25 Times Kids Did Something “Wrong” And Made Their Parents Proud

One undeniable truth about kids is that they keep life interesting. Whether they're angels or little mischief-makers like Dennis the Menace, there's always something happening. Sometimes, though, what seems like the wrong thing to do turns out to be quite heartwarming. In a recent discussion on the 'Ask Women' community, sparked by user 'VisibleCoat995', parents shared stories of their children doing technically "wrong" things that actually made them proud. It's a reminder of the unpredictability and wholesomeness of parenting. Scroll down to read some of the Reddit users' answers and discover just how eventful life with children can be, and how surprisingly heartwarming their "wrongdoings" can turn out to be.

#1 My daughter (6 at the time of the incident) was at school during swimming class. She was sat on the side of the pool as instructed by the teacher, who needed to assist a visually impaired student. An older boy (9 at the time) stood over my daughter, making extremely rude comments about her and kept trying to show her his genitals. She couldn't walk away, so she punched him in the d**k.

She's always had quite the temper, and must have been very angry, because the boy was taken to hospital for extreme bruising and swelling, and so was my daughter because she broke 2 bones in her hand, and needed a cast. We've since signed her up to martial arts, I figure she needed to learn how to punch without injuring herself. Image source: imjustheretodisagree

#2 Had a daughter constantly getting paired up with a kid who was failing while everyone else got to choose their partners. My daughter started just doing all of the work and turning it in. The teacher noticed and got on her for not teaching the kid how to do the work. My daughter told her “when you give me part of your paycheck I’ll do part of your job”. While I’m glad that she spoke up for herself, I told her that we don’t talk to teachers like that.

Image source: ZetaWMo4, Pixabay/pexels

#3 My son punched a bully at his school after ignoring him for a few days and the bully never stopped until he finally grabbed him so my son snapped. He got suspended. I was secretly proud of him.

Image source: diaperedwoman, Mikhail Nilov/pexels

#4 He hit a guy picking on a young woman wearing a hijab. It happened in high school. He got suspended for three days. I told the principal he was a moron and he had suspended the wrong kid.

Image source: Tushdish

#5 During my daughter's 4th grade parent teach teacher conference, her teacher informed me she was teaching the other girls in the class about menstrual cycles. The teacher asked me to put a stop to it. To be clear, my daughter hadn't had the full sex talk yet, but I had taught her and her sister about how their bodies worked, in case either of them were early bloomers. When she was in high school, we became the safe haven for pregnancy tests, plan b, condoms etc... for her friends.

Image source: green_mms22

#6 Broke a boys finger because he tried to put his hand up her skirt.

Image source: Pizza_pan_, Mikhail Nilov /pexels

#7 My sister got suspended from school for dacking a guy (pulling his pants down) in front of everyone. Later we found out it was revenge for him using a mirror to look up girl’s skirts. ?‍♀️ We were all proud of her.

Image source: JazzlikeHomework1775, cottonbro studio/pexels

#8

Image source: SnookerandWhiskey, Alena Darmel/pexels My kid constantly invents "problem solvers", but since he loves paper, they are mostly made out of paper and upcycled stuff. Everytime I complain or even sigh, he comes up with a solution. This week I have gotten: a tile cleaner (a box with a sponge that can be attached to the tile and when I pull a string it wipes), a hot cup hand protector, a coffee machine that brews the coffee cold (yes, he invented the cold brew, just with a milk carton) and today he programmed his lego robot to respond to my egg timer noise and drive up to me to poke me, because I often don't hear it with the headphones in and almost roasted the potatoes too dark yesterday. It's all so useless, but I am so proud.

#9 My 17 year old daughter is deaf, has a cochlear implant and does very well with herself. She took sign language as an elective course to learn what she missed out on growing up learning to speak. the teacher treated my daughter like c**p, letting her know that she was a “disgrace to real deaf people” my daughter had enough, flipped her off, saying “here is some sign language for you” and left the class. I told her she can’t talk to her teacher like that but I was so proud deep down LOL.

Image source: Signal-Promise-921, Liza Summer/pexels

#10 Kicked a doctor for trying to touch him without consent.

