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40 Times Parents Taught Their Kids Lessons But It Got Them Unexpected Results
Even with the best intentions and brilliant 200-IQ strategies, some children won’t want to be taught important life lessons by their parents. They. Just. Won’t. Listen. And sometimes, these lessons can backfire so spectacularly, they end up making thousands of people laugh.
When Reddit user -Don-Draper- asked parents to share the times their lessons completely backfired, they sparked a whirlwind of a discussion that had us giggling at the fantastic sense of humor The Universe flexes whenever we desperately want something to work. Upvote your fave parenting stories as you scroll down, dear Pandas. And we can’t wait to read your own lesson disasters in the comment section!
What this shows is just how important communication between parents and their children really is. Bored Panda spoke about how to best communicate with kids with Samantha Scroggin, who works in government communications and is the founder of the ‘Walking Outside in Slippers’ blog for parents. Read on for her insights.
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I taught my 4-year-old to always compliment people who insult you. Later, we were helping my mother shop for a bathing suit when a woman said something rude to her. My kid squeezed out from behind me and told the woman, 'Your teeth are such a pretty yellow!'
As good people, we taught our kids that littering isn't nice. As humans, we also let some curse words fly in front of them.
We were at our city's 4th of July celebration when the oldest was 4. We were walking around and someone tossed their trash on the ground. Captain Litterbug flew into action, picked up the trash and yelled, "Hey a**hole, you dropped this," while tapping them on the butt.
When my daughter was young I was trying to teach her the value of money and decided to start giving her an allowance. I explained that because she helped out and did her chores, she had earned money to spend on whatever she wanted. She happily accepted and stashed her money in her room, Later that evening before I tucked her in to bed, she goes to her money jar, pulls out 2$ and hands it to me, and explains that it's for being a good daddy.
“Communication is an area I have a lot of experience in, working in government communications for a living. Even with that experience, communicating with my kids is a challenge!” Samantha from ‘Walking Outside in Slippers’ told us that even being a professional such as herself doesn’t automatically make things easy.
According to Samantha, her kids are very intense and high energy, so they need lots of validation. Now that’s something that quite a few parents can relate to! This means that some kids might need feedback from their parents all the time (which can be exhausting during lockdown) while other children might be more likely to ignore any life lessons being taught to them because they’re constantly on the move.
At dinner with fam. Starting a swear jar that we all agree the money will go to help animals at the local shelter. Got all the rules down with the kids and they are excited to start. Daughter (8) says "Well s**t im gona help the animals i'll be right back!" before wife and i can even process what she got away with our son (6) blurts out "F**k yeah me too!" both running to get money from their rooms...
My parents told my sister if she found a horse for free, she could have it. She was an industrious 8 yr old and found a free lease in the paper. She managed to call and sound adult enough to truck the barn into thinking this was a great idea. A trailer pulled up a few days later and unloaded a horse in the yard. Shocked the hell out of mom. And that started 20 years of horse ownership.
My friend’s 10 year-old daughter was going over to a friend’s house in the same apartment complex, but a few buildings away.
Mom: “Ok, what do we do if someone tries to grab you?”
Daughter: “Kick him in the balls and yell ‘FIRE’!”
Mom: “Ha, right, but that’s not a good word, it’s ‘testicles’.”
Daughter: “Ok, kick him in the balls and yell ‘TESTICLES’!”
Mom: “You know...that might work too.”
But the important thing is to breathe in, relax, and be patient. Even if our little munchkins can drive us insane sometimes, we’re the adults and we need to act all mature. And that means sacrificing some of our well-earned leisure time to give our kids the attention they need from us.
“Although kids constantly vying for our attention can be grating, I think it's important we put down our phones sometimes, look them in the eyes and say, ‘Tell me all about that cardboard robot you made.’ Kids want our undivided attention on occasion, and to hear how proud of them we are,” Samantha said.
Now that’s something all parents should take to heart. This might just make your kids more open to learning the lessons you want to teach them in the future! All that remains is hoping The Universe doesn’t find some way to prank parents again.
I was teaching my daughter that if she’s in any situation where anyone is doing something she doesn’t like, she tells them to stop. If they continue, use the palm of her hand and punch “up” on their nose.
My husband and his brother were throwing her back and forth in a pool, she kept asking them to stop, when her dad caught her again, boom. She broke his nose. Literally. There was blood everywhere.
When I was little my family was at an Angels game. My mother went to the restroom and left me with my dad. I wandered off and was eventually found halfway around the stadium. A crowd had gathered to watch as a police officer held me out at arms length while I screamed, 'Call the police! This man is not my daddy!' My parents had taught me stranger danger, but forgotten to teach me what police looked like.
When my daughter was about 5 she asked why we need rain. I explained to her that we need to it grow the food we all eat that are plants. She asked why we need the veggies and I used this as an opportunity to get her to eat her veggies so I told her if she wanted to grow up at all she needs to eat lots of veggies. This kid has requested cucumbers or carrots or bell peppers or any crunchy kinda veggie as her snack since then. It's pretty awesome...
But now I can't enjoy a bag of chips at home any more. She'll walk in shake her head and tell me to go easy "because you're done growing UP, so you can only grow out..."
My teenage son was staying up super late on his laptop doing teenage internet things (porn & gaming I assume) and f***ing up in school, so we put parental controls on the router so that the internet would be turned off from 11 pm to 7 am.
This of course impacted my wife and I, because we lost internet access during those hours too. Grumble grumble damn kids, etc.
Anyway, he was way more tech-savvy than we were, so he was able to bypass the parental controls, and stay on-line as late as he wanted. So the end result of the parental controls was that the parents didn't have internet, but the teenager did.
