“I Still Don’t Understand”: 35 Of The Most Petty Things Adults Have Ever Done To Children

In grade four, a teacher gave us a few questions before lunch break and expected us to answer each of them correctly right after the break was over. A classmate couldn't get a few answers correct so the teacher made him walk to each bench and get a slap from each student present in the class.

Thinking about the incident now, I feel like going back in time and beat the s**t of that horrible teacher.

When I was young my mum was best friends with one of the neighbours down the street, who also had a boy the same age as me. As a result I played a lot with said boy and was encouraged to be best friends with him. Whenever my mum wasn't around though, his mum was a complete b***h to me. She would come out to where we were playing together and shout at me for some minor trivial thing. If we were both doing something bad (only minorly bad, we were not bad kids) she would blame it all on me and never reprimand her son at all.

This was all when I was like 7-10 years old and so I couldn't process it at all and had no idea how to react and it really got to me. I found out years later she was basically jealous because I was doing much better at school than her son and she wanted to 'take me down a peg'. Ultimately the son and I ended up going to different secondary schools and drifted apart, which meant that fortunately I stopped having to interact with her.

Our mums are still good friends and she has always been pleasant to me as an adult (she even did the flowers at my wedding), but even 30 years later I still keep her at arms length because of how unfairly she treated me as a child.

I was 7 or 8 years old, living in a certain US state where the vast majority are of a certain religion - I am not of the same religion.

I was playing outside with all the neighborhood kids and one of the parents came outside and told everyone that her child was having a birthday party next week and we were all invited ... “except you” as she pointed to me. And it was absolutely because I didn’t go to church with them.

I finished a clay sculpture in art class and the teacher asked if I wanted to go to the principals office (in a way that implied I would be in trouble) for poking holes in the leftover clay I had. I am guessing she did this because she was in a bad mood. I told her I did want to go explain exactly what I did wrong. She realized how dumb she would look. I did not go to the principals office that day.

I was a chubby kid, so when I was 12 I decided I would go for runs around the neighborhood, at dusk so people wouldn't stare at the fat kid so much. On the second or third run, some guy walking his dog unleashes it and sics it on me for s**ts and giggles. And calls it back just before it gets to me.

I stopped going for runs after that.



Edit; For everyone asking, this was quite a while ago and I did eventually get back into running a few years later. Even ran a half-marathon a while back.

My dad's drunk friend smashing my 7 yo face into a bowl of whipped cream. You know the old trick, "smells funny doesn't it ?"

Yeah, funny enough to have my nose broken with shards of ceramic planted in my nostrils !

In cub scouts, we were doing the pinewood derby. I worked really hard on my car, (my dad helped, of course). I had already won the first 3 rounds, and before the final round, one of the dads of the of the other kids picked up my car to hand it to me. It “slipped” out of his hand, and broke the wheels when it hit the floor. I’m convinced it was not an accident, and he was sabotaging my car so his kid would win.

This was over 30 years ago, and I'm still salty about it.

When I was probably around 8 or so I was at a baseball game with my family. Naturally I was hoping I’d be able to get a ball and one of the players saw me in the stands looked directly at me and threw a ball to me. Then some guy probably college aged proceeded to reach over my shoulder and snatch the ball before it got to me. I turn around and he and all his friends are laughing and celebrating. Almost 20 years later I’m still a bit salty about it.

Confiscating my phone for a whole week for listening to classical music while studying.

I have horrible handwriting. I have forever, no amount of intervention or practice has helped. When I was in 5th grade, my Social Studies teacher seemed to take a lot of pleasure in constantly reminding me of how awful my hand writing was. We used to have to bring out notebooks up for her to check our homework. I dreaded this so damn much. She would hold up my notebook so the whole class could laugh at my handwriting. I'm grown now, that was a long time ago, but I still hate to have hand write anything that other people will see.

When I was like nine or ten, I was rollerblading home from my mom's work, right? And I'm heading down 4th Street, and I find something like 16 dollars on the ground--a ten, a five, and single--just laying there on the sidewalk next to some outdoor seating at a cafe.


Being the obnoxiously nice kid that I was, I pick it up and kind up look around, wondering if anybody lost their money.


That's when the lady in the weird sweater vest comes around the corner. We make eye contact and I tell her I found this money, and she goes, "Huh. Let me see it." And my naive a*s is like, "Oh yeah, that makes sense. She's a *grown up*, she can sort this out."


She looks around, hands me the single back, puts her finger to her mouth in a shhh! gesture, THEN SHE JUST F***S OFF, NEVER TO BE SEEN AGAIN.

Grounded me for leaving a hanger on the dryer

Then extended it for reading while grounded

Then further for sleeping when told I can't read. S**t still pisses me off years later..

When I was ten, an aunt told me to "stop eating so much, or you'll get fat like your parents and sister". I believe that was the first time I've ever wanted to clock someone.

P.S. that aunt was 100 pounds heavier than either one of my parents at the time, and is close to 200 pounds heavier now, while both of them have lost 75+.

More indirectly to me, but when I was graduating high school my aunt asked me which of my late grandfather's rings I'd like as a graduation gift, along with a card/a little cash. I told her I really appreciated the offer, but jewelry just isn't my thing and that I felt like it would be wasted on me (I do have other items passed down from him). She said ok no problem and I thought that was that.

Graduation came and went and a couple weeks later a few family members are over for dinner. Well I'm standing talking to another aunt (her sister) and she walks over to us and hands me a little box. At this point I know what it is and even though I had respectfully declined before, I decide I'm going to open it and give a "wow! great thank you!".

I open the ring's box and before I can get a word out the Aunt I had been there talking to absolutely LOSES IT. "Are you F##×ING KIDDING ME? You give THAT ring to HIM?!!". Yelling at her, yelling at me, making a huge scene. Guess that ring specifically was one she had made known she wanted. I look to my aunt who gave me the ring and she just couldn't hide the little smile on her face.

So the extreme pettiness was really between my two aunts, and I felt like I was basically set up/used as a tool in the whole situation. Would have felt bad for my other aunt, but tbh most of her anger was directed towards me. She did apologize days later. Should mention I had a few friends over as well witnessing this. Just super embarrassing for me especially since I had zero interest in the ring.

My swimming teacher promised me a candy bar if I jumped off the board when I couldn't swim and when I did they said they forgot ,but I saw them eating one in the lounge. I was 5 and I was betrayed.

Another thing that swim teacher did instead of teach me to swim was to try and teach the group how to keep their eyes open underwater and see. We all had goggles and had to take them off to do this.

Also I didn't learn to swim there I ended up learning at a hotel on vacation when my sister taught me like a year later.