Image source: Next_Firefighter7605, Los Muertos Crew/pexels

#11 14yr old son changed overhead projector slides (after his teacher approved them) for his ELA group project to screenshots from his classmate and other students in the school. The text were from the night before calling him names and telling him repeatedly to unalive himself. This particular group has been relentless. His presentation was based on an animal project. After a few slides he says “you guys wanna see what real animals look like” and proceeds to let the whole class read them. He respectfully apologized to the teacher and said I’ll see myself down to the principals office now. I was proud, pissed, and sad.

Image source: LadySith80, Joe Flintham/flickr

#12 Our neighbour had asked my son (who was about 9-10 years old) to help her bring some logs inside her house. No compensation mentioned. He was back, on his own, about 15mn later. Apparently the neighbour was calling him lazy and telling him he was not working fast enough (for free). So he left her and her wood and came home.

Image source: CauliflowerBoomerang, Дмитрий Пропадалин/pexels

#13 She saw two younger students getting beaten up by a group of senior kids. Everyone watching (recording on phones) with no one intervening. She (and her friend) jumped in and started defending these younger kids. Threw a few, copped a few, put some on their a**es. Teachers finally intervened. Because there was so much video evidence, she was not given any form of suspension/punishment. She didn't even know the kids being attacked. She just knew it wasn't right. Took the, "never start a fight but but god be the one to end it" a little out of context lol. Am proud of her for sticking up for people who weren't able to, but still a scary thing at the time.

Image source: storm_in_a_tea_cup

#14 My oldest was taking the classroom part of Drivers Ed online at the tail end of Covid. He’s a bright kid and a fast reader …he got through all the material and passed the tests quickly. However, they apparently require a certain number of hours with the material in addition to passing the assessments to get the certification to move to the “on the road” portion of the class. So he wrote a script that would click around and advance the screen automatically to hit the hours requirement. I loved that he figured out how to code something like that for such a dumb requirement. Work smarter not harder!

Image source: Semi_Nerdy_Girl, Christina Morillo/pexels

#15  Kid, who was 9 at the time. We had an insufferable pediatrician who constantly talked down to both me and my kid, while also not actually helping us in any way. At our (ended up being) final appointment with him he asked my son a question about school, and then interrupted his response to "correct/argue" what he thought my son was saying (which wasn't actually at all what he was saying) . My son was so done with this guy by this point and gave him a full on death glare, and *lost his s**t* on the dr. Just absolutely let the dr have it with an angry, long, detailed list of everything he disliked about him, what he should do instead of assuming he knows everything (primarily listen more and talk less), and then finished up suggesting the dr find a different line of work since he "clearly isn't able to pay any attention to anything his patients think". He suggested being a talk show host or something. ? It was the most horrifying and yet satisfying experience. First time the dr was actually silent. Made our excuses and GTFO.

Image source: flippantcedar, cottonbro studio by giving them a small donation./pexels

#16 When my daughter’s high school student leadership (of which she was a part - freshman class president) decided to stage a walkout to demand action on school shootings, some of her friends told her they wanted to participate but their teachers were saying they would not be allowed to leave the classroom.

Image source: aimeed72, Max Fischer/pexels She asked if they meant they would face suspension or other discipline? Her friends answered “no our teacher said we wouldn’t be allowed to leave no matter what.” My daughter said “that’s not okay, you aren’t a prisoner, if you want to leave and are willing to accept the consequences, the teacher cant lock you in." Then she said that anyone who wanted to participate but needed moral support should message her and she would personally come to their classroom and get them. She collected several kids who were too afraid to defy the teacher and walk out, but who wanted to join the protest. We had had many a long discussion about civil disobedience in our home on various occasions, and she was fully informed and prepared to take responsibility. I was so proud of her I was fit to burst.

#17 My daughter back in 7th grade had a friend (male) who had his hair pulled back into a ponytail. A couple of bullies were walking behind them and kept pulling the boys' ponytail and calling him names. Ponytail told them to stop but they kept on. My daughter, having seen quite enough, turned around and punched one of the boys right in the face, closed fist and all. She told the boy if he had kept his f*****g hands to himself she wouldn't have had to punch him.

