Children are notorious for their ability to get themselves into troublesome situations. So, it’s no surprise that their actions often result in some quite unfavorable outcomes for those around them as well. And whether they entail minor inconveniences or something way more substantial, the heroes of the story might only come to realize the significance of their actions years later.
Quite a few members of the ‘Ask Reddit’ community took a walk down memory lane after one of them asked about the worst things they unknowingly did as children. Redditors’ answers covered all sorts of situations, from separating one’s parents to pitchforking a neighbor, and beyond. Scroll down to find them and see what other unfortunate situations from their childhood people remember to this day.
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When I was about 8 I asked my dad if we could play "the naked man game." My dad, trying not to panic, asked me what it was. I responded "it's the one we play when [the babysitter] is over." He then asked me to show him where the naked man game was, so I took him to the closet, opened the door, and pointed up to Operation.
He told me years later that he nearly had a heart attack.
Sounds like the dad played a VERY DIFFERENT naked man game when the babysitter was over!
I dry humped the sofa while my parents watched in silent horror.
I thought I was the first person to discover that rubbing my penis on things felt good. Many pieces of furniture fell victim to my testing. I discovered that the sofa was the best and I had to show my parents. I couldn't keep this to myself! I told them to come to the living room. I had something amazing to show them. I didn't just sexual assault their couch. I was teaching a class on it. Offering to let my dad have a go. They just stood there. It haunts me to this day. I have never asked them about it. They must have thought they were raising a sexual predator.
😂 Saw some weird kid sexual behavior when I worked in a kindergarden too, the kids think it's completely normal. Mostly we just initially let the kids in order not to shame them, or create shame around sexuality for them in the future, but taught them that we do these things alone (not in front of others) so to go to the bathroom. AFTER discussing it amongst ourselves and with leadership, looking it up research wise, and talking to the parents, of course. Was a lot of laughter in the lunchroom over these things, it was super awkward. 😂
I almost let my younger stepbrother drown.
I (8 yr old) was supposed to be holding his(2yr old) hand while we were at lake fishing. He yanked out of my grasp and took off full sprint into the water. My stepmom had to go diving in after him. They blamed it on me but as an adult with kids about that same age, I would never trust a 8 year old to watch a toddler around a body of water. So it’s their fault.
100% shifting the blame. My 3yo straight up walked into the pool last month and was shocked she went underwater, even with life vest on. It wasn't the first time she had done that either
I called it "the wolf game." I'd stand halfway between my house and the woods and howl, and see how many wolves I could get to show up.
My record was three before common sense kicked in... I should not have survived to adulthood lol.
I broke my parents up.
I asked my Mum if I could have dinner at my "Aunt Christie"'s house again because she cooked my favourite pasta. Turns out Mum didn't know who "Aunt Christie" was - which is because she wasn't really my aunt, she was the co-worker my Dad was sleeping with.
I used to spend several weeks out of every summer staying with my aunt and uncle. I got to play with my cousin, and presumably my single father got to take a break. One year, on the day I was due to come home, I called and asked permission to stay another week, and he agreed. After I went home, a family friend told me they had been at my house the week before...for my surprise welcome home party. Dad bought a cake, decorated, and bbq'd. This was a man who did not entertain or demonstrate affection. True to character, he never told me about the party he attempted.
Edit: Thanks for the heart to heart, reddit. To clarify, this was the 80's, before cell phones, so rescheduling the day of would have been difficult, plus just inconvenient to everyone who had agreed to attend. He could've made me come home, but the point is that he didn't, because he didn't want to disappoint me. I was still in HS when he died, so not mature enough to recognize how hard he tried sometimes. Glad to hear so many of you will be calling your dads.
This gave me the feels. It reminded me of a time when my stepfather (my dad passed when I was 6) came to my school at lunch to take me flying with him. He got his pilot license about 6 months earlier and flying was the one thing that we bonded over. That day I was on a school field trip. He never let me skip school. It still makes me sad that I wasn't there. I have great memories going fun places on a Saturday with him, but he never tried to surprise me and let me skip school again. :(
The worst one was taking my mothers "personal massager" to school for show and tell as i was a fairly literal child and thats what it said on the packaging, it wasn't obviously a marital aide as it was one of the more "bullet" options. However my at the time **FEMALE** teacher knew exactly what that was and took it away from me and called my mother to let her know as delicately as possible what i had taken to school.
