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.

Completely discount the possibility of wearing 90% of your (especially new) clothes for various and random reasons such as 'buttons too big' or 'It's got a hood', in favour of wearing the same couple of too small/tattered items that you own.

Randomly pick personas for yourself and your younger sibling aimed at maximum embarrasment.
For example, you (a girl) could be 'Brian' and your younger sister either 'Dog' or 'Boy'
FOr best effect shout these loudly across the park 'Dog! Come here NOW.'

Mentally store inappropriate language that you have picked up from your mother a stranger and bring it out next time you see the GPs, are in church or at your first day at school.

For the older child: the very best way to appreciate your mother's 90-minute trawl around Tesco, carefully weighing up every family member's needs and tastes with a tight budget, is to wait til she's unpacked it all then open the fridge door and say "there's nothing to eat".

After having followed portofinos instructions, and been dragged, protesting, out of bed for school, dawdle at every possible opportunity and then, on arriving late at school, calmly inform your mother that it is her fault because she should have shouted at you more

Demand that your mother spends precious time in the morning doing your hair in a french plait.

Keep nagging until she does, then take it all off once you get to school, making you look like you've been dragged through a hedge backwards all day, including for the class picture.

Patiently wait till your mother has carefully washed, ironed and hung up your clothes in the wardrobe and then invite your two best friends to come and play in your bedroom. The playtime must involve a massive dressing-up session which consists of removing, trying on and discarding all the items of clothing you own in a massive crumpled heap under a pile of toys.
For maximum effect try trampling the clothes with your shoes that you have worn whilst running around a muddy garden.

Wait until you are about to leave the house for school before informing Mum that you need a packed lunch today/£27.50 for a school trip/an answer to a school letter that has been composting at the bottom of your bag so she knows nothing about it.

Wait until the shops are shut to tell Mum that you have outgrown every pair of school trousers that you possess/your only pair of school shoes.

Lose your housekeys, and when Dad has replaced the lockbarrel and had new keys cut for everyone who needs them, lose that key too so he has to repeat the process!

Wait until Mum has cleaned the white tiled kitchen floor (what genius thought that was a good choice?) and then run through it with three of your friends and a dog, all covered in mud.

Ohh I could go on forever.

Of course the worst one has to be:

Interrupt Mum whilst she's on mumsnet!

when you have friends round to play, ensure you show them every single toy and game you have. However, its imperative that you don't let them play with it. Once you can no longer see the living room carpet, its time to repeat the process in the bedroom.
Then you must declare that you wish to play outside. Remove lid from sandpit, make sure your friend gets a good bucket load or 2 in the pond, before you take out all the impossible-to-get-in pop up tents, and goal. Wait for them to blow into the bushes with the wind, then come back into the house and run about in the kitchen for a while

Sounds like a fun afternoon, thrifty!

cover yourself and your bedroom as thoroughly as possible with sudocream, mums wont mind its easy to wash off

Lose the remote control, you know the one that the TV will not actually work without it.

Your parents will love you more if they have to order one from the internet at the bargain price of £17.99.

Moan that you are bored because you can't watch the TV.

then, when mum tells you to go and play in the living room, utilise the only available space left by jumping on each other on th sofas. [hates playdates emoticon]

lol sunnyside. 2 hours of hell!

Save all your embarassing questions for an audience which includes at least one of the following: the local Minister, the GP, the Headteacher or your easily offended Granny. Then ask loudly why your willy gets hard/why do ladies have a hairy hole/if you stick your finger up your bum will it smell forever. Watch your mother disappear into a puddle of shame.

Wake up bright and breezy at 4.30 am, insist it is morning and sob very loudly when mummy tries to get you back to sleep, so that the whole road is also aware that it is now morning. Then fall asleep just before 7am when everyone has to get up for work and nursery. Repeat every morning all summer.

Reply to every request by your parents with a sulky "Urgh. Why do I have to?"

Leave pieces of Lego, Playmobil etc carefully in places where your parents are bound to walk on them bare-footed.

5 mins before you leave for school on Sports Day tell your Mum that you are supposed to wear team colours ( especially if your team happens to be the one colour that you don't own anything in ) and that Mrs Jones said that you're not to wear your plimsolls but you have to have trainers (when you don't own any trainers)

Refuse to eat/sleep/use a potty for months and months on end, driving your parents to distraction.

Then do the required task the first time Grandma asks leading her to tell your mother "I don't know what all the fuss was about"

3 year olds! When singing phonetic approximations of "Row, row, row your boat," ensure that every line ends with the word "poo".

Repeat all day and well into the night.

Become all tired and sleepy round about 6.30pm, get on the sofa with mummy for a cuddle, so she thinks that you are ready for bed. Have your bath, put your PJs on, and then make sure she knows that you are in fact, not tired at all, you were merely recharging your batteries for bedtime fun, which will last approximately 2 hours. On nights when you employ this strategy, ensure your mum has not eaten dinner, and there is something on the TV that she really wants to watch.

This takes two children - wait until Mum absolutely cannot leap up and stop you, then the toddler does a poo in the potty and the crawling baby immediately grabs it and plays with it.

Tidy up your bedroom by putting every item of clothing from the floor into the wash without checking it, so that the clean, ironed, folded clothes Mum gave you last week and that you dumped on the floor instead of putting away, go back into the wash again.

Bring your friends home and have a water fight while you are all still in your school uniforms, so that your mum not only has to get your uniform clean and dry for the next day's school, but also has to apologise to your friends' mums.

This one particularly winds dh up - tell Dad that your phone is out of credit not when he is at the pc and can top it up for you, but when you are in the car on the way to somewhere where you will need to have your phone.

See - I told you I could go on....

Wait til your mummy is deep in exchanging juicygossip important news with a good friend then shout very loudly that you are about to do a poo in your pants and you can't hold it.

ps BTW I've got to the stage of smashing my own crisps before I eat them now to save time.

on a variation of Norbert's - ideally said team colour should be purple , and you should feel free to oscillate between "Mrs Jones says we must wear trainers" and "Mrs Jones says we can't wear trainers" as appopriate depending on your mother's reaction. Also handy if the stress levels appear not to be high enough is "Mrs Jones says that if we do/don't wear white/blue/black socks we won't be allowed to race"

When going in the car either:

a) wait until mummy has you in your straps in your car seat and give her a lovely lovely kiss. Then five minutes into the journey quietly slip your arms out and try to open the door. She will never notice.

b) alternatively if you are a little bigger, simply pull pull pull on your seat belt until it sticks and is utterly tangled and will take mummy five minutes to sort out. Then announce you need to go to the toilet.

Finally take a key, any key it really doesn't matter, hide it in the most obscure and dark and tiny and far away place possible then go to bed.