How To Wind Up Your Parents - A Manual for Children

[BellaBear]

1. When rummaging about the washing pile, make sure you find the oldest, most embarrassing pair of pants and put them on your head. When there are people round.

Three-year-olds: listen carefully to your big brother screaming very rude words in a huge temper. Then you can reproduce them with perfect diction when a shopkeeper chats to you. Mummy will be delighted that your vocabulary now includes the word 'fucker'.

The telephone:

When your parents are on the phone, do whatever you can to distract them...parents must not be allowed to talk on this device.

When you are very small, answer the phone yourself whenever it rings and breathe noisily. Hang up before a parent can reach it.

Once you are a teen, do not ever answer the phone, especially if you know a parent would like you to because they are calling you.

"Mummy is saying she is out!" is always a good line.

Instead of 'Mummy is saying she is out' it's imperative that you tell Daddy when he phones 'mummy is upstairs with a strange man'.

When out shopping toddlers, be sure to point to every wheelchair user and state loudly: 'look mummy, that lady is in a pushchair, they must be very lazy.'

And when you see an amputee of any kind, it's de rigeur to ask them if the Gruffalo got them

When in Tesco, after hearing the automated announcement that says "Attention, there is a caller at the back gate", repeatedly shout, "Mummy, there is a caller at your back gate" whilst running up and down the aisle!!!!

(This hapened to me today - I wonder if the person who programmed the automated message is a MNer?!)

toddlers - when there is a knock at the door ,scream like your being murdered if someone other than you opens the door,if someone other than you does open the door close it in the callers face and do it your self.

Toddlers/pre-schoolers. When you want to help, or do something in particular 'all by yourself', wait until about 10 seconds after an adult has started to perform completely irreversible task (like buttering toast/painting something etc) before throwing the biggest wobbly you can muster, leaving adult who would have been perfectly happy to allow you to perform said task had you asked 5 seconds before they'd started it, with pretty much no way to rectify the situation. And had in fact asked you if you wanted to do it. At least 3 times.

Toddlers - the first task to independance is to learn to open the fromt door. Do this very suddenly, when no one is expecting it. They will laugh so hard.

Babies - remember to begin teething on your mother's nipples, the tears are tears of joy that her baby is growing up.

Twins - remember that you should NEVER go to sleep at the same time. This would allow your mother to actually get on with something, like cooking, cleaning, washing etc.

Remember, once you have worn clothes for a couple of hours they must be dirty. Go upstairs and get changed at least twice a day. Just to alternate, refuse to take off an item of clothing for weeks on end, all the stains and marks are like a diary of your life.

Remember to have lots of children yourself, so your parents can appreciate all these things later in life, as grandparents, when their patience is almost none existent anyway.

Go to sleep for your afternoon nap like a little angel.. and then wake up.. very quietly.. so not to disturb mummy.. and carefully pull your nappy down and spread the brown contents over everything within reach.. specially anything not washable.. with little crevices in it so mummy can have hours of fun with a pair of pointy nail scissors and a cloth damped in antibac cleaner trying to remove the "art work" without wrecking anything!

When you are three, the phrase, "but, why?" is especially effective with parents. Even more so if you utilise that particular high pitched tone that pre-schoolers master so well.

If maman says: please don't draw all over the walls with that marker pen (and btw where the hell did you find it, I thought it was hidden), then a well timed, "but, why?" will go down beautifully.

Similarly, always answer a mild reproof along the lines of, "will you please leave the bloody cat ALONE", with, "but, why?"

"Please put your shoes on".
"But, why?"

"Do not put the toilet roll in the toilet"
"But, why?"

"Stop trying to pull my eyelashes off!"
"But, why?"

You will know you have won, when your mother utters the immortal (pre-motherhood boasts of 'I'll never say that', ringing in her ears) words; "because I said so."

Toddlers: find something useful to occupy yourself in the mornings. Coating the cat in factor 50 sun cream will work. Make sure you do this so quietly that when your parents get up from their unexpected weekend lie-in they are greeted by the sight of white patches of sun cream on every surface and equally white patches of cat sick where the poor traumatised animal has tried to lick himself clean.

This is even more effective if you can persuade the cat to run and hide under mummy and daddy's bed to be sick as soon as they open the door.

Similar to "But why?" and just as effective is to ask, "How do you know?" after receiving an answer to one of your many questions.