My son was playing with deodorant and a lighter and almost set himself on fire. I made him write out "I must not play with aerosols" one hundred times. He wrote "I must not play with arseholes" one hundred times. It is now framed and hanging on the wall.
I read a book that suggested you ask your kid what an appropriate punishment for misbehaving would be and then carry it out. My 6-year-old son pinched his brother, so we asked him what an appropriate punishment would be. He said, 'Pluck out my eyeballs and throw me over a cliff.' We didn't carry it out.
My 8 year old was spending too much time playing video games. I asked him to research the harmful results of too much time gaming. He came back with his report stating he needed “gaming glasses” and a “gaming chair.”
Sucessfuly taught my child to question authority. Forgot I was an authority.
My sister tried to teach her kids not to gamble, so she bought a few lottery tickets to show them that they were all going to be losers. She won $500.
Told my children repeatedly that if I found anymore mess/junk on their bedroom floor, I would be donating it to the thrift store. I told them they had 15 minutes to clean it up off the floor.
Came back to find everything picked up, except they went into the kitchen cupboards and had put every food they didn't like in a nice neat pile right in the middle of the floor.
I was trying to teach my 4 year old that it is important to go to sleep because our brains need to recharge. I compared it to my IPad needing to recharge after it dies.
He said “okay...” and got really quiet. Then told me, “mom, I need to go to sleep.” I agreed with him, but asked why he was suddenly tired. He started crying and said “because I don’t want to die.”
Watching the World Cup Semi final this year with my 4 yo daughter, I was trying to teach her how we wanted the team in White to win (England), and not the team in Black (Croatia). We even chanted a couple of “C’mon England!” chants together.
Newly enthused with a love for chanting, she suddenly started shouting;
“CMON ENGLAND! BEAT THE BLACKS! WE HATE THE BLACKS! WE HATE THE BLACKS!”
Quickly taught her the “We don’t say it like that” lesson.
My parents taught me to call 9-1-1 when I saw somebody doing something illegal. I called the cops on The Wiggles Movie I was watching when I was 5 because a clown stole a cake.
My wife tried to explain the concept of heaven to our 5 year old after great grandpa passed. My daughter did not believe one ounze of it. She responded "you're making that up mommy, you can't be in heaven and a cemetery at the same time".
Me and my wife started using code words in front of the children, mainly if we wanted to discuss plans without getting the kids too excited and getting their hopes up. For example we would say GP instead of play ground, cylindrical slice of cow place instead of McDonald's.
They have cottoned on to this and now use code words amongst themselves which we're struggling to figure out.
Once when I was probably about 6 my mom and her friend were talking about rice crispies and wanted to be discreet because there were a lot of excitable kids around. She tried to spell out “R-i-c-e c-r-i-s-p-i-e-s” because she didn’t want me to know, but underestimated my spelling skills and I proceeded to shout “RICE CRISPIES??!!” and started a riot xD
When I was like 16, my dad told me that I need to stop treating him and my mom like my friends because they're my parents. The very next day, before I got home from school, I had friend requests from both of my parents on Facebook. I denied them both. When my dad got home from work we had a conversation that went like this: Dad: Did you see that your mom made a Facebook account? Me: Yes, I did. Dad: Well, did you accept her friend request? Me: No, I didn't. Dad: Why not? Me: Because, just yesterday you told me you're my parents, not my friends. By the way, I also denied your friend request.
My dad just looked at me, looked at my mom who was almost in shock over my response, and said, "He's not wrong. I said that."
Not me but my aunt - she was trying to teach my young cousins that spiders are leggy friends and nothing to be scared of. She demonstrated this by bringing them all into the bathroom to witness a huge wolf spider.
"You see, it's so much more scared of us than we are of AAAAARGGGGHHH!"
It bit her. Of course it bit her. She flung it high into the air, screaming blue murder, whilst her newly traumatised offspring screamed a falsetto counterpoint.
My aunt and uncle were trying to teach my cousins to address adults as 'Mr.' and 'Mrs.' In order to do this, they used each other as examples, and consequently were known to their kids as Mr. and Mrs. Iannuccilli for two months. One of the funniest moments of my life was hearing my uncle describe how in the middle of the night instead of hearing ‘Dad’ he started hearing, ‘Mr Iannuccilli!’ Cracks me up every time.
Not a parent, but when I was little I noticed my sister was writing her name on the walls with crayon. Taking on the role of Helpful Big Sister, I informed her that if she was going to graffiti things she shouldn't write her name and give herself away. A few weeks later she carved patterns — and MY name — into the desk in the study.
Not a parent but when I was around 12, my father suspected that I stayed up late playing videogames, even though I didn't. One night he went into my room and told me that I shouldn't play my Game Boy Advance past bedtime, because I needed to rest. That's when I realized I could play my Game Boy Advance past bedtime, and I've suffered from insomnia since then.
Never warn a child to NOT do something, because you are teaching them that it is actually something you CAN do. "Don't drop the glass" or "Don't slam the door" and guess what will happen.
When my son was about 3 or 4 he started to ask about how babies are born. I sat him down and gave him a very simple, age appropriate explanation.
He just looked at me, shook his head and said just said 'No.' Very calmly but in a 'I can't believe you think that's how it works' tone of voice like I'd told him fake news.
I was prepared for difficult questions and even prepared for the fact that he might ask me things that even I didn't know, but I was completely unprepared for him to just simply not believe me when I told him the truth. I just sat there not knowing what to do while he went back to playing lego.