It wasn't until i was much older that I realized what i had done! my mother gets a good laugh out of that one though for sure!
**EDIT** and now my most rated comment is about my mothers dildo, im sure she would be so proud!
Cudos to the teacher for how she handled this....aaaand now I realise that sounds dirty. I mean for how she dealt with the situation.
I don't know if it's the worst but I ruined my parents romantic anniversary.
I was around 7 and I woke up in the middle of the night because my stomach didn't feel well. So I went upstairs to tell my parents.
When I opened their door I remember there were candles, music playing and when my mom saw me she immediately pulled a blanket around herself.
She asked my what I was doing up and before I could even finish my sentence I projectile vomited all over everything.
I got pissed off at my parents and yelled "FUCK YOU!" at them. The next day I told a friend of mine "I fucked my dad last night," because that's what I thought fucking someone was to tell them "fuck you."
My uncle and his new wife came over to visit late one night when I was about 6. I was supposed to be in bed so the adults could enjoy visiting but I was determined to stay up and see what was going on, so I asked my mom in front of everybody if I could have a snack before bed, even though I’d never had bedtime snacks. My mom was strict about eating right, so of course she said no and told me to go back to bed. I decided to make a scene and lay in the floor begging for food, saying I hadn’t eaten in ages, that I was starving and ask for just one raisin. My new aunt watched, horrified, as my mom stayed firm and dragged me back to bed as I fake cried and begged her not to beat me. I was a very skinny child due to illness, so my aunt probably thought I really was being abused, but the truth is that I had good parents, I was just a little s**t sometimes.
I was about 7 when I made an enemy of my next door neighbour. I still dont see it as my fault that he had side chicks and side children and I didn't understand s**t about that. When one of his assorted children came to play I was like 'I was playing with your brother the other week'.
'What brother?'
'Oh you know, the one your dad has with that other lady'
Book smart street dumb, was me.
As a young little [airhead] my favorite prank was to lock bathroom stall doors and then crawl underneath them and exit the scene. One time, my parents dragged me to Costco with them. I went to the biggest stall in the back of the bathroom, locked that s**t and scampered away with a grin. I ended up going back to the same Costco the next day because my parents had to return something. I went to the same stall and it was still locked, this time I actually had to take a s**t. I crawled under the door only come face to face with an old guy looking at me like I was from another planet. I recoiled away so hard that I smacked my head on the bottom of the door and ran from that bathroom like I'd never run in my life. I crack myself up whenever I try to imagine what that guy was thinking when a 9 year old tried to hijack his toilet.
I was using the bathroom in my dorm and a little kid did the same thing. I was very amused and she didn't seem old enough to be embarrassed
One time I put a penny in my parent’s car’s cigarette lighter socket. It was the 80’s so lighter sockets were all over the car, including the doors in the backseat. It completely drained the battery within a few hours, and it took the guy at the garage a few days to figure out what was wrong with the electrical system.
The family of a classmate took me with them to camp in croatia. the toilet building had a huge room with like 2 dozen sinks or something, and for some reason two sinks in single, lockable stalls. I took one of these stalls to brush my teeth, and for some reason I thought it was a good idea to spit some water into an outlet. The whole building lost power and I never fessed up.
When I was a kid, I used to hit rocks from my backyard with my wooden bat out of the yard. For some reason, I never thought of what consequences could from it because to me I was just practicing my swing. One day, my neighbourhood got together to figure out why someone was smashing their cars with rocks. I never got in trouble for it and to this day it's still a mystery to them and I'm in my 20's now.
My baby sister once said to one of the nursery staff that her favourite thing to do was "crack with mummy".
After some concerned phone calls and some explanation. Mum explained to them that "crack" was when they hit the top of a boiled egg with a spoon.
I decided I wanted to burn trash in the middle of the Texas summer so my dumb little a*s did just that. I just threw some cardboard boxes and s**t into this barrel on my property we always had, figuring it would be contained you know? I poured some lighter fluid in there from my dad’s grill, lit a match and boom!
