Part of being a kid is getting in trouble, but sometimes their actions are just too funny or clever to be seriously upset about. Parents weigh in on this topic, sharing some hilarious instances of when their kids bad behavior made them anything but mad.
A Little Entrepreneur.
“My daughter got in trouble in kindergarten for selling pencils to other kids. She was charging kids a quarter, the school charged 50 cents. I was pretty impressed” (Source).
The Good Outweighs The Bad.
“My 3 year old dragged a chair from the lounge to the kitchen and climbed up to help herself to an ice cream from the freezer, I caught her in the act and was prepared to be angry until I realized that before getting herself one, she had taken 2 out for her little brother and sister, unwrapped them and sent them out to the balcony to eat so they wouldn’t make a mess. I decided she deserved the ice cream” (Source).
Too Cute To Be Mad.
“My son was 2 years old when he got his first pair of eyeglasses. At first he resisted wearing them until he realized he could see properly for the first time in his life. A few days into wearing his glasses, I brought home a 5 pound bag of individually wrapped chocolates that I was planning on taking to the office in a few days. He had gone upstairs to his toy room and he was being way too quiet for too long. I went up there and he was surrounded by wrappers, covered in chocolate. Half the bag was gone, and he was so proud of himself: ‘Mommy, I not need help to open them, so I not had to ask!’ It was the first time he had been able to see where to pull to open the wrappers. I was so happy that he could finally see that I couldn’t be angry. I had to tell him that he still needed to ask permission to take the candy, even if he didn’t need help opening it anymore. The punishment was his bellyache. Kid’s lactose intolerant” (Source).
A Tricky Workaround.
“I blocked YouTube on the iPad. I was a little worried my kid might see some stuff not intended for a 5 year old. My kid found a work-around by starting up Angry Birds, clicking on the Angry Birds Cartoons, then browsing to his favorite YouTuber using the Voice Search function. I have to say, that’s brighter than most adults I’ve seen. He dealt with bypassing Password protection and his own inability to write using the speech function. That’s amazing!” (Source).
Playing Up Your Strengths.
“I have twins. The boy is a perfectly normal kid. The girl is developmentally delayed due to Autism. She doesn’t really know how to communicate. For example, if he wakes up first, he just yells at us to let him out of their room. If she wakes up first, she just sits quietly until someone comes in. Well, on their third birthday, they got a lot of sweet toys. The toys were in the living room so that it wasn’t a distraction at bedtime. The following morning, she woke up and wanted to play with her new dolls. But she didn’t know how to get our attention to open the door. But she knows her brother can get the door open. So she grabs a Nerf hammer (Thor’s from the Avengers). She then just starts beating her brother in the head with it until his cries sent me running into the room. As soon as I open the door, she drops the hammer and runs past me, laughing, straight to her new toys. Sociopathic maybe, but damn clever” (Source).
Surprise B—hes!
“My 8 year old girl was being bullied by two boys at her school. So she took them both down. Put one in a choke hold (briefly) and the other kid ran. Surprise b—hes, she’s being doing Brazilian jujitsu since she was five! Anyway she came home and told me she took both boys out. When I looked at her in astonishment she said, ‘Don’t worry though! I did it on the grass and not the concrete!’ I was amused and hella impressed. A year later and she is now best friends with one of the boys” (Source).
Jokes On You.
“My nine year old son called me into his room because he had a monster in his closet. I tell him he’s too old for that kind of thing and to go back to sleep. He pleads with me to check. I open the door and turn on the light, staring back at me is some scruffy looking thing with angry eyes and I scream. It was a mirror. I’m trying to see if I’m having a heart attack and he’s laughing his troll ass off. I’m proud of his cleverness but considered if he were too old to be left on someone’s doorstep” (Source).
He Has A Point.
“My son who was in first grade at the time was able to convince the school that he was diabetic and needed a morning snack and afternoon snack.. I got a call from his teacher asking me to come in for a conference. When I arrived there was the nurse, teacher, principal and a social worker. They started off by saying they didn’t call the welfare department because I couldn’t afford the snacks but because I was putting his life in danger by not informing them and arranging with the nurse to have his sugar tested. When I told them he was not diabetic they were dumbfounded and at that point called the doctor. When the nurse got off the phone she told them to go get my son and she asked him why he lied and he said Anna told me she is diabetic and that’s why she gets snacks twice a day so I thought I would give it a try. Then he said its not my fault you trusted a first grader. I could not force myself to punish him because he was right, they shouldn’t have taken his word. They should have called me immediately. After I explained it all to my husband we just started busting out laughing and I thought, damn this kid is clever. I then called the school and demanded an apology which they promptly gave me and I asked what his punishment was going to be and they said they would let me know soon as they could stop laughing. He never did get that punishment” (Source).