One of my 5-year-old twins was still having accidents because she'd get so caught up doing things that she'd pee her pants. To combat this, we began giving her a prize when she didn't have an accident. This caused her twin sister to START having accidents so she could get prizes too.
As the kid and not the dad...When I was 11 my father caught me smoking. As a punishment he made me finish the whole pack.
I hated my first cigarette and had no intention of ever smoking again. But after smoking that pack I would try to hang out with the older kids and smoke with them because after all, my punishment wasnt as bad as the usual whoopin' and they found me funny to have around.
I smoked until I was 37 or so. Yeah, my dad was an idiot.
My brother accidentally set our house on fire. Needed new roof. Fire department wrote it up as bad wiring etc. Nex weekend my dad caught my brother smoking. My brother was about 12. My dad beat the crap out of him. My dad was yelling, my brother was screaming, me and my mom were crying. This was back in the day when you could beat the crap out of your kids and everyone thought it was not such a bad thing to do. My brother had 3 kids, 2 boys and I don't think he every laid a hand on either one or his daughter.
I had a similar experience. I got caught smoking about 11 also. Mom put the CARTON in front of me and told me to smoke up. I got through about 3 or 4 packs before SHE got sick and stopped me. I went on to smoke for over 40 years. I stopped when I had a heart attack 5 years ago.
I still remember my parents having the Don't Smoke conversation with my brother. My dad stood there telling him all that was wrong with smoking while smoking himself. 35 years later my brother still smokes.
yup. that'll teach 'im. like spanking as a punishment for hitting
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My Great aunt grew up on a farm in Norway, and found her father's cigarettes in the attic. She invited all the farm hand's kids for a smoking party in the wheat field (she was 9 and the youngest was 2) Her father found them, and his punishment to her was to make her ask him for forgiveness. She says it was one of the hardest things she ever did.
That was a horrible call from the dad, also, i'm twelve, he was smoking at 11!??
Read ALL these comments if you want to understand. It's cultural and we've learned better than to do this nowadays (most have anyway). Our parents did this in the old days.
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yes, he was...and an abuser.. i'm glad you were able to quit and i hope you got over your Dad.
Just finishing one would have been enough. Especially if it involved taking the smoke down, which people who don't smoke rarely do....they puff the smoke out and it doesn't get near their lungs. But oh dear, if you do take it down, you'll feel pretty ill. I know, because I was determined to "master" smoking, but it took a long time before I stopped feeling very queasy after a couple of puffs.
Same happened with my grandfather when he was 10. Smoked all his life and ended up with emphysema by the time he died age 73
My grandmother made my uncle EAT a cigarette with mashed potatoes. He never smoked after that.
I Would just take my kid to them doctor and have them explain the danger of smoking and the effects it has on the body
No wonder you are Jaded, Queen. Maybe it'd help you to go to PsychologyToday.com to learn more about the different ways control freaks bully. Because getting beaten for such a minor (normal for kids to try stuff) thing isn't right. And controlling who you talk to because of that seems a bit much too. I hope that I'm wrong, but I see red flags waving. Not saying that smoking or drinking is good, but just that I hope you're OK.
We were walking home from school and dad drove pass us and saw my brother smoking, so when we got home he saId he had something for us and gave us both a pack of cigarettes. I DIDN'T UNDERSTAND WHY HE GAVE THEM TO ME, I DIDNT SMOKE. My brother thought it was great until he made us eat them. I was so sick i never started the habit. THANK YOU DAD. My brother stopped smoking only to start up again a few years later.
My mom did that to me!!!! I had to smake a whole pack of Pall Mall Non filter full flavored cigs. It was disgusting but didnt deter me from smoking.
That’s the punishment I got when my dad caught me smoking a cigarette when I was 10. It made me sick to my stomach. But… It’s been 30 years since that happened and I’m still smoking.
My asshole step dad did the same thing when I was 11. All it did was create a rebellious streak in me that eventually ended up in drug addiction. He's dead and I have almost 30 years clean. Screw that jerk off.
He should make the kids smoke a cigarette when they are young to show them how horrible it is and then they will never do it again in their whole life.
First of is nobody gonna talk about the fact that he/she was smoking at 11
We have been talking about it...for 1/2 a year!?! Did you not read ANY comments before you posted?!?
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I was literally asking... is "brand back the conversation" slang or something? (& If we knew who you're talking to maybe we could figure out what it means.)
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Smoking is bad for you and if you do it to much it can give you lung cancer...and even kill you! if you want to live, don't smoke!
My grandmother smoked because that's what they did at the time. My aunt and my mother(who were children at the time) did everything in their power to stop her. School hadn't educated my grandmother or my grandfather about smoking, so my grandfather always ended up buying new cigarettes for her.
Here are some of the tactics they used to get rid of cigarettes: 1) Throw them away 2) Stopm on them and break the package 3) Flush them down the toilet.
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God no. I am not saying people who smoke are bad, but smoking itself is. It IS addictive, y did they think that would help
IF YOUR GOING TO PUNISH A KID FOR SMOKING TAKE AWAY THEIR ALLOWANCE SO THEY CAN"T BUY MORE
Yes, but it was acceptable to send your (underage) kids to the store it buy them for you 🙄, if you were a regular. Stores didn't care, anything for a buck 🤑
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Lol my uncle had a similar experience. He was caught smoking, and my grandparents proceeded to make him smoke the whole pack. Instead of continuing to smoke, he vomited after finishing.
A friend's dad made him eat the whole pack of cigarettes. He was also an idiot.
That's disgusting. Why on Earth were you doing that at 11?!?!?! I just......