Up it went and my weird child obsession with Fire was quenched until the damn fire jumped out of the barrel and started racing towards the pine woods.(It was around Huffman tx, lots of pine trees) . There was apparently a raccoon in there I doused with lighter fluid and set on fire under the trash I was trying to burn.
Well I ended up burning up a good portion of trees behind my house before the fire fighters came. Thankfully it wasn’t that bad and our house didn’t burn down but it was the scariest moment of my life. I don’t think I ever burned anything again, my heart was broken. I cried for days I felt so damn bad for that raccoon.
I told my mom I betrayed Steve Irwin because I hurt an animal really bad. I’m pretty sure I started writing a letter to apologize but I was afraid he wouldn’t forgive me so pussed out.
Not me, but my sister. She used the garden hose to "put gas in Mommy's car."
My mom has/had severe depression, and I wrote her a poem for mother's day when I was 8 that had lines like "I love you even though you cry all the time." I was really proud because I thought it really showed how much I care and I read it aloud to her. I didn't get the reaction I was expecting.
I put nails under my parents car tires because I didn't want to go to church...
--Edit-- This blew up overnight! Thank you kind stranger for taking my reddit gold virginity!
When we were both 8, I gave my cousin a corn cob pipe I found in a drawer in the garage, and he put lawn clippings in it and smoked it, and had to be rushed to the hospital. Apparently my aunt and uncle had just chemically treated the lawn and he smoked a whole bunch of nasty pesticides and herbicides.
I chopped my sisters finger off in the bedroom door. My mum told me you always shut it so my sister couldn't get in the room, so I did. Unfortunately her finger was in the way and it chopped the top of her pinky finger off all the way to the first knuckle bit. It was pretty gory.
Edit- no they didn't reattach it. It got mangled pretty bad. I just texted my sister and told her about her pinky finger's reddit fame. She was mildly impressed.
When I was about 6 or 7, we went to Palm Springs on some vacation. This was '98/99, when Pokemon was HUGE. Mom wanted to do some ~American Shopping~ and took me to a mall. One of the stores we went to was a book store. Well I was in luck: in this store they were selling The Pokemon Handbook that /included/ Mew and Togepi, which the original handbook didn't have. I showed it to my mom and begged her to buy it. However, considering I already had the original book she said no. I was sad, but continued to look through it.
Then we left the store and began doing window shopping on our way back to the rental car. The parking lot was all the way on the other side of the mall. When we finally got there I tried to open the car door but noticed I couldn't: there was a book in my hand. I turned to my mom and showed her my accidental thievery. She looked at the book, then looked across the parking lot at the mall.
Mom decided it was too far to walk. I got my stupid Pokemon book, and became the first successful theif in my family.
-My mom was ironing clothes. She left the iron unattended for like 2 seconds. Then 3 year old me thought "hey, this should fix the wrinkly skin on my fingers" and ironed my own hand. 3rd degree burns. Still have the scars.
-When i was 6, I was super excited about my new scissors. Went around the house cutting s**t. Then I started cutting electric cables, until one was from a lamp that was on.... Not fun. And melted my new scissors.
-I was 5. My older cousin had a very chunky, full bodied friend, not fat, she looked big and muscular. And had short hair. So when they introduced me to her I asked, why is this man wearing a dress and has a girl's name? It was HER birthday and all of her family and friends heard. 🙁
Edit: no guys, my name is NOT Kevin. And I did go to University. Now I am a very successful engineer. I was just an extremely hiperactive kid with a very curious mind and high sense of experimentation.
This question comes at just the right time of year...
In kindergarten, **I was the a*****e kid who blew the whistle on Santa Claus.** I thought I was doing everyone a service, but several children cried and my mom had to talk to my teacher at pick-up time bc I basically talked back when asked to apologize.
My mom was so embarrassed. The icing on the cake was when my mom told me in front of my teacher that I would in fact apologize to the class, I said "dad says I shouldn't say sorry unless I really mean it and I don't think I should say sorry for telling the truth."
I don't even remember this but my mom tells this story all the time bc I never apologized. Same teacher put me in timeout bc I said The Pledge in a funny voice. I don't think we were on good terms...