Called Out.
“4 year old wanted to go to the zoo. I didn’t. I told him we would go to the park by the zoo, because that didn’t cost any money. Then I told him I wanted to get coffee first. His response? ‘Oh, so you have money for coffee?’ I was impressed with his very appropriate and timely response. To be clear, I had money for both zoo and coffee. The problem is that my kid wants to leave the zoo after approximately 8 minutes, but still wants to go every single day. I don’t like spending $40 to go to the zoo to leave after 8 minutes. Also, it’s common knowledge among parents to not give your kids what they want all the time. Then they turn into a–holes. Our main job as parents is to not have our kids turn into a–holes” (Source).
Playing The System.
“My sons teacher incentivizes the kids for participation/helpful behavior in the class. She used blank slips of paper, and hands them to the kids to write their names on and put them in the ballot box. My son realized there were no special marking on the ballots and it was just standard lined paper so he started submitted his name many times a day. My son stuffed the weekly ballot box for classroom prizes from the teacher for two or three months. Once she caught on to it, the teacher was upset about his dishonesty. I was impressed that a 6 year old outsmarted a 45 year old for weeks on end” (Source).
Stick Wars.
“Stick wars. Third grade stick wars. The school had a strict policy against pretending to use guns and pretending to play soldier. My son was passionate about the military. The school was undergoing landscape renovations and had lots of giant dirt piles just off the playground. My son decides to initiate war games anyway. They find sticks that vaguely resemble guns. Various kids are various ranks. This kid was a corporal. That kid was a major. So on. They’d go on patrols. The first graders wanted to play but they were deemed too little. The fifth grades start picking on them. Sneaking up behind and smacking them with sticks. Making fun of them. And so on. My son gets tired of it. So. Being the colonel he recruits first graders and puts them through boot camp. They all become privates. They stage an assault on the fifth graders. My son leads a patrol directly into fifth grader territory. The fifth graders step up. My son yells, ‘ATAAAAAAACCK!!!’ and suddenly the fifth graders are flanked on their left and right by tons of kids hiding behind the dirt piles. The fifth graders start getting pelted with dirt clods while little kids run up smacking them with sticks. I had to have a big meeting. He explained all the details to me in front of the principal. So hard not to laugh” (Source).
This Kid Means Business.
“I went to Walmart with my boys the and some guy nearly backed over us in the parking lot. It was bad. Stepson was looking elsewhere and my hands were full with the baby, so I basically smashed him in the chest with the diaper bag to stop his forward movement. As he’s recovering his balance and realizing what happened, the guy is just staring at us like we materialized out of nowhere… And stepson plants his feet and flips him the double bird. Completely calm, confident, full eye contact, and he held it up there for a good three seconds. The kiddo is normally kind of shy with adults. It was like seeing a glimpse of the man he is going to become” (Source).
Clever Girl.
“I live with my dad and my 9 year old daughter. I sometimes go to the gym at night and tell my daughter to brush her teeth while I’m gone. When I get back she shows me a video on our tablet of her brushing her teeth as proof. A few days ago I realized that her hairstyle was slightly different in the video, and I figured out that she had simply prerecorded herself brushing her teeth in several different outfits. While I was fairly impressed at this, I kept a straight face and explained to her this was not ok” (Source).
Spelling It Out.
“I got an xbox one on the weekend and after finally setting it up I sat down to play and my 1 year old toddled over and stood up and promptly switched it off and then came over and held up a book. Ok, ok, message received, we’ll read a book” (Source).
Storage Wars For The Win.
“My then-kindergartener started a black-market ring at his YMCA aftercare. I was informed by the very upset staffer that he had brought a bunch of nerf darts with him and then recruited several other kids to sell for him. He then kept most of the proceeds, with his ‘agents’ getting a small cut. He also had other kids bring more nerf darts from their own home, which he would buy at a small rate then have his agents sell for him. This apparently went on for a few days before it was discovered. I was pretty freaking impressed, but I had to act all surprised and angry for the benefit of the aftercare director. I asked my son how he had thought of this scheme, and he told me he learned it from watching Storage Wars. He said he knew he would eventually get caught, because some of his agents (who had been caught) were, in his words, ‘too weak-minded to keep quiet.’ I think he might have been a drug kingpin in a past life” (Source).
Those MacGyver Skills.
“Put a hole in the wall of my room. Repaired it by painting the back side of some photo paper and gluing it to the wall. My dad was fairly upset when he found it about 2 years later, but later admitted that my MacGyver repair job was impressive” (Source).
Great Big Brother.