You were the dummy , not your Daddy. I'm sorry I called you a dummy. I'm the dummy for the price I'm paying for smoking. My Dad offered each of us a car when we turned 18 if we did not smoke. Three of us have lung problems and one got a car as promised. He taught us scriptures, talked to us with respect, ponted out the danger BUT it was SO COOL to be in the smoking group at school, we even has a designated area for smoking!
Two wrongs made a wronger. He surely didn't realize the danger in that and neither did any of us dummies realize the danger in smoking in those years.. Someone I love left earth this week, I wish someone could have helped her realize. None of of know the right approach to protecting the young from advertising glamor. .
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Modern parents? You may want to re-read the story, Todd.
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It's actually reasonable. I know my late grandfather would do the same.
My nephew mispronounced the name of a certain kitchen appliance, so my sister broke it into syllables very distinctly for him, saying "it's mi-cro-wave."
My nephew nodded very seriously and replied "It's your crow wave!"
Lol reminds me when I was little, me and my family were going to Miami on holiday. I asked my mum what's an ami, do I have one, what's her Ami's name etc. 😁
I taught them to stand up for what they believe in....
All of a sudden they believed veggies were the devil and bedtimes should be abolished.
I wasn't trying to teach him but I was asking my three year old what the colors of traffic lights mean. Green means go, Red means stop and Yellow means speed up. From his experience I guess that made sense also made me more aware of how I'm driving.
I tried to teach my kids to be content within themselves and how to be alone. Full success, they rarely ever go out. 22 and 24. They are so mellow that they don't tell us when something goes wrong since they were middle schoolers.
Taught my four year old that you're not allowed to say that a food is gross if you haven't tried it. Apparently I'm not allowed to criticise her booger eating until I try it.
Substitute with a Harry Potter jelly beans...Bertie Botts? They have that flavor.
My dad tried to teach us to keep our rooms clean - you know, “not a thing on the floor”. He would even come in and do a walk-through to see if it was up to snuff. So I’m 5, and he was already pretty irritated with me and the state of my room. I cleaned it to the best of my ability and called him in. I was crying and he asked why on earth I was so upset. “I can’t clean my room all the way!” “What do you mean...? Your room is fine now.” “I tried to lift my bed off the floor but I’m not big enough!”
We've been working with our 2 year old on holding hands when we cross the street or walking through a parking lot. After a couple weeks he tried holding his own hands. I have to give him credit since I never specified who's hand he had to hold.
My DARE program told me cigarettes were a drug. So I told everyone on my little league baseball team that my dad does drugs.
More kids have started doing drugs because of the DARE program, because it introduces many of them to substances they had no clue about before.
My mother told me at a very young age "If you have a child I won't help you at all. You and your baby mother will have to be grown since you want to do grown up stuff." Now I am 28 no kids and don't plan on having any and my mom is pissed because she won't have any grandchildren and she "NEEDS" to be a grandma according to her logic.
Taught my 2nd grade daughter the tiniest bit of boxing so she wouldn't be defenseless on the schoolyard. She spent 3rd grade sending the boys home with broken noses.
Do well in school so you can go to college and get a good job. Then she asked why she needed to go to college to get a job when that is what I did and I hated my job.
Encourage your kids to go into trades. Not everyone needs a college degree to get a good job. My cousins in trades make way more than I do and don't have any college loans. I regret going to college.
I told my 7 year old if he didn't clean his room I'd donate his stuff. He then helped me bag it all up and said "if I don't have any stuff, I don't need to clean my room!"
Not a parent, but my in-laws love telling this story about my fiance.
He was resistant to potty training, and they eventually got him to start using the potty by telling him that he had to be out of pull-ups before a family trip to Disney World, because "Mickey Mouse only sees big boys and girls." And also who wants to log a diaper bag around Disney?
The day after they got back from the trip, he took a s**t in the living room. When asked, he said "I don't gotta use the potty cause I already saw Mickey Mouse." They very firmly told him that if he was old enough to use logic, he was far too old for diapers, and that was the end of that.
hair color has nothing to do with intelligence @Mike Hansen
I always tell my children that the lottery is a tax on people that are bad at math. I let my 8 year old spend a few hard earned dollars on a powerball ticket to prove it and he won $100.
Lottery is also a gambling game and sometimes it works out right for you.
Told my children they should always have a good reason for what they want to do as a way to curb impulsive behavior.
Am hearing about ALL THE REASONS constantly.
My parents did the thing where they gave 4-year-old me a sip of beer thinking I'd say it was yucky and they could turn it into some lesson about not drinking what Mommy and Daddy drink. Instead, I took a sip and said, 'Mmm! Can I have one?' The lesson that beer is good has lasted to adulthood.
My son is nearly two. We've taught him "don't touch" for certain items that can't be baby proofed (a floor lamp/the fireplace's glass door/low windows).
He completely understands that "don't touch" means do not put any part of your body on this thing. No hands, no feet, dont lean against it.
So now we have to watch him like a hawk because throwing a toy car at the glass isnt "touching". Neither is whacking a window with a clothes hanger. Or shoving an end table into the lamp super hard.
So you have the capacity to teach your child not to touch but don't have the capacity to teach them not to try and break stuff? Seems reasonable.
I taught them about democracy. Now everything’s a vote and when they don’t get their way they call me a dictator.
I tried this so many times with my sister. My parets just said that their votes counte double because theyre grown ups
My friend got a book for her kids about people from different races and cultures, designed to show the world is full of more than just white people.
Which was fine, untill one day in a supermarket, when her daughter, pointing at someone down the aisle, said "look mummy, a black man".