Obviously, I was called to the school for a meeting with the principal, the bullies mom, and ponytail's mom. They tried to suspend my daughter for 2 weeks but her friend defended her. 2 hrs later, the bully ended up with a week's suspension, and my daughter received 1 day. Do I encourage violence? Absolutely not. But my kids know when and where to defend others who can't/won't defend themselves. I'll never forget that day. I was so proud. Image source: dessertisfirst

#18 Probably a common one, but the time he changed our alarm clocks and the clocks on the ovens to 3 hrs early on Christmas Eve. He had us up at about 3:30 am. Was quite proud as I didn’t know he knew how to change either of the clocks. He was 6.

Image source: Lumpy-Sir-9457, cottonbro studio/pexels

#19 My daughter had a boy who was coming up to her at recess and screaming in her ear. Yard duty and teachers did nothing to help. So I told her to stick a piece of bark in his mouth. And she did! When he came up to her the following day she picked up another piece and said "you want another one?" No more issues with screaming bully boy. I was so proud.

Image source: HelIi0n

#20 My brother fought a kid who was bullying and shoving his best friend who had mobility issues. The principal told him not to do it again while winking over my brother’s head to my mother.

Image source: JustRgJane, Mikhail Nilov/pexels

#21 In middle school. A bully at my kid’s school told her that she was going to Hell because she has lesbian moms, and that she should just die now. He said something about sinners not deserving prayer too. She responded, “You should pray my mom doesn’t steal yours from your dad. F**k off.” This happened in front of the class and teacher. Both were sent to the office.

Image source: thesebreezycolors, cottonbro studio/pexels When the school called, it was clear admin was not upset with my kid, but couldn’t tolerate cursing. Issued a warning. My wife and I took her for ice cream when she got home and told her to never stop standing up for herself and those she loves. I warned that cursing at school was against the rules and so by all means to keep up the sick burns, but maybe clean up the language.

#22 I’m not sure if what my daughter did was technically ‘wrong’ - actually I think it was perfectly correct. Last October her English class was given an assignment to write a horror story for Halloween. Well, my daughter wrote one hell of a story.

I want to be clear the story wasn’t about a school shooting or actively harming a specific person - it was actually about the passive horror of our society and the existential horror of poverty. I won’t go into details, but it was very well written and descriptive and well and truly horrific.  She had to do to a lot of research to get the details correct in her story. I was actually really proud of her, she knocked that assignment out of the park. Her teacher and the school admin, however, were not impressed. They thought it was too horrific. My husband and I got called in, they wanted to know how a 13 year old girl would write a story like that - the teacher said it was too horrific and not at all what she expected when she gave the assignment.  They even wanted our daughter to go to counselling! We both pushed back hard on the school, she did nothing wrong, she understood the assignment! Anyways, she got an A but I doubt she will be in that teachers class ever again. . Image source: stone_opera

#23 My daughter got in trouble on her 2nd day of kindergarten bc she kicked a boy who [took out] a moth on purpose for fun. My little animal rights activist lol.

Image source: Vegetable-Pollution2, Ksenia Chernaya/pexels

#24 So not my child but my little sister(12) she’s always been my responsibility. These girls were picking on her, cornering her in the bathroom, kicking, pinching, pulling her hair, you get the picture. One day she has had enough and the main girl comes up behind her, slams her water bottle on the ground and kicks my sister. So my sister walks up behind her as she’s trying to walk away and just smacked the ever loving s**t out of the other girl.

on a separate note my sister has been doing gymnastics since she was 5 and is VERY muscular so when i said smacked i mean the other girl literally fell into the wall. needless to say they both got suspended from friday til monday but im proud of my lil devil, she just like me fr?. Image source: EducatedCow99

#25 My eldest briefly went to daycare one day a week when he was about 1 and figured out their child locks, a type he'd never seen before, within a day of being there. He caused absolute mayhem in the baby room by unlocking one cabinet and opening it up for the other babies to have at. Then while the staff were trying to get the other babies out of the cabinet, put all the contents back and relock it, my Incarnation of Pure Chaos was busy unlocking another cabinet. Rinse and repeat until they had an extra staff member come and keep my child at bay while the others rounded up babies and relocked all the cabinets.

Image source: littlestinky, Lisa Fotios/pexels When I was told what happened at pick up, I didn't know how to respond. I was a mix of concerned, proud, trying not to laugh and embarrassed. But mostly proud, ngl. I spent that walk home from daycare wondering what I inadvertently unleashed upon the world.