Why do children do so many self defeating or ill advised things.

[Commonsensitivity]

My children's teachers are on strike today, so I forced (sic) the children on a dog walk to the beach before doing a fun trip this afternoon to a trampoline Park.

Jesus. My 7 year old did so many silly things during the beach trip. Plonked himself in the woods and said he wasn't coming (how would he find his way home)? On the beach, unlaced all his shoes in a strop (I had to replace them so he could actually walk home in them). Pulled the bobble off his hat when he didn't win a game of rounders..... Walked around without shoes for half the walk home. I'm knackered.

I have noticed that (my) children are really hard to govern in the outside world without them doing silly or dangerous things.

Is it just me or do I need to just accept they are kids...

Why do GROWN UPS do so many self defeating or ill advised things…

Drinking alcohol, eating junk, staying up late, endless social media…

There never allowed the freedom to make mistakes and feel the consequences.....why lace his shoes walk away leave him to his strop ignore his paddy and sit him out at the trampoline park.

Well I'm a gran and it's a different world where mothers let the kids decide. So you put the kids outside their tiny little safe (because they tell mum what they want) world, and they do not always like it and they have permission to fully express what they feel. They haven't learnt to heed their parent and change their perception of what they are experiencing.

@GinClassHeroes - am smiling at this:

But oh my god the attitude is ridiculous and it started from as soon as she could talk - tbh, before then even.

This is my youngest in a nutshell. She’s very sensible but if she doesn’t fancy doing what she’s told is as stubborn as a mule and ludicrously inventive in her strategies to not do it. My husband just looks at me & says it’s all my fault as she is essentially a tiny clone of me 🤷🏼‍♀️

Did you not say to him that being a bad loser and then destroying his bobble hat was unacceptable?

I look at other mammals like kittens and they are born relatively sensible with some street smarts built in. Humans are funny old creatures!

That’s what my partner says too! And he’s right.

This morning we banned electronics at breakfast because they were becoming too distracting. She could get the TV/her tablet once she ate her breakfast, brushed her teeth and put on her uniform. Would have taken her 10 minutes. Instead, she refused to eat for 20 minutes, so her breakfast went in the bin and she got an apple and a banana to eat en route to school. Also didn’t get any electronics. Whhhhhyyyyy?

2 parenting strategies: A) Call the kid to come when he's having fun in the playpark and give him a sweetie and let him go back. He will over time always come when called. A godsend when he's having fun climbing too high. B) Try to limit the admonishment. When you can't hear them fighting or arguing get in there and praise them for playing nicely. It really does work. There is a thing called parenting which is a big deal

Exactly this. To be honest I'm often impressed by how well kids do behave and self regulate compared to adults when considering the differences in neural development.

To be fair human children are born totally incapable where kittens are not so you’d expect them to take a while to get up to speed.
Some of what you’ve described is just being naughty really. My kids can be like that too. It’s frustrating when they are generally good or used to be generally good when small then all of a sudden are not when bigger. Mine have phases they go through where for whatever reason they are just pushing all the boundaries. In general being firm while not getting cross works best to resolve it but it’s bloody exhausting dealing with it and sometimes you do end up just losing your temper and then the phase seems to last longer. You have to pick your battles to some extent but once you have it’s ok to be unwilling to negotiate on some points.

Who knows but my small would in that circumstance start negotiating with hundreds of but what if I have to wait for the bathroom so I can’t brush my teeth anyway or what if that means I spill from eating too fast because you say I should take my time and use a knife and fork and if I bring my clothes down and then I can get dressed and watch tv at the same time and be more efficient & anyway my friend x can do it or daddy said it was ok yesterday etc etc, etc. She will keep this up forever basically and also point out any and every inconsistency in the rules. If on any given day there was no TV a he’d then sulk so she would slump along to school at a snails pace while bemoaning the fact she had no energy without watching whatever it was this morning. In a way it’s a bit impressive to see but it’s also infuriating

Kittens are born blind!

@Cometcamellia gives wise advice. It does help to reinforce the good even if it is 'well done for eating your breakfast without screaming the house down'.

