What do you do to torment your children?

In My Humble Opinion
1

What do you (deliberately) to annoy your children, to make them go “Ah, jeez, mom, cut it out!” to which you laugh maniacally?

My 13-year-old son hates/loathes/despises to be kissed on the back of his neck. So guess what I do every chance I get?

(Now, just so you know, I’ve recently stopped calling him Sweetie in front of his friends and insisting that he kiss me goodbye when I drop him off at school.)

C’mon, if we can’t drive out kids nuts (and eventually chase them out of the house) what kind of parents are we??

2

I can’t remember the last time I addressed either of them by their real name. Every week or so it’s a new stupid nickname they have to get accustomed to being called. There are way too many to list, but the most popular recurring ones are Goosey, Sareka, Turtle-Burtle, Potch, Doobaloo and Bimple-Boomps.

As far as playful teasing goes, I’m always playing the music too loud and make believe I can’t hear them when they’re screaming…“Turn that down!”

I smoke and refuse to wear a seat-belt. Two Big No-No’s which drives them absolutely insane. They’ve been so conditioned by the school system that Dad’s ways are evil incarnate and that I’m the 2nd coming of the anti-christ. If that doesn’t get them out by 18, nothing will.

Talk about your reversed roles. I guess I gotta admit I’m the immature and irresponsible one in the family.

3

Umm…

The back of my neck is one of the most erotic spots on my body. I just melt when a lover kisses me there; it has an instant aphrodisiac effect.

Since at 13, your son is hitting puberty, there may be a really good reason it wigs him out.

4

A better question: what don’t I do?

5

My children are too old to be tormented now, but when they were pre- and early-teens it was incredibly easy. I existed.

Once I brought my daughter’s lunch bag to her because she’d forgotten it at home, and walked across the schoolyard to give it to her. She was horribly embarrassed. She said one of the other girls made a remark about my shoes (ordinary tan low-heeled pumps for work, went with my suit). Whenever she was impudent after that I threatened to come see her at school with those shoes. Oh, and she never forgot her lunch again.

6

When they were learning to read I would get in an Otis elevator with them and point out the word Otis written in metal on the threshold and remark that it was a very trusted name in elevator manufacturers. Then as we were inside the elevator I would tell them about the evil Silo elevator company which used shoddy parts and emergency brakes made of pressed paper that was spray painted black. Then the doors would open and we would be looking at the word Otis on the threshold but it would be upside down and looked like “Silo”. Then I would scream and we would jump out of the elevator.

7

Back when I was a teacher I had a favorite way to annoy the kiddies. They would often come up to me with a minor physical discomfort and expect me to send them to the nurse or something. The conversation would go like this:

Whiney Kid: “My finger hurts.”

Me: “I’m sorry your finger hurts.”

They would stare at me for a few seconds, realize I wasn’t going to send them to the nurse or give them sympathy, and then go away.

I have no kids of my own, but the only time I’m tempted to have any is when I reflect on how much I could mess with their heads. Must be fun.

8

When my son was in 7th grade, he had to pick a country to write a report on. In a moment of stupidity, he picked Paraguay, thinking it was the one with the canal. So to this day (he’s 19 now) we make sure to take advantage of EVERY opportunity to harass him about the Paraguay Canal. Or anything else about Paraguay.

It’s really surprising how often it comes up when you’re looking for it. I even once came up with a piece of mail sent to a coworker from someone in Paraguay, who was kind enough to let me take the envelope home to present the stamps to my son. :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

9

dont have kids, but when i was young my mother would occasionally , read once a year, sit us down and make my sister and i sit through her playing all her deeply depressing music.

im talking songs about faithful dogs dying, two orphans freezing to death in the snow, i guess she thought tormenting us with folk music was amusing.

my sister who now has her own kids is planning her own folk music assault when they get old enough.

10

Tummy zerberts.

They make him laugh maniacally, but when I quit, he gets all fierce and says, “Dad! That’s babyish!”

Which, of course, brings on another attack of tummy zerberts.

11

My youngest hates “belly sugars”, I have to hold him down…he is only 4, don’t go picturing a teenager! My oldest (6) is getting to that stage already were he doesn’t like affection in public…poor kid! So of course I try to remember that…but its hard when he is so darn huggable!
When I was a kid and I would say “I’m hungry” (or whatever emotion I was experiencing) and my mom would say “hi Hungry, my name is Mom…” it was like someone had poured salt directly into my eyes…wasn’t funny the first 100 times…didn’t get better with repitition…Margo

12

My dad still manages to torment me whenever I phone home and he picks up the phone. A typical conversation will go something like this:

Me: “Hi dad!”
Dad: “Hello. Who’s this?”
Me: “Its me, your daughter, Angua.”
Dad: “Daughter, what daughter? My daughter’s sat here with me.”
Me: “Dad, don’t be silly…”
Dad: “Oh, its you. Why didn’t you say so in the first place!”

