The worst things you've done to your kids

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Every parent has moments of total failure that you’re sure will scar your child(ren) for life. Let’s share!

For me, it was when my daughter was about a year and a half old. Her favorite thing in the whole world was to go swimming. Whenever she figured out we were at the pool, her entire body would start quivering in sheer ecstasy. One Saturday afternoon, my wife had to be somewhere - I forget where - so I figured I’d take my daughter to the pool, which is about a 20 minute drive away. At the time, she was young enough that she had no idea what was going on until we were there, walking into the building. That’s when the excitement started. It was everything I could do to keep this little bundle of happiness under control while I paid.

At this pool, to get to the locker room, you have to actually walk on the pool deck, right past the water filled with happy kids playing and laughing. That always ratchets the excitement up even more. At last, we were in the changing room, with my daughter just about bouncing off the ceiling. I managed to get the bag unpacked and realized…crap.
I had left my own swimming suit at home. I knew exactly where it was. I had gotten it out, and just failed to put it in the bag. So I had to pack everything back up, take my nearly delirious daughter by the hand, walk her back out past the water filled with screaming happy children, and back to the lobby. She was confused at this point, and a little annoyed, but still expecting a happy outcome. I went to the desk and explained my situation and asked if they had any suits for sale - anything. They didn’t. There was no one I could call. I only had one option. We had to drive back home for my suit.

It was when we were going back out through the door that understanding dawned and the meltdown began, and it didn’t let up. It didn’t let up as we walked to the car, or got her buckled in her seat, or drove the 20 minutes home, or drove the 20 minutes back. From her point of view, I had taken her to her favorite place in the whole wide world, pretending that we were going to do her favorite thing in the whole wide world, and then just showed it to her long enough to get her excited before cruelly snatching it away again. It would be like driving across the country to Disneyland, only to get up to the gate and decide it was a bit too expensive, then go back home again. She sobbed like her little heart was breaking all the way home and back. She cried and cried and cried, and when she occasionally got distracted and forgot to cry for a moment, that just made her even madder when she remembered again. I felt horrible, particularly because I couldn’t make her understand that this was just a temporary delay.

She started to go from all-out despair to cautious suspicion when we walked back through the front door into the pool building, now with my suit in tow, but it was a different little girl holding my hand. She was clearly waiting for the other shoe to drop - wondering if I was going to do it to her again. She did gradually cheer up, bit by bit, as we got changed, but the suspicion and fear didn’t totally leave until we were actually in the water, splashing around.

From then on, she was totally fine.

2

I don’t have kids, so the best I can do is share this link. It’s a comedian talking about taking his daughter to meet some ponies…and one of the them bit her. From *best dad ever *to **worst dad ever **in less than 2 seconds.

3

Just what the devil’s grandmother would say…

4

My son was complaining to me once that his neck was sore. So I got him a heating pad and told him to lay on it for a while. Two days later, he’s still complaining, so I took him to the doctor.

Turns out, it wasn’t a stiff neck like I had previously thought. It was some sort of bacterial infection and putting a heating pad on it was the worst thing I could have possibly done as it only helps to spread the infection faster.

It took me a while before I stopped feeling like total shit over that decision.

5

When my daughter was three months old, I smashed her finger while snapping her into her swing. That damned old swing. The neighbors lent it to us and it was ancient. New swings wouldn’t have hard-snap latches like that, arrrrrgh.

The thing that may have hurt her the worst, though, was when I gave one of her six pairs of fairy wings to the neighbor girl, without consulting her beforehand. I gave her a good old-fashioned apology for that one.

6

Along the lines of giveth and taketh away, my son is allergic to dairy. He’s pretty good about it, but I wanted him to have pizza (he was probably late 2 or early 3). So, I got some soy cheese and whipped up a nice little pepperoni pizza. For some reason I thought to look at the label again, and saw that is said “Contains casein”…whoops, the very ingredient he’s allergic to. So after setting it in front of him, he took about one bite before I snatched it away.

He took it in pretty good humor, though. He understands that he’ll be sick if he eats it, and he remembers what that’s like.

7

At any point, did your doctor just to tell you to try a heating pad first anyway, or anything similar? (The proverbial “Take two aspirin and call in the morning, if you live till then” advice.)

My HMO makes a standard routine of this. For practically every minor (or seemingly minor) ailment, their standard knee-jerk scripted advice is always some variation of “wait a week and call again if it doesn’t go away”. Even if I’ve already waited a week, or two or three or four, and even if I tell the doctor so.

Yet we always hear that certain seemingly minor ailments might require immediate medical attention. How many times have we all read that heart attacks commonly disguise themselves as indigestion? What, so I should dial 911 every time I burp? How the heck are we supposed to decide when to call a doctor, when there are a variety of seemingly minor things that might be major-shit emergencies?

8

My kids are grown now (and not in therapy that I know of) but one occasion stands out in my memory as being worthy of submission to this thread.

We were camping over the Christmas holidays, miles away from any civilization. On one day I needed to replenish the food supplies from a town about an hour’s drive, so bunged the four kids into the car and started off. The two youngest (app 3 & 5 at the time) were playing merry hell in the backseat. I warned them once, I warned them twice and by about the FIFTH “WILL YOU GUYS JUST SIDDOWN AND SHUDDUP” I came up with a devious plan to kick them out of the car. I warned them again with the consequences spelled out this time.