That's not as bad as what I did. When I was really little, I asked a black man why "he was all chocolatey". THANKFULLY he was very nice. He sat me down and explained to me about races and people of different color. My parents still make fun of the chocolatey comment to this day
My sister taught her daughters the biblical concept of “the last shall be first and the first shall be last”.
One evening her eldest daughter let her siblings go first and she waited patiently. Which only seems sweet. After going last she announced smugly, “I’m last which means I’m actually first.”
She’s going to be nicest mean girl ever.
"Last shall be first and the first shall be last" is just a doctrine to keep poor people poor and rich people rich. "Yeah I know life sucks when you can't feed your family and you have to live in a rat infested house. Just remember that all those rich people who are now living a dreamlife won't be doing so good when they are dead, because it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."
told my kids to stand up for each other, because they will always have each other. I hopefully will be gone (and their dad as well) before they are, and they will at least have each other
Now, when I'm in an argument with one of them, the other one defends them, AGAINST ME!
I followed the offer your kids two appropriate choices advice- like “do you want broccoli or carrots with dinner.” My children quickly learned to just say things like “no, I’d like a candy bar or a cookie. Your choice.” Right back at me.
Carrots, candy and cookie all start with C, so it's Broccoli for dinner.
Trying to get my kid to finish her dinner:
Me: "Some kids in Africa don't even get to have a meal at dinner."
Her: "Okay. That's great. Go ahead and send this to them then."
Ha ha ! Exact conversation I had with my mom at about 6, she was NOT impressed with my back-chat, that's for sure !!
My sister in law has a 4yr old daughter who was asking mom tons of questions about her own vagina so mom taught her all the different parts. Two days later while in the grocery store, the daughter starts screaming at the top of her lungs, "LAAAAAAABIA, I HAVE LABIA!!!!"
Saw a clip on local news about a toddler saving her mom's life by calling 911 when she collapsed. Figured it was a good idea to teach my toddler 911. Had two cops at my door 5 minutes later.
@SarcasticPanda: BELIEVE IT! My daughter did this after my cousin, a 911 operator (USA) told our whole family to just call 911 & ask for her. (We'd been complaining that we could never reach her at home.) My 3yr old chose to call her while I was busy cooking dinner. When a stranger answered, she was shy & hung up. Since the ringer was turned off (I forgot to turn it back on after her nap) when they called back to check, they showed up on high alert. It was crazy scary. It took forever to get her use phone after that. Cousin Karlee's very stupid 😒 (& a B!t[h) to this day.
That playing carnival/fair games is a waste of money. My son wanted to spend his $20 to win a Pikachu stuffed animal from his allowance that he saved up. WE told him he would be wasting his money and he would not win. He spent $15.00 and won the biggest prize.
Taught my toddler how to go up stairs, but I didn't realize that going down stairs was, in fact, a completely different and far more dangerous skill. Lucky for us, the kid seems to have finally grasped the finer points of head protection.
I tried to explain to my daughter, who was maybe 4-5 at the time that she needs to brush her teeth regularly or they'll fall out. She said she'll wait until her grown up teeth come in and brush those. I mean.. She's not wrong but still.
Just tell her needs to learn how to do it now on her "practice teeth."
Told my kid to walk away from the urge to get angry at his class mates when they hurt or upset him for whatever reason (he’s 6). Got a call today that he’s walked out of PE and into the adjacent orchard connected to their school to cool off for a bit and they couldn’t coax him back in at first.
My nephew hated smiling, so in pictures my dad would tell him to say 'whiskey.' When he tried saying 'cheese' it wasn't the same. Anyway, at school the principal was taking a picture of the class and told everyone to say 'cheeeeese!' My nephew shouted, 'WHISKEEEY!'
Not a parent, but the kid. I used to go to work with my dad during seasonal breaks for school. We were coming home one day. I said "how come there's a cop on that bridge?", and he immediately slows down and says "whew, you just saved me a speeding ticket... good eye"
We made a quick stop to Toys'R'Us and he got me a Lego set to reward me! Being the little s**t I was, I spent the rest of the week "spotting" officer's trying to catch people speeding and getting lego sets.
My daughter ran down the stairs so I sent her back up so she could walk down them properly. She promptly fell down the entire flight.
My brother and I would always fight and my mom would try to stop us by saying that we did not hit in this family. Once when I was about five I was being crazy on the grocery store and my mom tapped my bottom and told me to stop. I looked at her horrified, hit her back and yelled “we do not hit on this family.”
I told my five year old that just because someone else says something, it doesn’t make it right or true — you should do what you believe, and what feels right to you.
Cue me telling him to brush his teeth and go to bed, and getting a “that just doesn’t feel right to me in my heart.”
Dad after having a long conversation about teaching my sister to say 'pardon' instead of 'what'...
My dad calling up the stairs: "What are you doing?"
Sister: *mumbles*
Dad: "WHAT?"
Sister yelling: "DON'T SAY WHAT SAY PARDON!!!"
Talked to my kid about different beliefs concerning death, and one of them was reincarnation. Now he wants to dig up our dog who died last year to see if we can reanimate her.
My dad used to teach me that if i really need to use the bathroom outside, then i could go in a bush. A little while later I was in the mall with the urge to go pee and i was seen watering the fake plants in the middle of the mall.
I tried to get my kids to eat their veg by charging them for all their waste food. Eg didn’t eat your carrots,that’ll be 10 p please. Three days in they were negotiating the price of leaving food before the meal was served.
