People have been sharing the genius parenting hacks from their parents and grandparents – 17 surprisingly useful tips

When you’re a kid, it’s easy to feel like your parents are idiots and that you never want to be like them when you grow up. As the years go by though, your opinion might start to change.

That’s because some of their quirky habits might actually have been clever parenting in disguise. To find out what this looks like, Green_Candler put the following question to r/AskReddit:

‘What’s something your parents or grandparents did that you now realize was low-key genius parenting?’

Pay their ideas forward by making note of these top replies…

1.

‘As a child bedtime was 8:00. But my mom would let you leave the light on until 8:30 if, and only if, you were reading.
Helped the kids settle prior to falling asleep. And promoted reading.’
-Tipitina62

2.

‘My grandmother has secret hidey holes around her house for all the grandchildren. I would come see her and she would tell me she had something for me in my special spot. My spot was a drawer in the entry table. Sometimes it would be a Barbie, sometimes a few quarters, sometimes a piece of candy. It made us all feel special and like we were the favorite.’
-AndiArch

3.

‘We three kids scoured the damn house looking for Christmas gifts and never ever found them. I found out as an adult that my mom hid them in the empty Christmas tree box- it always just sat on the same shelf in the basement and we never even considered it as a hiding place!’
-lokeilou

4.

‘My Mom was super strict and I wasn’t allowed to watch basically anything that didn’t include vegetables singing about Jesus. My Dad thought it was ridiculous but kind of let the parenting up to her; however, that kind of changed in high school when I was frustrated that all of my friends were watching South Park and I wasn’t allowed.

‘Since Mom went to bed early on weeknights, Dad started inviting me to watch it with him after she went to bed. It was our little secret and some of my best memories were of just chatting about life with him during the commercials. He knew what was going on with all of my friends and would even ask for updates like “so what happened with Emily and Kara? Did she find out about the thing that happened at lunch?” As a parent myself now, I get it that it was never about South Park. He just understood that I was a busy teenager who didn’t have a lot of time for my Dad but our secret South Park Wednesdays were how he got me to slow down and spend time with him. I’m glad I did. Easily some of the best memories of my teen years (and he also did a great job of pretending like he didn’t know the tea about all of my friends when they stopped by the house so I give him a lot of credit for that too).’
-littleirishpixie

5.

‘My grandmother used to make me “help” her with cooking but really she was just having me do all the prep work while she told stories. I thought I was being useful little assistant but she was actually teaching me life skills without making it feel like chores. Now I can cook proper meals and I still remember all her stories about family history. She basically tricked me into learning everything I needed for adult life while spending quality time together’
-FortuneEducational94

6.

‘I was a worrisome and often scared child, and my mom would manage my fear of bugs by telling me that any bug I pointed out to her was a “baby” bug. Baby spiders in the basement, baby bees outside, even baby worms in the ground. I immediately lost my fear of them, as I thought they were just little babies whose parents were gone. I even started talking to the “baby” spiders in the basement, reassuring them that everything was ok. Genius.’
-Eshlau

7.

‘When I was a kid and we would take road trips we’d play “the m&m game” and my parents would have me see how long i could keep an m&m in my mouth before it dissolved—had to buy less candy/kept me quiet’
-KitCat161

8.

‘I realize this definitely comes from a place of privilege, but was still very clever.

‘When I got my first job at 15, my parents encouraged me to save some of my paycheck. Of course with me being 15, my parents had full control of my savings account. Every month, we would take my paycheck (which was a literal paper check that had to be deposited at the bank. This was 2006) and my mom would say “ok, you made $96. How much do you want in cash and how much do you want to put in savings?” Most of the time I only wanted $20-30 for spending money with my friends. Rarely did I ask for most or all of my paycheck.

‘Maybe about 5 years ago (when I was literally 30) my mom admitted to me that my parents always deposited my entire paycheck into my savings, and then gave me the cash themselves. Since I thought it was my own money that I was working hard for, I was smarter with it. Unless I had something I really wanted to buy, I usually saved most of it. But all along my parents were padding my bank account for my future, and secretly giving me their money to spend. They wanted to give me spending money because they could afford to do so, but did so in a way that made me more responsible with what I spent and saved.

‘The best was she said most of the time it was no big deal, but it definitely killed her a little bit inside when every once in a while I was like “I’ll take the whole $106 this month” lol’
-MissFox26

9.

‘They broke chores down into simple tasks to do everyday. We were allowed a snack, but we had to get started within 30 minutes. We’d spend maybe 20-40 minutes max on chores every day, with the weekend being saved for “big” chores like bathroom cleaning.

‘It saved us from having to scramble all weekend cleaning or making it really easy to clean up if we wanted to have friends over. It also kept things fairly predictable, with repeat chores like dishes or vacuuming every other day. As an adult, it was really tough to implement at first because I was suddenly doing all of it myself instead of splitting with siblings, but breaking down chores to do right when I get home makes weekend cleaning only last an hour or two instead of playing catch up the entire time.’
-Train_Lanky