But yeah kids are small and stupid. Sometimes they feel stressed and don't have the emotional skills or the language to tell us they feel stressed so they pull bobbles off hats instead. It helps if you can model putting your own feelings into words (ideally without swearing, though my kids all know about silent swearing and enjoyed working out which silent swears I was doing). Their impulse control isn't great. You can help shape impulse control by reinforcing when they demonstrate good impulse control. Consequences aren't going to work brilliantly if they simply don't know how not to be dicks in the first place.

That said sometimes natural consequences are inevitable and necessary just to keep yourself sane and everyone safe - if he's too worked up and you are too over it all for trampolining to be fun don't go. Not as a punishment, just because it is best saved for another day when it will be fun. Have a quiet afternoon and decompress instead. It was onlt when my eldest was 9-10 or so I discovered she really enjoyed having long days with nothing to do in the holidays - I'd been overscheduling her for years, but now know they all need loads more chill time than I realised.

Three kids and 17 years in my main regrets are all the times I could have been a bit kinder and more patient and wasn't. They are small and stupid for a surprisingly long time but with patience they mostly come good even as hormonal teenagers.

Do we have the same child?

Does yours then cry because YOU made them late?

I thought that the whole way through The Pianist is it? The film set in a concentration camp. There's NO WAY a child would ever be quiet or listen to an adult and evade capture.

I think he might have been aiming for that.

In my family it's the boys who are (self) destructive and the girls aren't but they talk back a lot. I often wonder if it's just us or boys/girls in general. The boys do stupid stuff and then think that they should rule the world, ignoring the fact that if there is a big red button with a sign saying: "don't touch, will start total world wide nuclear war" the boys would press it immediately to see what would happen. The girls wouldn't but would have called Putin and ripped him a new one, so not sure if they're safer to be left in charge...

They’re annoying. They have such an easy life and they spend the whole time crying and whinging. I’m not sure if kids used to be like that though because as a little girl I’d have loved a trip to the beach and then a trampoline park.

They’re annoying. They have such an easy life and they spend the whole time crying and whinging. I’m not sure if kids used to be like that though because as a little girl I’d have loved a trip to the beach and then a trampoline park

I know right? I even brought a flask of hot chocolate!

You need to accept , and then listen to, the emotional signals they’re sending you
😂
To be fair @SavoirFlair is right. It may be worded in a professional way but all that is being said it that children havent always got the emotional intelligence or vocabulary to express themselves fully. Until they can do that their behaviour can come across as ridiculous at times and it is exhausting. Sometimes you do have to step back from the behaviour and unpick what is going on with them. ( are they scared, tired, over stimulated,curious etc)

I can't remember how many times my kids did dickish things when they were small, there's too many! However I eventually learned to pick my battles. That being said, it took me long enough to learn!
They will grow out of it eventually. One thing I did teach them was to 'think what might happen next' In your case Op, if mine was having a strop and was walking home with no shoes I would point out gently that his feet will be very sore, what would happen if he stood in some dog poo, what about broken glass.

By the way I didn't always do gentle parenting. I lost it with them at plenty of times but tried to think what it would be like to be little!
My pair of idiots got up to allsorts but the younger one was the more sensible one and on more than one occasion I heard him, as a teenager, say to his friends 'you really didn't think that through did you' when one of them had done something mad. (That son wasn't perfect either, I have found out stories involving the brook at the back of my house and things that could have gone wrong!)

One of mine used to splash in puddles til he was soaked, so I put him in a waterproof all in one and wellies in rainy times. His response? Lie down in a deep puddle and pretend to swim That is so funny!!

He was probably just tired/discombobulated/anxious about the change of routine.

Hmmm I think you are thinking of Life is Beautiful (the Pianist is mainly set in a ghetto - Life is Beautiful has a father trying to keep his child hidden in a concentration camp by pretending they are there for a holiday to win a tank) which is not a documentary about child behaviour. But yeah agree when facing conditions of near certain death in films children rarely behave realistically - except Marta in Sound of Music who gives the family away to the Nazis by chattering.

Because she's a mini super villan testing you 😄

Hahahaha I "tested" a baking tray to see "if it was hot" when I was younger. With my face. Before my parents could stop me. The burn on my lip was very impressive!! Still remember wailing, "but I was checking to see if it was still hot!!"

Not a boy girl thing I don't think as my girl would press the button and call Putin!! Ds would worry about it but not do anything.

Fwiw I'm a 41 year old woman and I'd press the button see also wet paint signs, anything which indicates it is hot etc.