I thought I was teaching them to remember that they were family and loved each other when I made them sit on a rug when they were little and hold hands until they stopped arguing. It worked beautifully. I found out now that they are adults that the reason it worked is because one of them hated holding hands and the other knew it - so he used it every time he wanted to win an argument.
Imagine your boss made you sit on a rug and hold the hands of a coworker you hate and just had an argument with.
I used to let my son have Five Alive juice boxes in his lunches because it's a small amount and at least it has vitamin C.
In the grocery store one day he starts asking for Kool Aid and I said no way because it's full of sugar. I pick up the Kool Aid and Five Alive to show him the nutritional data to prove my point... and discover that they have the same amount of vitamin C but the Kool-Aid has far less sugar.
Now he gets the Kool Aid.
5 Alive is not fruit juice. It's juice cocktail, which has added sugar.
I'm the aunt, but my niece had been taught that no one is allowed to force her into giving hugs, etc. It's her body, she has the right to say no.
Well, she tries to use that as an excuse to misbehave from time to time. Like one time, dad told her she couldn't play in a certain space with this huge toy cart because there wasn't enough room. She claimed her body has the right to be there if she says so. Her body. Her right. All three of us facepalmed that moment.
It's the same logic that people use to refuse to wear masks. "I don't care about the consequences for other people, my body, my constitutional right, my FREEDOM!!!"
My parents said I couldn’t go out and play until I finished all my food. Decades later, I’m still trying to stop the habit of eating really fast and eating everything on my plate even if it’s clearly too much to eat.
I tried to teach my kids (11 and 15) the dangers of alcohol after they commented how cool it must be to drink “whiskey” on tv and in movies. I told them if they actually tasted it, they’d be sick. The challenge was on. I poured them small amounts of every type of alcohol I had. They enjoyed every single one of them, ranked them favorite (cognac) to least favorite (tequila) and asked for seconds of several. I had to swear them to secrecy.
My mother tried to teach temper tantrums out of me as a child. Once, in a desperate attempt, she said under her breath to me in public "Get up, or Ill sell you in the parking lot." I dont hold her accountable for this reaction, I was a terrible child.
A different day, and another meltdown later, she was trying to get me to act right. I looked dead into her eyes in front of everyone there and screamed: "Why dont you just sell me in the parking lot?"
My mom: "Because I don't have enough money to pay someone to take you!!! "
My little brother refused to eat while my gf and I were baby sitting him. My gf decided to explain the concept of food as an energy source to him. Which he then proceed to use an excuse to not do sh*t. Anytime you told him to do something, he said he couldn’t because he would run out of energy and die.
I bought cool window decorating markers for Christmas and let the kids decorate the windows and write their names all over them. For the next year or so I found stuff written on the windows with regular permanent markers. I didn’t really think through the concept of teaching them to write on windows very well.
Taught them to read early. My son could read by age 4, and my daughter by age 3. This leads to some unwanted conversations as they will read things over your shoulder when you aren't expecting it. Or even just signs on the road. "You're going to fast, Daddy. It says 55 mph and you're going 70."
I learned to read early because my mom read to me when i was little like parents usually do, and now i'm obsessed with reading and the fandoms that come with them, my teachers and parents have to sometimes tell me to stop reading. whoops.
My parents use to tell me things like "They didn't call to inform me" or "I don't know, I don't work there" when I started asking "Why?" a billion times. Bit them in the butt when they started asking me why my toys were broken, why I got bad grades, or why I got in trouble. "I don't know, Mom! I was not called and informed!"
My folks tried to teach me to do chores with financial incentives. They made a chart with stickers to track chores done and amounts earned. Then they'd put the money I'd earned in my bank account. That I couldn't touch. I didn't end up doing chores.
That sharing was good. Now he gives away his stuff at the drop off a hat.
"I got a new bike!"
"That's cool, can I have it?"
"Sure!"
I have a habit of buying candy and just... giving it away to people I know. Don't know how it started but I would give you my life force if you asked for it.
Nanny not a parent. 2yr old was refusing to wear her hat. It was hot. I told her if she didn’t put her hat on she would have to wait in the car. She started walking away from me, ‘Where are you going?’ ...’car’
I had all this crud and old shreds of paper on the floor and my mom said “If you don’t put that away, I’ll throw it away.” I responded “Be my guest.”
I have two boys. School doesn’t like potty words so I tried to go along with it and redirect them from using them. It just made them more interesting and now every other word out of my five year olds mouth is “booty-butt.” He sings entire songs about butts.
My little brother does the same thing (5)! My grandma will call to say hi every couple days and he'll say "Hi booty-butt!"
Taught my two year old to put leftover food/empty packets etc in the bin. Didn't realise she was also putting her bowls, plates, spoons etc in the bin till we started running low.
I warned my daughter that I would take back he presens if she was naughty because "...I still have the receipts". She goes straight to the carrier bag, takes out the receipt and throws it in the bin.
Every time I refused to eat my food my mom would show me a picture of a starving African child. Therefore I thought everyone was white and turned black upon not eating.
thats funny and sad, but kids dont know unless theyre taught so you cant really blame the kid
A friend of mine was trying to teach his son not to hit his daughter, so any time the son hit the daughter, he started hitting the son in the head. Not hard, but enough to hopefully jog some sense of empathy.
Actual result: the son would cover his head with one hand and smack his sister with the other.
We taught our 1 year old daughter to throw her dirty diapers in the trash can and she says "good girl." Now everything gets thrown in the trash and she says "good girl."
my brother did this when he was 1, and still does it at the age of 2
My stepkids were afraid of bugs, so I tried to reassure them that ants and ladybugs are harmless. Now every time they see a bug of any kind they try to pick it up with their bare hands. Ladybugs are one thing, black widows are another.