“My son was 2 at the time. He bumped into his 1-year-old sister and knocked her over, said ‘oh shit,’ then patted her on the back and said ‘sorry.’ My son has high-functioning autism and is mostly non-verbal. I had a serious internal struggle with telling him not to say that word because that is still, nearly 2 years later, the closest to a legit sentence he’s said. To clarify, I didn’t reprimand him. My husband and I just couldn’t bring ourselves to do it. He was in the midst of Early Steps and being over-the-top encouraged to communicate and we didn’t want to compromise that in any way so we actually clapped and praised him for being sweet to his sister. He now has 2 little sisters and goes out of his way to give them snacks and cups first and is an amazing helper” (Source).
You Win This Round.
“Daughter likes to read in bed after lights-out. Having had similar habits as a teenager, I know all the tricks myself. So a war of maneuver ensued. She’d turn her lamp on, I’d see the light under the door. She’d block crack under the door with a towel, I’d look for fabric under the door. She’d huddle under a blanket with a flashlight, I’d listen for the sound of pages turning. This back and forth struggle went on for awhile. One night, I went out on the deck to cover the grill; turns out I can see her window from there. Aha, a suspicious glow! So I went into her room — note she was thirteen or so at the time — and busted her. ‘Okay, hand over the light.’ So she sighs and hands me… a hand-made circuit powering an array of LEDs. Now what’s a proper propeller-head father to do? Disobeying the rules is straight out, but, but… for science! ‘Okay girlie, you win this round. Put on a twenty-minute timer and then that’s it, savvy?'” (Source).
Can’t Argue With That Logic.
“When my oldest boy was about 4 years old he liked to visit the toy section whenever we were at the Walmart. This time he starting asking to have some of the toy cars. I told him no, that I had to buy those, and they cost money. Did he have any money? No, he didn’t. Fast forward to a week later and we’re at the store again, looking at the same cars. He again asks to have one. I tell him again that they cost money and unless he had some money, he couldn’t get one. ‘I have money!’ he says confidently. ‘Really?’ I asked. He then pulls out of his pocket about 5 dollars in coins (this is Canada, so that’s not so many coins). ‘Where did you get that?’ I asked. ‘Your pocket,’ he replies. I clue in that he stole my money and was about to get pretty angry when I realized that he didn’t even know that what he did was wrong. He needed money for the cars, so he simply acquired some money. I still didn’t let him get the car, but I was someone impressed by his reasoning. Good opportunity for a lecture on stealing, too” (Source).
All About Teamwork.
“When my brother and I were teenagers, we got onto an argument one day when we were home alone. I was running up to my room to get away from him but by the time I got to my door and started to shut it, he had braced himself against the hallway wall and stuck his foot in my doorway so the door could not be shut all the way. I pushed and pushed until we heard a horrifying crack of a cheap hollow door. The crack was about a foot long. We looked at the clock and realized we had about an hour before my mother got home. They had recently taken a door out of the mud room, so we went to the basement (after writing and signing complete confessions of the incident incase we got caught so one of us couldn’t flip it on the other), got that door, thanked sweet baby jesus the hinges were on the right side, and would have gotten away with it if she hadn’t come home early. (Cue us looking super guilty holding while forcing a hinge screw in place). We did eventually finish. When she recounted the story to my father that night, he was like, ‘so wait, they stopped fighting and used teamwork to reinstall the door? I’m not grounding them! That’s awesome!'” (Source).
No Kid Can Resist A Happy Meal.
“This made my parents proud. In 1st grade (6 years old), I loved anything military. During art class, I started drawing ‘war’ pictures. It was school policy to have a child meet with the guidance counselor to discuss why they were drawing violent images. The thing was that these meetings took place at lunch, and the guidance counselor would bring in a Happy Meal for the child. I immediately made the connection and started drawing more war pictures to get the free McDonald’s. When my mother was finally called into the school, I was forced to admit my scheme. The counselor was embarrassed, and my mother started laughing immediately” (Source).
A Simple Anagram.
“My 16 year old son and his buddies decided to call their dodgeball team ‘Snipe’ so that they could ‘accidentally’ stand in front of the whole school with their lettered t-shirts spelling out penis. Such a proud mom, I was” (Source).
The Inappropriate Poem.
“When my husband was in 2nd grade, he wrote a poem. The teacher found it. Confiscated it. Sent it home. His parents had to sit down with him and tell him this was unacceptable language for school. When they tell the story now, they said it was the hardest thing to keep a straight face. They still have the poem saved: When I was young I had no sense. I took a whiz on an electric fence. It hurt so bad it stung my balls. I took a dump in my overalls” (Source).
He Knows His ABC’s.
“Funniest thing lately my 4 year old getting in trouble at school for doing push ups during learning time. Asked him why he said he was bored he knew all his Abc’s and wanted to work out like mommy. He also got in trouble for standing on top of the urinal in the bathroom and peeing in to it. His teacher was even impressed he didn’t make a mess” (Source).