‘What’s something you did as a kid that terrified your parents?’ – 17 childhood fails that put our folks through the wringer

Kids often come across as really brave, mainly because they’re not aware of how fragile their mortality is and their bones appear to be made out of rubber.

This means their parents look on in terror 24/7. Elsdotcom wanted to hear about the scariest scraps kids put their parents through by posing the following question to r/AskUK users:

‘What’s something you did as a kid that was, in hindsight, terrifying for your parents?’

And they even kicked things off with their own traumatising tale:

‘We had a rope swing in the garden, I told them I wanted to put my head in it and let my whole body swing instead of sitting or standing in it. It was promptly removed.’

Buckle up mums and dads, these are the top replies…

1.

‘I was about 5 or 6 when I got some superman pyjamas complete with cape and everything, convinced I could now fly. I was caught by my mum sitting on an upstairs windowsill preparing to jump.’
-RabidBadgerFarts

2.

‘I used to peel my parents’ eyes open and ask if they were awake.

‘Also talk about people they couldn’t see about the place.’
-the-TARDIS-ran-away

3.

‘Managed to sneak away from them in a busy shopping centre as a kid. This was right around the time of the Bulger thing. They alerted security and it caused a whole fiasco.

‘They found me playing with Lego in the Lego shop.’
-Shtifff

4.

‘I’d dig the equivalent of the channel tunnel whilst on the beach.

‘I’d dig a really large and very deep hole, deep enough that I had to build sand steps to get out of it.

‘Once I’d decided it was deep enough, I would work on the side tunnels, which were only big enough to crawl in. There would be at least a metre of sand above them.

‘In hindsight, even I’m terrified at the thought of them, and I’m genuinely shocked I didn’t get buried alive in a tragic cave-in or drowning.’
-cglotr

5.

‘I used to sleepwalk into my parent’s bedroom and just stand by the bed and stare at them’
-Apprehensive-Pop1266

6.

‘Oh you know just deciding to go into cardiac arrest as a baby, and toddler, and just as I start school… No big deal 😂’
-FanWarrior1730

7.

‘Swam in the quarry our school held an annual assembly specifically warning us about. In hindsight the assembly was basically an advert.’
-Optimal-Emu1248

8.

‘We were walking up Ben Nevis. I decided to run off ahead and through the cloud coverage. Gave my mum a panic attack. I’m not scared of heights, so I can see how scary that was.’
-BaBaFiCo

9.

‘I fucking loved Calpol as a kid, I thought it tasted like stars. My parents kept it and all the other medicine in a cupboard above the sink in their ensuite, which wasn’t locked because a) it was too high for me to reach and b) they didn’t imagine I’d be stupid enough to break in and take anything.

‘They were wrong on both counts, because when I was about three or four I managed to climb up on to the sink, open the cupboard and down an entire bottle of Calpol. They had to take me to hospital to get my stomach pumped.’
-changhyun