Hmm… I would have thought “Hi dad!” would have been enough, seeing as I’m the eldest of two children, am the only one who lives away, oh, and I’m the only girl. :slight_smile:

I hope I haven’t given parents more ideas as to how to torment their older kids.

::runs and hides from a mob of screaming teens and twenty-somethings::

13

the only think you need to do to torment your children, is live long enough

:slight_smile:

14

sorry, thing, not think

:slight_smile:

15

My daughter is 15, almost 16 and very musical. She writes songs, plays guitar and mandolin and has a beautiful singing voice. She takes music very seriously. So, to irritate her, I sing – loudly and offkey, using the wrong words. One example (we have a black and white dog): “Ebony and ivory live together in perfect harmony, side by side on my doggy’s buttocks, Oh Lord why can’t we…” Doe really hates that one.

My son is almost 17 and very much into weightlifting. He has an excellent build and is very proud of it. He’s constantly flexing in front of the mirror and struts around the house in tight shirts showing off his muscles. So, I tell him he has a potbelly. Gets him way spun up. He’ll whip off his shirt and pound on his belly, hollering, “Godammit Ma! You call this a pot belly?”

'“Yeah.” I reply, “See where it pokes out a little there?”

“Jeez!” Still hammering on his belly, “That’s a 6-pack!”

“Oh? That’s a 6-pack? It looks like a pot belly to me.”

Then he goes stomping away, muttering, and I have the TV and remote to myself.

16

I call my older son (5 yrs) ‘silly banana’, at times. He grumbles and corrects me: “Silly GRAPE. Daddy is a silly banana, you are a silly peach, and Brendan is a silly avocado!” (apparently we have to be the fruit we like best) He’s got a good ‘Jeez, don’t you remember anything?’ look. I think he was born with that one ready to go. He certainly used it on us a lot in his first two years.

Or, I say, “Guess what?” He asks what, and I say, “I love you.” Then I say, “Guess what else?” He asks what, I say, “I love you.” Repeat until he either starts laughing at me, or shakes his head at my silliness, or leaves, or any combination of the above. But he generally leaves with a smile, even then. I’m betting this will really REALLY bug him when he’s a teen.

Tummy tuba. I will not actively hold him down if he’s really fighting me on it, because I remember the abject terror of being held down to be tickled or have my tummy blown on as a young kid. It was horrible, far worse than the ‘funny torment’ my parents thought it was, and made me feel humiliated and powerless - I laughed because it tickled, but it wasn’t funny at all. Pretty miserable experience, there - I still get nauseated remembering it. However, the game itself is still a classic, and just attempting to tummy tuba him is sufficient to torment him within acceptable bounds, as long as I let him get away if he’s really trying… and sometimes it works out that I actually do get to tummy tuba him. At which point, I give him the evil parental grin, and he gives me his practice version of the ‘oh, MOM’ look. :rolleyes: He’ll be pretty good at it by the time he’s a teen, I suspect.

For Brendan (younger son, 18 months old), I simply prevent him from disassembling the house. That’s more than enough torment to have him throwing screaming, throwing himself on the floor fits five times a day. I think he got two copies of the engineer gene, and has plans for building something better than whatever we’ve got, if only I’d let him take it apart properly first…

17

Some of you old folks may remember the Saturday Night Live skit where Lisa and Todd would say the same thing at the same time and they’d sing,
“Inky Dinky Stinky Winky.
Flush it down the kitchen Sinky.
The Queen of France lost her pants,
right in the middle of a ballroom dance.
Na-na-na-na-na- NaNaNaNaNaNaNa Ugh!”

Well, every time we say the same thing, my parents and I would launch into this long, in a minor key, with the words kind of screwed up, and really, really slow. He’d run screaming from the room going LALALALALA I can’t hear you!

18

My son Ty (12) cannot bear to hear us say anything about Barney the dinosaur. he used to LOVE barney when he was little…but now he acts like the purple dinosaur is his arch-enemy.

he even makes up stories about Barney- they caught him using drugs in that suit of his! he’s a crack addict! he smokes! blah, blah, blah he slanders steve from Blue’s Cues too…so we’re always implying that he spends his days off from school when we’re not around watching Nick Jr. It is not helpful that his rants against these things are often quite detail-specific…and recent.

We also used to live in a small town, at the end of a gravel road…the only school buses that could make it down and turn around to go back were mini-buses. So on occasion, we will off-handedly mention that Ty rode the short bus to school. :slight_smile:

He is not amused.

19

I don’t torment him much, but my wife will occasionally poke herself in the belly until he gets annoyed and kicks. Then we spend a lot of time trying to predict where he’ll kick next so we can feel it.

Of course, in a few months we’ll have to figure something else out…

20

We sing. Any time we sing it upsets our daughter no end. It doesn’t have to be off-key. It doesn’t matter if the words are right or wrong. She can’t stand to hear her parents sing.

According to Dave Barry, Billy Joel’s kids are the same way. Really.