To teach me a lesson about playing video games too much, my parents took away all my video games but one.
I became a video game completionist who spends hours upon hours more with games than a typical player.
I tried the whole "have your kids quote chores for pay and bid against one another". It's supposed to teach them about working for their money and not expecting handouts like an allowance.
It turned into every time I asked them to do something I got "how much will you pay me"?
You taught them capitalism instead of solidarity and reaped what you sowed.
I gave my 5 year old a quick intro to climate changes, and how we need to change in order to stop our race from going extinct. Now, he’s convinced that he’s going to “die soon” and having the world’s biggest freak out. Nothing I can say afterwards is working to make him forget our impending doom!!
Tried to teach my 6 year old manners at the table. Now he still eats sloppily but learned to comment others’ manners at the table.
Trying to keep.my 4 year old in bed. He gets up 4 or more times saying he has to go to the bathroom. Most of the time he doesn't have to go and we send him back to bed. 5 minutes later, he does it again. He knows that he can get out of bed this way. My wife decided to make tickets. He could use the tickets if he got out of bed. Once the tickets were done, so was he. If he could stay in bed the rest of the night he got rewarded with stickers. The first night we tried it, he [pooped] himself.
To the person that said a 4 year old can't count to 3, my 3 year old can count to 30.
Taught my one year olds that if they drop something off off their high chair they say uh oh. Now they throw everything they can and say uh oh every time because it's a fun game to them.
When I was young, I asked my mother why some humans are darker than others. My mom kept trying to explain that we are all humans, it's just like different flavors of ice cream. Still good, and still ice cream, equal but different :)
Well next time at the supermarket, I was sitting in the childrens part of the cart and I yell out "hey mom, would he be chocolate ice cream"?
That he could hang out with people I didn’t like, but that it was because I trusted him to stay true to who he was.
Sounded good and accepting in my head... til he hung out with friends who he got in trouble with at school for weed, and whether you like weed or hate it, it’s still illegal on school grounds and he got expelled. Guess he didn’t heed my lesson, or maybe it was just a bad message.
You need to differentiate between "People I don't like" and "Future criminals". There's nothing wrong in adjusting the rule if your child's future is at stake.
Not mine, but a friend has a son who she was potty training. The first time he poo'd in the toilet, she made a celebratory cake. The next day and for about a week after, every time he poo'd he wanted a cake. Lots of tears ensued.
And you'd think that walking around WITHOUT feces in your pants would be a good enough reward.
My child asked about sex because he heard it at school so the wife and I had an age appropriate discussion with him (10yo). Informed him that it's something that men and woman do when they are in love and want a child.
He then got angry accusing us of having sex even when we don't want more children.
Eat what we make or dont eat. He doesnt eat. Come bed time he pukes. Now we are cleaning up PUKE and trying to get him to eat something ... anything ... Kid won that battle.
My kids were overweight (ex wife's doing) so I began to take them to a nutritionist. The nutritionist said that all foods were fine in moderation, including soda. So my daughter on the way home said she was going to start drinking regular soda because the nutritionist said it was okay. They didn't drink soda before that.
My dad was an accountant and he printed us tickets with his handmade signature on it for pocket money for a year. My brother spent it fast, i didn't and i came to my father at the end of the year with all my rabbits tickets: "you owe me that". He thought that i had lost them. No i was "Scrooge mc Ducking" swimming in my rabbits tickets all the year, thinking about this exact moment. Christmas money+rabbit's tickets=i'll be very rich. I bought a kid windsurf, board and sail.
when I was 10 I was told a joke at school . The following week I was visiting my uncle and I remembered the this joke even though I didn't really get it. Thinking of the joke I asked my parents what a stroke was. They told me that is was when you had a bleed on the brain and other bits about the illness. Now the joke made sense to me so I went and told it to my uncle. The joke was this; " 3 nuns were out walking in the park. A naked man jumped out in front of them. One nun fainted, one nun had a heart attack, and the third had a stroke. My parents sat there absolutely mortified and unable to stop me. What made matters worse is that my uncle is a Catholic Priest. Luckily he saw the funny side.
My mom once told me that i should eat my food because there were poor homeless people who couldnt get food and she told me they ate spoiled food from the trash can. So i put my food in a container and threw it into a trashcan so the homeless could eat it.
My dad wanted to prove it's not that easy to shoot. I outshot him with a pistol my third time at the range. Didn't backfire on him per se, but he feared backlash, b/c he never let me go to the range again.
I was with a friend and his 3 y/o son. We'd gone to the mall to get pictures with the Easter Bunny for his family members. My friend was carrying him across the parking lot when, suddenly, he started pointing at a rather rotund woman walking the opposite way. His hand went up and he started pointing at this lady. He started screaming, "Piggy, piggy", very loudly. Needless to say, I crossed the aisle and melted into the scenery. Little did we know, his parents never married, his mother had been teaching him this. She got a good word salad when we got him home!!
Once my parents told me not to lie about ANYTHING. So after my mom took a shower with a body wash I didn't like the smell of, I said "You smell like garbage!" I spent the next ten minutes in "time out" and pondering why my parents got so mad at me. I still think if this moment seven years later.
I learned where babies come from from my YOUNGER cousin. My cousin, (7) just said, “When I came from your vag***.” I cried bc I thought it wasn’t appropriate. Now, a year later, I had half of “the talk” with my mom. She said, the baby goes in your uterus, and it grows along with it. That’s why your belly looks big. I figured it out on my own hearing the words “sperm” and “sex” and I also hear my parents doing it every night. My dads excuse: “her back was hurting” I used the internet to find out.
