Lessons Toddler Parents Learned The Hard Way

Experience may be the best teacher, especially for parents of young kids. Sometimes you think you’ve got something under control, or you have the best of intentions, but the plan still blows up in your face. Huff Post asked parents of toddlers to share the things they’ll never do again after learning from their mistakes, here’s what they have to say.

  • “Tickets to ‘The Nutcracker’ were expensive, and my daughter was terrified of the ‘large rats’ onstage at the beginning of the show. We had to leave immediately, and I gave the tickets to two teens outside the venue.”
  • “I left a permanent marker on the counter after doing some labeling, and my toddler son found it and drew on our couch and wall.”
  • “I would never have introduced them to the show ‘Caillou.’”
  • “I took my 3-year-old to a wake where she said, ‘Hey! What’s that lady doing sleeping in that toy box!’”
  • “I will never again buy anything containing glitter or confetti.”
  • “Once my kids learned to walk, they no longer had an interest in sitting in shopping carts or strollers. They were ready to just go! I remember, for a time, I would try to get them to sit in the cart, but when I changed my mindset to finding ways to have them participate in the shopping trip instead of sitting in the cart, life got easier.”
  • “It was an outdoor funeral, in summer, during the heat of the day, at nap time. Beyond regret getting talked into that one, but grief skewed my logic and I got guilted into bringing my toddler so Grandma could ‘show her off’ one last time. I’ve learned to trust my instincts significantly better after that.”
  • “When I was a kid, literally every restaurant I went to had [some] coloring menus and crayons. Unfortunately, as a parent, I assumed this was standard. Turns out, I was wrong. Now I always come prepared with a backup plan: a cheap coloring book and a set of washable markers or colored pencils in a Ziploc bag. I keep it in the car [and] toss it in my purse on the way in to almost anywhere. Why not crayons? Because they will melt in a hot car in the summertime.”
  • “I would never make slime, buy slime, anything slime.”
  • “I would never again feel guilty about everything I was doing ‘wrong.’ In hindsight, I did just fine.”

Source: Huff Post


Sponsored Content

Sponsored Content