Mummy may attempt to walk away, but this is only because she wants you to follow her so you can continue the conversation elsewhere. In fact, if Mummy ever walks away in the house, She Wants You To Follow Her.

Find a really good place to hide and lie there as still and quiet as you can, for as long as you can.

Its guaranteed to have your parents running round the house and garden searching madly for you. If you're lucky they'll even be running up and down the street in a panic.

Make sure you come out of hiding with a loud "Ta Da" just before they call the police.

When you are finally put into a big boy/girl bed, make sure you wake mummy and/or daddy up by climbing onto their bed and jumping up and down repeatedly on their head when your nappy is fit to burst. Works wonders!

When on public transport make sure you comment on the weirdest looking person that gets on. Gothic people are great as you can usually shout "Look a vampire!"

If you are waiting for a bus and the queue is very long and you are bored, amke sure you have a pooh. Make the most noise ever and cling onto something for added effect. If you are not in a pram, a fence or the bus stop itself are great to grip onto.

essential teenage phrases

'I forgot' covers everything, means you couldn't be bothered

'I'll do it in a minute' means you'll 'forget' and you can't be bothered

'Why do I have to do everything?' means you'll do it 'in a minute' i.e. you'll 'forget' and can't be bothered

Grow your hair for months in preparation for the Ballet Show, then the day before the Show, cut a big chunk off at the front. Make sure it is really short so no amount of hair wax will flatten it.

Well, it was tickling your face after all.

Remember parents don't like peace and quiet - whenever you have run out of conversation make noises.

Exploding noises (complete with spittle) are really impressive especially if you do them constantly.

After about 6 months or so when you suspect they are beginning to block them out. Try yelling BEEP repeatedly. Especially when mummy has a headache. When they threaten to remove your vocal cords, try changing the word slightly to something like FEEP.

They didn't tell you not to yell that.

When using public transport and a lady(who probably spends most of her time living under the stars) walks on, do shout at the top of your voice for all to hear (incl said lady) "OMG a stink has just walked on this bus"

By TheArmadillo on Sun 21-Jun-09 10:41:52
"Remember parents don't like peace and quiet - whenever you have run out of conversation make noises".

Alternatively, just vocalise every thought thats going through your head. It doesn't matter that it doesn't make sense or isn't of interest to anyone, just do it anyway as it avoids any periods of peace and quiet.

An addendum to "but why" Toddlers:Ask a question without an obvious answer, when your mother says she doesn't know "well give me a clue" or if an answer is offered that doesn't satisfy your thirst for knowledge "give me another/better clue" Your parents will happily provide you endless random clues to your question until they end up asking YOU for clues in exasperation.

A special one for children who have been placed for adoption but the adoption hasn't been finalised, always make sure that you fall and hit your face in the couple of days before a social worker visit so you have a lovely big bruise when she sees you. It's even better if you can manage to always have the bruise in the same place.

If your sister's social worker is visiting wait until Mummy has just finished telling her how the sibling rivalry problem is easing up, then hit your sister in the face with a resounding slap.

Primary school aged children, when your teachers are talking about undesirable behaviour in morning assembly listen carefully. For that whole day everytime you are even the tiniest bit bored do one of the undesirable behaviours. Your teacher will be overjoyed that you listened so well, and she will be eager to tell Mummy about it too.

Tell your bestest blonde friend to get right into the large vat of brewing homemade red wine and dunk her head under.

Wait until your mother has dressed her in your clean clothes, then tell her to do it again.

Marvel at her lovely pink hair.

When your headteacher asks in monday assembly what everyone did at the weekend, put up your hand and tell the whole school that mummy and daddy had a fight and daddy threw a glass at mummy and mummy cried. This works especially well if your parents are both teachers themselves and are friends with the staff at your school.

Babies you know that dealing with explosive poo incidents is the best fun mummy can have. For maximum effect ensure you time one for a special occasion (say a wedding) when everyone is dressed in their finest and make sure that not only you but your mummy gets covered. It will look good with that lovely silk outfit shes so pleased about and you can just bet that whilst she might have spare clothes for you she won't have any for herself...

encourage your mum to run around like a bulging eyed loon in public places by running off at every opportunity. then when "found" by sales assistant who asks "where is mummy" say "over there" pointing to wine display