40 Parents Share How They Tried Teaching Their Kids Life Lessons, But It Didn't Go As Planned

Taught my daughter that whining and begging doesn't get her what she wants. She needs to make a logical argument. I now live with a 12-year-old lawyer who is really good at making me change my mind on house rules

Told kids that if they were bad they would get coal in their stockings on Christmas. "What's Coal?", they asked. Well, it is a rock that you can light on fire. They now want coal.

When I was about 2 years old my family was at a game in Angel's stadium. My mother went to the restroom and left me and my siblings with my dad. While he was busy watching I wandered off. When they eventually found me I was halfway around the stadium. A crowd had gathered to watch as a police officer held me out at arm's length while I screamed "call the police, this man is not my daddy" over and over again. My parents had taught me stranger danger but forgot to teach me what police look like.

Taught my now 16-year-old to always compliment people who insulted you. We were in a Burlington Coat Factory in Michigan when my mother was shopping for a bathing suit to take to Florida. There were few to choose from, so she was complaining. My kid was 4.

A woman tried on pants and said something rude to my mom who was asking my opinion and my daughter caught on that my mother was agitated. She squeezed out behind me and told the woman,

"Your teeth are such a pretty yellow!"

My dad tried to implement the whole you MUST eat ALL the food on your plate in our house during meals. My mom was never a fan of that lesson, but my dad was stubborn so she just let it go. Well, one day my sibling had 2-3 bites of food left on their plate, and was very clear that they were absolutely full and couldn't eat another bite. Dad wasn't having it and insisted they could not leave the table until all the food on their plate was gone. My sibling realized they weren't going to convince our dad that they were too full and finished the last few bites and then proceeded to vomit on the table and our dad. He stopped enforcing the rule after that.

My youngest boy would never listen, and he was always totally fearless. He was also always really lucky. Damn near every time either of us told him "don't do that, you're going to get hurt", he would do it and then not get hurt. So we ended up teaching him that when we said not to do something, that probably meant it was a fun thing to do. I remember really hoping that he would fall and break an arm or something non-life-threatening or disabling like that so he would stop constantly giving us heart attacks, which is weird to say as a parent but it never happened so it doesn't matter anyway. He never got anything worse than a small scrape or cut that could be cleaned and covered in five minutes before he was back at it again. Looking back I'm just glad this was before there was anything like Jacka** around to further encourage that s**t.

Now he's a stunt man for movies. Can't say I'm surprised.

When my daughter was 10, she wanted to try out for a community theater version of Beauty and the Beast. She got nervous though, and almost backed out, because she was so sure she wasn't going to make it.

My husband, who did some acting in high school, stepped in and said that he would also audition, even though he knew he was never going to make it. He wanted to demonstrate to her that it's okay to audition for something that you don't think you're going to make.

She ended up not only just making it, but she got the part of Chip. My husband got the part of Maurice, Belle's father. He didn't even want to be in a goddamn play

A coworker of mine was trying to teach her kid the "don't talk with your mouth full" rule. Instead, the kid just spits out their food when they want to talk.

Children are the absolute masters of malicious compliance.

My kids were begging for a pet. I don't want to take care of a pet, and I told them that they don't clean up after themselves without me hassling them, so why would they clean up after a pet without me hassling them. Told them if they could keep their room clean for 6 months without me telling them, they could get a pet.

The youngest child proceeds to clean the room, then moves clothes and a sleeping bag into the hallway and locks his door so his room can't get dirty as he sleeps in the hallway.

Not a parent but when I was around 12, my father suspected that I stayed up late playing video games, 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.

Told my children repeatedly that if I found any more 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.

Read a book that suggested you ask your kid what an appropriate punishment for misbehaving would be and then carry it out. 6 yo son pinched his brother or something, so we asked what an appropriate punishment would be. He said, “pluck out my eyeballs and throw me over a cliff?”. We didn't follow through. And stopped reading parenting books.

Not a parent, but as a child, I noticed my sister was writing her name on the walls when she was drawing on them with crayons. Taking on the role of Helpful Big Sister, I informed her if she was going to graffiti things she shouldn't write her name and give herself away.

A few weeks later, she was carving patterns into the wooden desk in the study and carved my name into it instead.

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

Not a parent, but I work in a school.

At my school we have a lot of kids with learning disabilities (more than in your average school, as we have a special program for it and get special funding), so one of the first lessons of the school year is "everybody needs different things to learn, and if somebody is getting something different from you it's because that's what they need to learn at school." You know, a kid-friendly way of explaining accommodations.

Now, the usual accommodations we offer are special chairs/wiggle seats, extra breaks during the day, and extended testing time and tests were taken in a quiet room. One kid, however, has decided to take the 'everyone learns differently' lesson to heart and now talks in a fake-British accent (I live in America btw) all day. Because 'it helps him learn.

Then all of the other kids started talking in fake accents.

I taught them about democracy. Now everything’s a vote and when they don’t get their way they call me a dictator.

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.

My wife tried to explain the concept of heaven to our 5-year old after great-grandpa passed. My daughter did not believe one ounce of it. She responded, "you're making that up mommy, you can't be in heaven and a cemetery at the same time".

My parents tried to start a chore/payment system around the house. There was a list of chores and then payment for them.

"Clean guest bathroom...$1.50. " First, I just kept using that bathroom, so it needed cleaned daily. Basically got paid to poop. They stopped that after the first week.

Next, I realized it didn't say WHO had to do the cleaning. I'd pay the neighborhood kids to do it instead. I'd give them $1 to clean the bathroom and pocket the $.50. I did that one for like, 3 weeks before the other parents found out and I got yelled at.

One of my 5-year-old twins was still having occasional accidents because she would get so caught up in playing/doing something else that she just wouldn't go and would pee her pants. To combat this we would give her a special prize of some variety when she wouldn't have an accident. This, in turn, caused her twin sister to START having accidents so she could get prizes for not having accidents (even though she was fine on this front beforehand.) We had to rethink our methods.