At that point, the unmade road we were on was just one bend away from a sealed road…I knew the area like the back of my hand, but all they could see was thick bush lining the roadway. So I pulled up the car, hauled them from their seats and they stood like stunned mullets at the side of the road as I drove off to stop around the bend. The shock wore off for the older boy pretty quickly and he started HOWLING (the younger one was just, like, ‘whatevah’)…I gave them 20 seconds and backed up around the bend so they could see the rear of the car in full view.

Two more compliant kids on the journey to town AND back you’d never meet. :smiley:

9

Missed edit. My absolute bigges parent fail was when he was 2. He got out of bed during his nap and started rooting around in the closet in his room, which is also the coat closet. For some reason, there was square of 2 allergy (diphenydramine) tablets on the floor that he got ahold of. When I went to get him up from his nap the package, with the corner chewed off and the foil removed and a capsule and a half laying on the floor. He told me tried to eat the candy but it was nasty so be spitted it out :frowning:

10

This is only a little one, but…

We’re on a trip off to the country with the Tiny Girl, aged probably about 5 months or so. It’s summer, and there are mosquitos around. We stop for a breather, and after about half a minute a big mozzie lands right on the middle of her forehead.

So of course, without even thinking about that, I whack that sucker dead.

And my daughter gives me this amazed, horrified look, like ‘why did you HIT me mummy? I was a GOOD girl!’

:smack:

:frowning:

11

I can’t even talk about it. Parent guilt is a monstrosity and difficult to banish. Just typing here has the brute tapping me on the shoulder and I’m so done with him.

I will tell you about my mother’s parent guilt. It’s much more satisfying. I didn’t know about it until she was nearly dead. She had seen a psychologist at the Mayo to talk about her guilt in raising me.

I have no idea what she talked about. And I’ll bet I could have suggested some things which she probably didn’t talk about.

But all those years I never had a clue that she ever thought she was making a mistake. And I find it comforting to know that she wasn’t immune.

But watch out for this one, folks. A little dose of questioning is good. Too much meditation and it grows into a twisted lie that can really mess up a young person with overcompensation on the parent’s part. And it can grieve a parent forever.

Most of us do the best we can with the flaws and the info we have at the time.

If you’ve never confessed - confess away and get it done!

12

Age maybe 3, I went to lift him onto my shoulders and stuck his head in the ceilling fan. No harm done, I don’t think.

Age about 6. Someone was pissing on the toilet seat and we all know who. So, I show him and he denies there is even piss on the seat, even though its clearly there. I say “touch it then” but I keep my hand nearby, to stop him in case he actually does move to touch the wet seat. He sees my hand hovering nearby and suspects I am going to force him to touch piss and runs from the room. Who can say how deep the scars go on that one?

Age 10, he got second prize in the school science fair. All his own work, really! I was so proud. Because I’m an idiot and don’t know when to be serious, I tried to make a joke like “our family doesn’t accept second best.” It fell flat and I suspect he has hated science ever since.

13

I can remember taking my son to task for NOT lifting the toilet seat before he takes a pee. He kept denying it and I kept getting madder because I knew it had to be him. Around abouts the same time, I had my niece living with me, it wasn’t until my son stayed the night at a friend’s house I figured out it was HER and not him! Having no experience with little girls, I didn’t know the could pee (or drip I guess) on the seat. :smack:

14

I was changing my 1 yr old’s nappy on the change table. There was a little game we played sometimes, that involved picking her up by her ankles and flipping her over. This time, when I did it, it took her completely by surprise and she screamed in terror. After that day, she wouldn’t go near the the change table, and insisted on being changed on the floor. She also developed a strong fear of heights, which I put down to that incident. Scarred for life, good job, mum.

15

I love this. I couldn’t really think of anything right away so I asked my soon-to-be nine year old if she could tell me. “I have no idea!” she says. “Maybe yelling?”

Makes me proud. :slight_smile:

16

Sort of stepdaughter screaming and screaming because we wouldn’t get her a second ice cream at the park. Still screaming at the supermarket so I took her outside to the bus stop where she screamed some more. Only when her dad rejoined us did the penny drop. She’d missed lunch (Did you give her anything? No did you?) Poor thing was really hungry and that was why she wanted another ice cream. Did we feel bad.

17

Telling one on my father…

He loaded us three kids, all under age 10 IIRC, in the car and drove two hours to the big city to go to the Ringling Bros Circus. The excitement had been building and we were each mentally making our choices between popcorn or cotton candy to see the Greatest Show on Earth.

After the long drive we arrived in the big city, park the car and walk up to the arena. Kid excitement level is surging. We get up to the gate only to find out they were completely sold out.

No choice but to load us kids back in care and drive 2 hours home.

18

Well, your daughter does sound sweet, but that’s kind of like asking: “What do you think of my new haircut? Do you like it?”

There’s only one way to answer that question. :slight_smile:

19

“It…could work.”

20

Wait until she’s fifteen. She’ll answer it then.