I’ve made a lot of mistakes on my parenting journey. There’s no shame in getting it wrong sometimes, but there are certain parenting mistakes that will cost you dearly. If you’re not careful, you could end up losing valuable time, money and your sanity.
Here’s a few that you must avoid:
Leaving your glasses or phone in your child’s bedroom
The bedtime routine is complete. You head downstairs, proud of yourself for managing to get both children into bed on time and rub your hands together excitedly.
There are two or three precious hours to spare before you have to go to bed, wake up and do this parenting malarkey again. How should you spend them?
You decide to watch a movie, look around and are horrified to discover that you’ve left your glasses or phone (or worse – both!) in your child’s bedroom.
The only option is to sneak upstairs and tip-toe to your child’s bedroom, trying desperately not to make a noise. If, like in our house, you have creaky floorboards, this will be a big challenge. Then there’s opening the door, which is also a massive challenge when your door handles make the loudest noise ever.
At this point, you must locate your lost item as quickly and as quietly as possible. If it’s your phone then good luck with that, because you won’t be able to use your phone torch. If you don’t, then you risk waking your child. This in turn increases the risk of waking up the other child.
Which will result in you having the do the whole bedtime routine again and you can kiss your valuable evening time goodbye.
Buying the wrong food or drink
When in a café or restaurant, ask your child at least twice if they are sure that they want the carrot cake. Asking only once will increase the risk of your child complaining about the cake/drink/sausage roll that THEY wanted. The food or drink item will be rejected and your money will be gone.
I should make it clear that this mistake is quite hard to avoid. No matter how many times you ask they will still complain that they don’t like carrot cake AFTER you’ve already bought it, despite them insisting that they wanted it. Why do kids do this?!
Giving your toddler the wrong trousers/coat/any item of clothing
This is, without a doubt, one of the biggest parenting mistakes. Giving your child the wrong coat/trousers/any other clothing item could result in an almighty tantrum. Even if it’s the one they asked for. If your toddler is anything like mine, he will decide that he doesn’t even need a coat at all, despite it being freezing outside.
And he’ll later complain about not having one, despite him insisting that he didn’t need one, which often results in this:
Present your toddler with more than one coat before you leave the house. If you can help your toddler choose the right coat (and it won’t be the right one, because he will STILL complain that it’s the wrong one despite insisting that’s the one he wanted to wear) then you MAY (very likely won’t) decrease the risk of a tantrum.
Let’s face it, there’s no way of ever getting this one right.
Giving your toddler the wrong colour cereal bowl
See the coat situation above.
Asking about your child’s day at school
Don’t bother. All you will get is a grunt in response. Don’t even think about asking what they had for their school dinner either. They won’t be able to remember, despite only eating it a few hours ago.
Leaving your phone/laptop/other expensive item lying around
Without a doubt one of the biggest parenting mistakes. You pick up your phone and notice new photos in your gallery. You open them and are met with huge close-ups of your 3-year-old’s face (taken at an angle where you can see right up his nose).
Lovely.
No matter how much you try and avoid leaving valuable items around, small children always manage to somehow seek them out. Once a phone or laptop is on display, toddlers immediately lose interest in their toys and start trying to explore the shiny, expensive electronic item in front of them.
So whatever you do, try and remember to put your valuables (and any extension leads!) as far away from the kids as possible! And don’t bother buying them a toy replica of a mobile phone, tablet or laptop, because they will lose interest in it after about a week and start trying to seek out the real thing.
It’s not a total disaster if they manage to get their hands on other, less expensive household items though, such as a wooden spoon or a plastic container. These can be beneficial!
Sit down for five minutes
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you can sit down and grab five minutes to yourself with a nice hot drink. Once your arse hits the sofa, a red light will go off in your child’s bedroom alerting them to the fact that you have made an attempt to sit down and they will immediately come downstairs and start demanding a snack or drink. Or will need a poo. Your hot drink will end up being microwaved at least three times.
Be alert at all times and don’t ever think that you will have time to relax.
That time will come in the evenings.
Unless you make the first mistake on this list.
