’.
That may have been the artists’ intention. However, most viewers of the work I believe would interpret it as a five foot high, carved into the plaster, cock.
Nod and smile! Nod and smile!

My dd went through a phase of 'cooking'. at least I think that's what it was. She would regularly sneak into the kitchen when I forgot to close the gate and empty as many spice/ dried herb containers as she could!
Mustard powder and paprika were her favourites.
Only she wouldn't do it in the kitchen where they could be swept up easily, but on the carpet...obviously. I would take a week each time before it was fully removed.
She also played pat-a-cake once. where she mixed huge amounts of salt with garlic and black pepper, and then mixed in water. The paste was then spread all over the coffee table! (and the carpet)
She has also done the sudocrem, shower gel and toothpaste spreads! She's only 3....

@SignMyStookie

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

🤣🤣 that's actually hilarious!

OP I'm not surprised you were so mad. They knew they shouldn't hence locking door and refusing to open it when asked.

I'd be removing all their nice stuff and making a chores list for rest of holiday. They would be doing enough jobs to 'earn' the money to pay for my products and fixing the ceiling.
I'd probably also make them play in the garden whilst I worked come rain, shine, snow or freezing temps!

[Quote removed by MNHQ - quotes withdrawn post.]

My first response was to type

Tried to hang himself after being victim of knife crime because he'd rather kill himself than be killed.

I think everyone has their own parenting moments that have a lasting effect - just some do eventually become sticks to beat them with or amusing anecdotes.

In my case (and hopefully yours) it's become something to remember and as a benchmark to remind me how far ds (now 16) has come in 4.5 years.

Where do I start ....

Threw a toy dyson at the hallway radiator only for it to sever the radiator water pipe. As it was December cue hit filthy water spewing everywhere. I grabbed my new dressing gown and threw it down and picked up my screaming child acquiring steam burns in the process

• smashed a tv screen with a plastic cup
• threw a toy truck at the porch door snd shattered the glass
• put the wrong key in the lock and turned it. New locks fitted to both that door and lock the broken key belonged to since that was the only remaining key for that lock
• one of them was sick in the car in a paper cup. They decided to pretend they’d pot the cup in the bin when in fact they’d put in in the cup console between the two hbb and then closed it. It was August .The smell the next day was like nothing else
• mixed and entire tub of anchor butter with a bag of sugar and some pickled onion monster munch. They spread this mixture all over the sliding doors into the playroom whilst I was putting washing out
• several sudocrem related incidents the best one involving camouflage hell on white upvc door frames and handles throughout the house so for weeks after several outfits were ruined when windows were opened.

Emptying a whole tub of talcum powder down the sink which blocked. As I found out when water started seeping through the kitchen ceiling and fucked the electrics -turning their youngest sibling into a zombie via liberal application of sharpies

• mid dishwasher cycle one of them squirted about half a bottle of Fairy liquid in. The aid production was like the magic porridge pot
• covered the dog in approximately six tubes of glitter one Christmas craft session. She hurried around the house shaking it everywhere

Turned the oven up to max and half an hour later acrid smoke and ruined dinner later this became apparent.

My favourite one I think though was probably squashing three really expensive lipsticks into sockets all over downstairs. A potentially lethal clearing up job

[quote Pinkyavocado]@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.[/quote]
Thank you. He is high functioning but is prone to huge meltdowns and people think he’s rude as he won’t speak to them he only talks at me and repeats a lot of phrases (hes13) The last one I had was a man telling me he should be put down as I was ushering out of the shops. As you say most people are quite understanding.

The last one I had was a man telling me he should be put down as I was ushering out of the shops.

God, Ducks that's absolutely horrendous.

Sounds like you & your DS are doing a great job 💐

DD is 8 and has started writing the time she goes to sleep on her bookcase. She looks at her clock when she starts feeling a bit sleepy and writes down the time. She doesn't want to understand the problem because she writes in pencil so it can be rubbed out easily

I’m sorry OP and in solidarity for all the other posters on this thread.

God, I’ve got too many to mention and mine are only 6 and 4. I’m quite laid back (my parents were really strict so I’ve really gone the other way, perhaps to my detriment!) but we’ve been renovating a house and they’ve fucked up so much new stuff, it’s soul destroying. They KNOW they can tell me or DH if they accidentally stain something etc but some of the shit has been deliberate which turns me into my mother - “I WORK HARD TO PAY FOR THIS STUFF!” 😩

This thread has made me feel much much better.

Ok, here’s a list, by no means exhaustive.

1. When DS was 2 he threw my brand new mobile phone in the fish tank. I didn’t notice for a couple of hours. Needless to say it never worked again.

1. When he was 6 he scribbled all over the walls in my rented house. I had to get it redecorated when I moved out.

1. He spent about £180 on in app purchases on the ipad. TBH this was my fault as I didn’t have the setting to require password enabled. Little shitbag was old enough to know better though. After a grovelling call to Apple I got my money back, which was a good job as it was next month’s rent.

1. He used my debit card to order some things online. He did cancel the orders but I did nearly have to kill him for that one.

1. A workman left a stanley knife behind after doing some work at my last rented flat. DS found it and proceeded to use it to cut some shapes out of some cardboard on the kitchen worktop. Unfortunately he didn’t use a chopping board. It cost me £150 to get the huge gouges in the worktop mended.

I am currently pregnant with my first... So far I have learnt 1) keep sharpies in a lock box 2) always keep sudocreme out of reach

Moaning about the Christmas calendar that I had spent ages and ££ to fill. Saying they "hate me" and "want me to die" when they were angry.

I was hanging shopping out. Little gits poured 5l bottle of blue comfort over fairly new cream bedroom carpet and all dh shoes including his brand new suede boots.

DD1 - covered her entire bedroom with sudocreme, painted my new fireplace tiles with black poster paint and drew all over a wall with red crayon in a holiday cottage just as we were packing the car to leave - wall was textured plaster so horrible to get off, with the owner arriving to do a change over for the next guests.

DD2 - left her painting for 2 minutes to go to the loo - came down to a dining room wall covered in poster paint.

Recently - DD1 pissed on something very red - puked copiously which stained her own blond hair pink. She had also puked out of her bedroom window, which stained the white render pink

DD2 - has Tourette’s so not entirely her fault, decided to do some baking. Came home from work to a kitchen covered in flour and cocoa powder and a box of smashed eggs. She was in the process of clearing it up, but my god. Cleaning eggs from the ceiling is not fun

When my brothers were little they were absolute nightmares.
Tins of paint were temporarily left in bathroom. Both boys (4 and 6) were left in the bath. They came out covered in gloss paint from head to toe. No idea how they managed to open the closed tins.

They also would swing from the light fittings like tartan.

@Vio112 omg yes, sudocrem should be a controlled substance!
Good luck- just have eyes in the back of your head and know it all turns out ok in the end!

I don’t have any kids yet.

but when me and my sister were little we decided to scrape stones over our uncles car to make it nice and shiny. Kids even the most well behaved kids do stupid things. I remember so many stupid things I’ve done! So go easy on yourself.

I think lockdown is just so difficult with trying to work whilst providing adequate supervision for the children.
The removal of iPad and chocolate probably won’t be effective as it’s not a natural or logical consequence.