When the bribes don’t work, the tantrums keep coming, and even screen time won’t keep your kids entertained, where do you turn?
Well, parents are nothing if not innovative, as proved when mum-of-two Michaela asked her TikTok followers to share their unconventional tips to keep little ones in check.
‘Give me your most unhinged mum hacks,’ she said in her viral video. ‘I need the craziest hacks of the 21st century.’
And, boy, did the internet deliver.
Think you’ve tried every parenting tip in the book? Think again…
Taking the weekend off
We teach our little ones everything they know — but we can be pretty selective with which nuggets of wisdom we choose to impart.
Mum-of-three Jade Petry commented: ‘Told my kids if they go to school all week they can have the weekend off.’
It’s pretty genius when you think about it, and she’s not the first to use this particular method either.
‘I used to do this when it came to school holidays,’ said another. ‘Be good at school for two weeks and you can have a whole week off. They loved it, until they realised.’
Get inventive with snack time
Any parent will understand the need to have just a quiet five minutes to themselves.
And mum Sara has come up with a brilliant way to get a moment alone.
‘When I need 10 minutes, I sprinkle [cereal] puffs on the floor in the living room so she can eat them like a chicken,’ she wrote.
Sara adds that she calls it ‘chicken time’, but clarifies that they live in a pet-free home which is vacuumed daily, and no shoes are worn inside. We love the creative thinking.
Other mums revealed similar alone time hacks: ‘If you want some peace from kids I tell them, “Mum’s gonna lay down for a few mins and I need you to make sure I get up in 10 mins so we can clean.” They’re going to leave you be for a while.’
Potty training
Potting training is quite the hurdle, and can leave parents tearing their hair out. But again, the internet has a hack for that.
‘Told my first that he could have candy too (M&Ms) whenever the baby used the potty. He basically potty trained my second because every five to 10 minutes he’d ask her if she needed to go potty,’ wrote @kw_aesir.
Another mum added that it probably helped her younger child ‘not regress’ because they didn’t want their sibling being the only one to get sweets.
Lie detectors
Lying is bad… until it isn’t.
‘I told my toddler his ears turn red when he lies… so when he’s lying he covers his ears,’ revealed a commenter.
Another said: ‘We used to “go in the bedroom and watch the security camera footage” to see who was lying. We were lying. We didn’t have cameras, but they always confessed.’
The best of the rest
There were so many tips and tricks shared, that we had to give a few extra honourable mentions.
One mum was inspired by a popular fairytale: ‘We did Cinderella Sundays. Cleaned all morning then they wore their princess dresses to our fancy candle lit dinner followed by dance party “ball”.’
Another shared: ‘Gave my daughter a bag and told her to “go shopping” for toys at our house. Five minutes later, she had picked up everything off the floor and put it in her bag.’
Lastly, there’s the daughter who remembers her mum’s clever trick. ‘My mum hid all my dolls and stuffed animals and said they ran away cause my room was dirty, and they sent a “postcard” from another kids clean room,’ wrote @Sasha. ‘I cleaned it and they returned.’
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