It never did make sense to me. I was told from before school that Santa, the Easter Bunny, and the tooth fairy were all pretend for fun. Why do people plant such firm belief in their kids that they’re crying to find out the truth? Sounds like a way to create trust issues ngl
The first day I moved into my new house at 6 years old I was meeting the new neighbor boy who was a couple years older than me. We were out in his driveway talking about some stuff when his Mom walked out and, for whatever reason, I instinctively smacked her a*s as she walked by. My parents still bring up how embarrassing that was for her to come over and tell them what happened.
Accidentally pitchforked my neighbour in the head when I was about 7.
I was helping her (in her 70's) do some gardening - planting flower beds etc. and we were just finishing up. I, in all my 7-year-old bravado, heft the pitchfork over my back to go and put it away, and accidentally catch her in the back of the head with it. She ended up going to the hospital needing stitches, but she forgave me.
Edit: Insert obligatory edit about my best comment being about almost killing my neighbour.
To clarify, Yes, obviously I was sorry for doing it. When my mum came over wondering what had happened, she freaked out, but the neighbour said that it was an accident, so no big punishment or anything. Neighbour's all fine now, and doesn't hold a grudge.
I put a canned Miller Lite in my Pikachu lunch box in the 2nd grade because I wanted to be the cool kid at the lunch table and impress my friends.
Unfortunately, my mom saw how shady I was acting protecting my lunchbox and ended up opening it.
She was livid.
Til this day, she still brings it up. It’s basically the go-to story when I bring someone new to the house.
It could have been worse, you could have put a can of beer in there. [\sarcasm]
I called out my two cousins (who were brother and sister) for "being girlfriend and boyfriend" because I saw them kissing and touching each other.
Caused us to miss a few family holidays as things blew over.
Edit: yes I saw them kissing. Also the male cousin admitted they had touched each other. We were in the 10-12 year range at that point. No we're not from Alabama (roll tide). Yes now they're in their 30s and married and normal (not married to each other).
When I was around 3 or 4 years old my family lived in a rented townhouse. We had a small dog that was not very well house-trained and would frequently poop and pee in the carpeted house.
Supposedly my parents were planning to move and painstakingly cleaned the carpets to remove any evidence of the dog going to the bathroom in the house in order to get their security deposit back. Obviously being so young, no one clued me in on the situation.
On the day the landlord came to inspect the house I was playing outside in the yard. He stopped to say hello to me before knocking on the door and I allegedly said something to the effect of, “Hi! My dog Frankie goes potty in the living room!” The landlord immediately went inside and began ripping up the carpeting and saw all the stains underneath.
My parents did not get their security deposit back.
I unknowingly broke my arm when I was four. My parents had no idea. I didn't complain much even though it hurt like hell. I wound up carrying my arm around with the other arm. Parents noticed me doing this but didn't know what to think. The break eventually healed this way and when I went for a check up the doctor informed my parents that I had broken my arm.
Note: this post originally had 76 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
When my younger sister was 4 and I was 5 I talked her into jumping down an entire flight of stairs in our house. She almost made it! She landed 3 steps from the bottom and crashed the rest of the way down. She then just curled into a ball, not making a sound or moving. I remember being terrified that I'd killed her. Not because she would be dead but because I'd be in soooooo much trouble. She wasn't seriously injured in the end. She just had the breath knocked out of her. I then somehow convinced her not to tell our parents.
...in keeping with the highest traditions of older siblings everywhere.
Load More Replies...
I've done two crappy kids as a kid, both of which involving my grandma. Once I told her over the phone that we were "starving." Cue my grandma arriving with two huge bags of various food products (and my mom being very puzzled about this delivery). One other time I told her (again over the phone) that my parents were physically fighting each other, prompting her to come visit us in a panic. I have no idea why I told her such things, and I must have been about 3 or 4 y.o. when it happened. None of it was true, of course - we weren't starving or fighting one another.
Kids being kids... With that I mean: - applying kids logic to things we take for granted, but coming to a very different conclusion - kids being curious - kids being brutally honest at times (combined with weird memory to remember "bad" things that have been said around them) - kids having a vivid imagination at other times. Most posts were a learning moment. Often a painful one unfortunately.
