6 Things That Make You A Bad Parent

We’ve all been there – received a disapproving look in the supermarket for shouting at your child or using bribery to get them into their car seat.

Or maybe you’ve read an article online about how not to parent your kids and thought “Oh bugger, I did all of those today!”

Oh my god I forgot I had children.Here are just a few of the things I’ve done that count as socially unacceptable parenting…

Screen time

Yes, I give my 5-year-old the iPad so she leaves us to sleep past 5:30 am every day. Yes, I let her use it when I’m cooking dinner or tidying up. And yes, we have used it in restaurants so that we can finish our food in peace. Do you know what, we even have a DVD player in the back of the car to keep her quiet – best invention ever.

Sugar Rush

There are constant articles about how terrible sugar is for kids and I am in total agreement with all of this. However, it’s really hard to find snacks without tons of sugar in them. I’m afraid I’m not the kind of mum who bakes sugar-free treats (or bakes at all actually) or can persuade my daughter to ‘snack’ on raw vegetables. I do give her biscuits after school or a packet of sweets to sit in the trolley quietly, and Jamie Oliver would probably have a fit if he looked at the sugar content of the yoghurts and cartons of juice in her lunchbox.

Posting photos of tantrums on Facebook

I recently watched a couple of mums commenting on a photo on Facebook (someone else’s thank goodness) about how embarrassed this poor child would be if they saw the picture their mum had posted – it was a child lying on the floor having a tantrum. I personally found it really funny and it definitely made my daughter look more normal. I’ve uploaded photos of my daughter in the middle of a ridiculous meltdown before and I’ll probably do it again – after all sometimes if you don’t laugh about it you’ll end up crying!

Moaning about your kids

This one kind of goes hand in hand with the above. I’ve found that a lot of mums will never say a bad word about their little darlings for whatever reason. I learnt quite quickly that if you dare utter a negative word at a baby group about your child you’ll soon be outcast from the ‘popular crowd’! So I stuck with a few like-minded mums instead, we moaned about our kids and felt a whole lot better when we went home.

Bribery

Another parenting method that gets you a few frowns from ‘those’ kind of mums. I’ve used bribery since my daughter was small and I’ll probably still be using it when she’s a teenager. I agree it’s not the best method but if I can get her in her car seat/to walk to the car/be quiet for the price of a chocolate biscuit then I’m winning.

Drinking alcohol before 7pm

Sometimes a day is that bad that you just have to open the wine before the kids are in bed. It’s definitely not socially acceptable, and it won’t win you any Mum of the Year awards but if it stops you wanting to put the kids up for sale on eBay then I’m all for it!

Everyone will have their opinions on the best ways to parent and sometimes you just can’t win. I’m firmly of the belief that happy mum = happy kids, so if any of the above ‘bad parenting methods’ save your sanity then go for it.