When my little brother was little, my aunt came over to see us. She's a cool aunt, and she always has some sort of funny story to tell, but this story is all of ours. When she was leaving, she said the phrase, "See you later, alligator!" And my brother, not knowing what it meant, answered with, "Bye, cow!"
As a kid i got one of those fairies that would fly up when you put your hand under them. My dad wanted to try it and I said, "Just don't break it." And guess what he did... he broke it. And from that day on I never let him play with my stuff.
What happened to all the "lessons"? This list started at 106 and is now down to 40.
At the end of the post "Note: this post originally had 106 images. It’s been shortened to the top 40 images based on user votes." if you click on 106 you will see all of the "lessons".
Load More Replies...
These were fun! Many children make some of the common mistakes in some of these posts, and sometimes they are so funny, you can't help but chuckle!
Not the parent but the child, was always a sarcastic person so when my mom was teaching me to make my bed in the morning I would say "Why make my bed when i'll mess it up two seconds later?" needless to say she wasn't happy :/
once my dad said that if I watched youtube all night I would become nocturnal like an owl. I LOVED owls and I became nocturnal for around a month after that. sleeping through the day, having breakfast at dinner and lunch at midnight. the whole enchilada. fortunately during summer break.
one time when i was little i put mardi gras beads down the sink and when the plumber came i was like "Ohhh! so that's were they went"
If you think kids interpretations are challenging wait til the "unexpected consequences" of artificial intelligence begin. God help us now.
My dad was an accountant and he printed us tickets with his handmade signature on it for pocket money for a year. My brother spent it fast, i didn't and i came to my father at the end of the year with all my rabbits tickets: "you owe me that". He thought that i had lost them. No i was "Scrooge mc Ducking" swimming in my rabbits tickets all the year, thinking about this exact moment. Christmas money+rabbit's tickets=i'll be very rich. I bought a kid windsurf, board and sail.
when I was 10 I was told a joke at school . The following week I was visiting my uncle and I remembered the this joke even though I didn't really get it. Thinking of the joke I asked my parents what a stroke was. They told me that is was when you had a bleed on the brain and other bits about the illness. Now the joke made sense to me so I went and told it to my uncle. The joke was this; " 3 nuns were out walking in the park. A naked man jumped out in front of them. One nun fainted, one nun had a heart attack, and the third had a stroke. My parents sat there absolutely mortified and unable to stop me. What made matters worse is that my uncle is a Catholic Priest. Luckily he saw the funny side.
My mom once told me that i should eat my food because there were poor homeless people who couldnt get food and she told me they ate spoiled food from the trash can. So i put my food in a container and threw it into a trashcan so the homeless could eat it.
My dad wanted to prove it's not that easy to shoot. I outshot him with a pistol my third time at the range. Didn't backfire on him per se, but he feared backlash, b/c he never let me go to the range again.
I was with a friend and his 3 y/o son. We'd gone to the mall to get pictures with the Easter Bunny for his family members. My friend was carrying him across the parking lot when, suddenly, he started pointing at a rather rotund woman walking the opposite way. His hand went up and he started pointing at this lady. He started screaming, "Piggy, piggy", very loudly. Needless to say, I crossed the aisle and melted into the scenery. Little did we know, his parents never married, his mother had been teaching him this. She got a good word salad when we got him home!!
Once my parents told me not to lie about ANYTHING. So after my mom took a shower with a body wash I didn't like the smell of, I said "You smell like garbage!" I spent the next ten minutes in "time out" and pondering why my parents got so mad at me. I still think if this moment seven years later.
I learned where babies come from from my YOUNGER cousin. My cousin, (7) just said, “When I came from your vag***.” I cried bc I thought it wasn’t appropriate. Now, a year later, I had half of “the talk” with my mom. She said, the baby goes in your uterus, and it grows along with it. That’s why your belly looks big. I figured it out on my own hearing the words “sperm” and “sex” and I also hear my parents doing it every night. My dads excuse: “her back was hurting” I used the internet to find out.
When my little brother was little, my aunt came over to see us. She's a cool aunt, and she always has some sort of funny story to tell, but this story is all of ours. When she was leaving, she said the phrase, "See you later, alligator!" And my brother, not knowing what it meant, answered with, "Bye, cow!"
As a kid i got one of those fairies that would fly up when you put your hand under them. My dad wanted to try it and I said, "Just don't break it." And guess what he did... he broke it. And from that day on I never let him play with my stuff.
What happened to all the "lessons"? This list started at 106 and is now down to 40.
At the end of the post "Note: this post originally had 106 images. It’s been shortened to the top 40 images based on user votes." if you click on 106 you will see all of the "lessons".
Load More Replies... These were fun! Many children make some of the common mistakes in some of these posts, and sometimes they are so funny, you can't help but chuckle!
Not the parent but the child, was always a sarcastic person so when my mom was teaching me to make my bed in the morning I would say "Why make my bed when i'll mess it up two seconds later?" needless to say she wasn't happy :/
once my dad said that if I watched youtube all night I would become nocturnal like an owl. I LOVED owls and I became nocturnal for around a month after that. sleeping through the day, having breakfast at dinner and lunch at midnight. the whole enchilada. fortunately during summer break.
one time when i was little i put mardi gras beads down the sink and when the plumber came i was like "Ohhh! so that's were they went"
If you think kids interpretations are challenging wait til the "unexpected consequences" of artificial intelligence begin. God help us now.
