• pregnancy & baby
• parenting
• horoscopes
• health
• beauty
• food & drink
• diet & fitness
• more ivillage
  • • Travel
    • Entertainment
    • Home & Garden
    • Relationships
    • Work & Money
    • Shopping
  • • Competitions
    • Dating
    • Quizzes
    • Newsletters
    • Kalimocho.co.uk
    • Wii Fit Plus
  • 

Our guide to being an embarrassing parent

Whether it's singing loudly in public, doing the birdy song at a wedding, telling embarrassing stories about your childhood or calling you 'Poopy' in front of your friends, we've all got horror stories about how our parents used to show us up

We thought this was a rite of passage for every child, but according to a new survey, only a third of teenagers polled described their parents as embarrassing. We got together a celebrity panel, a teenager and a 'normal' mother to discuss the findings and to get their tips on how to embarrass teens, being a cool parent and how to get through the teenage years.

Comedian and actress Arabella Weir has two children and she knows exactly how to embarrass them. 'I went through a phase of not wearing knickers and my daughter would say "mum please tell me you're wearing pants today?" She thought the whole world was somehow going to know that I wasn't wearing pants. So now if I'm trying to wind her up I just tell her I'm not wearing any pants.'

This is quite a novel idea, but you don't have to go to such extremes to get your kids red faced. Fifteen-year-old Alex Bello says that parents trying to talk teen slang in front of their kids and their mates is pretty embarrassing, as well as blasting really naff music from the car when you're picking up or droping off your kids – hip-hop, classical, techno and metal are a no-no and head banging is definitely not cool.

But, he says, the worst offender is when your mum gives you a spit wash, i.e. licking her thumb and wiping dirt off your face. We can see his point.

Celebrity chef Phil Vickery has to drop his kids off round the corner from their school in order not to embarrass them and he definitely can't shout anything out the window when he drives past them.

However, Arabella suggests shouting out of the window really loudly as you drive past: 'Don't forget to wipe properly, those stains will never come off, wipe front to back.' Eleven per cent of the teenagers polled in the survey agreed that this type behaviour was embarrassing.

Our 'normal' mum Lynn Llewellyn-Jones, who has two teenage children, thinks there's nothing worse than a parent trying to ingratiate themselves with their children's friends. 'It's just cringe-worthy,' she says.

Whether you try to embarrass your kids on purpose or genuinely don't realise you're doing it, it often doesn't take much and, says Arabella, a new thing can embarrass them every day.

'I've always kissed my boy when he's waiting in line to go into school and two days ago he said: 'Don't ever do that again'. It's a fresh thing every day, you're being you and then suddenly you've done the most embarrassing thing.'

Teenagers' top most embarrassing parent behaviour:

• Shouting or telling them off in public
• Treating them like a child
• Trying too hard to be cool in front of them and their friends
• Wearing embarrassing/uncool clothing
• Telling bad jokes in public
• Shopping at uncool shops
• Calling them by their nickname in public
• Singing in public
• Talking to their friends
• Acting like a teenager in public
• Kissing them in public
• Dropping them off or picking them up from outside school
• Getting out the photos of them when they were a child
• Dancing in public
• Telling stories about when they were a child
• Hugging them in public
• Talking to them in public

read more:  1 |  2 | next printer friendly send to a friend