Honestly I don't know exactly who the guilty was. My sister (5 or 6) and me(4 or 5) were playing with matches. One of us decided to try and strike one. The spark and flame startled us and instinctively jumped tossing the match in the air. Unfortunately, we were standing next to a newspaper recycle bin...you know where this is going. The match went into the open bin and started to burn. We got our mom who quickly put out the fire. When she asked who started the fire, we blamed the neighbors boy, Danny. Yes, actual name from the 1960's. My mom went to tell Danny's mom what he did. Sigh, he had an alibi. He was taking a nap. We really should have gotten in more trouble than we did
We had to sit through a 2 hour long timeshare presentation for $200 on vacation a few weeks ago. We told our kid in the car on the way there we were going to play pretend and tell the lady we were moving out of the country. So as I’m telling the lady my kid comes up and whispers in my ear “she doesn’t know we’re lying to her.” Lol I just spoke louder hoping she didn’t hear my kid. Anyways it worked out pretty well and she didn’t really bug us about buying one after that.
not crappy, but .... my little 3 or 4 yr old self went charging out across the street, without looking. because my Grandfather happened to be walking down the sidewalk on the other side. Almost killed 3 generations of my family, me by being hit by a car and mam and grandpa from heart attacks.
My kid brother made my friend shriek with horror when she found him cleaning his French horn with my Tampax. "These are great! They get up into all the tight spots!" We still laugh at his innocence and my friend's hysteria.
Bring back the post about people who choose not to have children... then attach this one.
When my younger sister was 4 and I was 5 I talked her into jumping down an entire flight of stairs in our house. She almost made it! She landed 3 steps from the bottom and crashed the rest of the way down. She then just curled into a ball, not making a sound or moving. I remember being terrified that I'd killed her. Not because she would be dead but because I'd be in soooooo much trouble. She wasn't seriously injured in the end. She just had the breath knocked out of her. I then somehow convinced her not to tell our parents.
...in keeping with the highest traditions of older siblings everywhere.
Load More Replies... I've done two crappy kids as a kid, both of which involving my grandma. Once I told her over the phone that we were "starving." Cue my grandma arriving with two huge bags of various food products (and my mom being very puzzled about this delivery). One other time I told her (again over the phone) that my parents were physically fighting each other, prompting her to come visit us in a panic. I have no idea why I told her such things, and I must have been about 3 or 4 y.o. when it happened. None of it was true, of course - we weren't starving or fighting one another.
Kids being kids... With that I mean: - applying kids logic to things we take for granted, but coming to a very different conclusion - kids being curious - kids being brutally honest at times (combined with weird memory to remember "bad" things that have been said around them) - kids having a vivid imagination at other times. Most posts were a learning moment. Often a painful one unfortunately.
Honestly I don't know exactly who the guilty was. My sister (5 or 6) and me(4 or 5) were playing with matches. One of us decided to try and strike one. The spark and flame startled us and instinctively jumped tossing the match in the air. Unfortunately, we were standing next to a newspaper recycle bin...you know where this is going. The match went into the open bin and started to burn. We got our mom who quickly put out the fire. When she asked who started the fire, we blamed the neighbors boy, Danny. Yes, actual name from the 1960's. My mom went to tell Danny's mom what he did. Sigh, he had an alibi. He was taking a nap. We really should have gotten in more trouble than we did
We had to sit through a 2 hour long timeshare presentation for $200 on vacation a few weeks ago. We told our kid in the car on the way there we were going to play pretend and tell the lady we were moving out of the country. So as I’m telling the lady my kid comes up and whispers in my ear “she doesn’t know we’re lying to her.” Lol I just spoke louder hoping she didn’t hear my kid. Anyways it worked out pretty well and she didn’t really bug us about buying one after that.
not crappy, but .... my little 3 or 4 yr old self went charging out across the street, without looking. because my Grandfather happened to be walking down the sidewalk on the other side. Almost killed 3 generations of my family, me by being hit by a car and mam and grandpa from heart attacks.
My kid brother made my friend shriek with horror when she found him cleaning his French horn with my Tampax. "These are great! They get up into all the tight spots!" We still laugh at his innocence and my friend's hysteria.
Bring back the post about people who choose not to have children... then attach this one.
