There are certain moments that moms and dads have when they’re raising their kids where they say to themselves, “I’m gonna wring that kid’s neck…BUT, that was also pretty clever…”.

You know you’ve done it before! Don’t try to lie to us!

And these parents on AskReddit were nice enough to share these kinds of moments with the world.

Let’s see what they had to say!

1. Scammer.

“In the 3rd grade, my son had not moved to advanced classes yet, and was just breezing through classes and work. He wasn’t shy either and would keep yelling out the answers in class before the teacher could call on other students.

The teacher decided to try to quell this by giving him three sticks. If he shouted out an answer when she didn’t call on him, he had to surrender a stick. If he did it with no sticks left, he had to skip recess.

The very first day she enacts this clever plan, she goes on teaching and asks a question and my son immediately pipes in with the answer, proudly hands her a stick and says “I get two more, right?””

2. Beach party!

“My daughter, when she was 3, decided to take a vase filled with decorative sand and pour it all over the wood floor, set up a reclining chair, put on sunglasses.

We walked in and got really upset at first because of the sand all over the place, and when she saw our faces, she looked up at us with this heartbroken voice and said, “I wanted to pretend I was at the beach!”

We were still upset at the mess, but she was being creative and honestly didn’t know it was wrong. We gently told her that we understand, but this needed to be a one time beach trip and not to dump the sand again.”

3. I bet that was trippy.

“While I was out at a rehearsal for some weird performance art, my kids, then 14 and 11, collected all the money and spare change off my dresser and in my bedroom and then the entire house and took the bus downtown and somehow managed to buy tickets to the Roger Waters “Dark Side of the Moon” concert.

They called me at set break and were like, “so yeah, we stole all your money and we’re at the Roger Waters concert, just thought we should let you know in case you got home and freaked out cuz we weren’t there, gotta go, second side is starting now.”

I was like, well, why didn’t I do that?”

4. You’re being watched…

“She used her tablet to secretly record me so she could figure out where in the kitchen I was hiding the candy.”

5. Little sh*t.

“When my son was about 3 or 4, he was going through a phase where he refused to sleep in his bedroom alone. It was a nightmare.

I could NOT get this kid to fall asleep in his bedroom. It was a battle every single night. One afternoon on a weekend, he was messing around in his room and kept messing with the doorknob. I told him to stop, he’d keep keep messing with it.

I finally snapped at him, “If you don’t stop messing with that doorknob, you’re going to lock the door and mommy’s going to have to call maintenance and that won’t be any fun.”

About five minutes later he comes running down the hallway… and in that cute little baby voice.. “uh oh mommy!!! i accidentally locked my bedroom door!” then he put his hands up in the air in the oh well motion and said, “I guess I can’t sleep in my bedroom tonight.”

Little sh*t. LOL”

6. Out of sight, out of mind.

“My middle child is lazy ninja. He stays in the basement and plays PS4, and stays out of the way. Meanwhile my 2 girls are constantly around, leaving their stuff everywhere, asking for things, and complaining when I ask them to help around the house.

My son never complains, but the best part is he never leaves stuff around. It is in his room or in the basement, and he keep both fairly neat.

He has become an expert at “out of sight/out of mind”.”

7. Crossing the line.

“We live in a duplex with a driveway on each side that are connected in the back.

Our 3 year old was playing in his car on our side and we told him not to go past a certain point because we didn’t want him going in the front yard where we couldn’t see him. So instead, he goes back to the carport where the driveways connect, goes down the neighbor’s driveway and into the front that way.

He never actually crossed the invisible line we created, so I couldn’t get mad. But a new line was created soon after.”

8. Plotting against you.

“When my twins were really really young, like they had just learned to walk, they would work together to get things they wanted.

One day, I walked from the back of the apartment to the living room to find one son crouched on all fours and his brother standing on his back unlocking the dead bolt on the front door. They were getting ready to waltz out of our 2nd story apartment while I was using the bathroom.

Two things I learned that day: kids are way smarter than we give them credit for, and never shut the door to pee when home alone with crafty toddlers.”

9. Proud, but…

“When our 4 year old misbehaved, we’d confiscate a toy for a week. The toy would be placed on top of the fridge. One day while we were distracted entertaining some friends in our backyard, our kid snuck into our kitchen.

He built an enormously unsafe tower of boxes, stool, & chair in an attempt to climb on to the fridge.

I was extremely proud of his problem solving abilities, but I made sure not to express my pride with praise or encouragement since the whole project was an exercise in breaking our rules.”

10. Done with school.

“My kid was 6 and decided he’d had enough schooling.

Day 1: he locked himself in his bedroom and we had to use a screwdriver to take off the doorknob and get into the room.

Day 2: he woke up earlier than anyone else, gathered every tool, or potential tool, in the house, and locked himself in his bedroom.”

11. Kleptomaniac.

“My boyfriend sent me a text the other day that said “I think our daughter is a Klepto.”

He tells me that last week he took her to the Auto Parts store to get some stuff he needed, and our 2 & 1/2 year old daughter developed a fascination for some kind of tool with a long bendy neck and a mirror at the end. She kept trying to hide it from him, and he kept putting it back.

Finally, she asks him if she can carry her diaper bag, so he gives it to her. Fast-forward a week later…. And he finds the thing in her bag. He said he didn’t know if he should be proud or angry. (Back story… Years ago, before we had her & got our lives straight, we were quite the shop-lifting team.) We both, of course, had a talk with her about having to pay for things before you could take them home from the store.

And, we will both be watching her a lot more closely from now on. (Though, to be honest, it wouldn’t have happened if she was with me… She’s got her dad wrapped around her little finger.)”

12. Chip off the old block.

“My 4 yr old son kept u asking us if he could have this sucker. We said only after dinner.

He disappears upstairs to play and we are making dinner… bed time comes and he drops his Lego between the bed and the wall. Move bed to retrieve Lego, and not only do I find the wrapper for the sucker but also 3 other candy wrappers he’d stuck there.

I quickly realized that I used to do something similar as a younger kid.”

Now it’s your turn!

In the comments, tell us about times when your kiddos have done things you didn’t approve of but you thought were really clever.

We can’t wait to hear from you, friends!