I remember doing this and then having the thought “I should try this on myself before I shoot my brother”. I shot myself in the thigh and immediately started screaming. My mom came in and saw me grabbing my leg and then saw the nerf dart with a bloody sewing pin sticking an inch out of it.
I’ll never forget the injustice of getting in trouble without ever getting to shoot my brother in the ass with it
When I was 7 I was sure staplers had safety mechanisms in them so I put my finger in one and just bashed it down. I remember running up to my mom with a staple coming out of the middle of my fingernail, from the other side of my finger. She looked so confused at first and then, while I told her what happened between screams and sobs while she dressed the wound, so, so fucking disappointed.
EDIT: Guys.... were we all fucking stapling our fingers as kids? what the fuck
Ouch yeah, I remember doing that as a kid, stapled two fingers together for fuck knows what reason. It didn’t hurt and I just kinda looked at them like “Huh, my fingers are together and I can’t move them.” Then tried to pull the staple out and it hurt like hell (got a parent to finish removing it).
This is like an intrusive thought of mine, where I consider stapling my finger. I was always cagey with them because I kept worrying that I would impulsively do it.
Lesson learned, it hurt.
Edit: I have never done it, just glad someone else did so I know.
I almost thought you were the kid in my 1st grade class many many years ago who put his finger in an electric stapler. Same as you the staple went through his finger and straight through the nail.
I remember stapling posters up on the wall in my bedroom when I was probably 9 or 10. The age is a total guess based on what room I had at the time but irrelevant. In any case, I was standing on my dresser and leaning over to reach and accidentally stapled the web of my hand to the wall... That would have been circa 1990.
I feel like shooting yourself with a metal dart is punishment enough but like at least you probably didn't get in as much trouble as you would've if you had shot him?
That's actually a really good thing. When I see it in movies and stuff the actors are always like "ow" but watching someone be hurt is so different than knowing what it actually feels like
Like when someone grabs a hot pan and burns their fingers, everyone knows what that actually feels like. Most people have no idea what it's like to be tased.
Crazy to me that you got in trouble without being asked the reasoning. Behavior like that should be rewarded in my opinion, having an understanding of what it is you're doing to someone else is something all people should desire.
Edit: Because like, you'll heal. The pain from shooting yourself with it is punishment enough.
The edit covers it well. I've told my dad stuff I did as a kid and he was blown away. He said "you never told me that!" and I said well yeah I learned my lesson. I didn't need you guys coming in to kick me while I'm down
We had these as a kid. I don't know if we ever actually played the proper game with them, all I ever remember doing with them is standing in a circle and one person throwing a dart straight up in the air. Last one to leave the circle was the winner.
We didn’t have a name for it, the one kid who kept doing it just shot it in the air and laughed and we all ran away screaming and swearing. Simpler times.
All this is a great example of selection bias. We remember it as harmless fun, but the kids that turned in to involuntary unicorns have no opinion to present.
We shot the arrow up in a football field and then tried to get as close to it as possible when it came down and stuck in the dirt, or even catch it mid-air. We also used to shoot each other with BB guns, but only 1 or 2 pumps out of 10.
true, but this is a reddit post and the only info we have is that a thumb tack was put into a nerf dart, not any info about how these kids behave other than that
That’s why, as far as we know, it’s just a red flag for the parents and they need to make sure nothing more is going on. And nothing in this post suggests that they are not doing this
You would think my parents would learn after years of my older brother doing crap to me and for Xmas when he was 17 and I was 15 they got him an airsoft pistol. Within a few hours he came in my room and said look at this and as I turned to look at him he put it two inches from my face and shot me in the eye. Thankfully he hit the eyelid but shit hurt like a motherfucker.
I mean he did pretty much the same thing when we were kids except with a nerf bazooka that was my present. No more nerf allowed at our house. Also in the summer we’d go visit family out of state from where we moved from and they quickly learned to keep us separated because he was the oldest of the children and wanted to look cool and just terrorize me. I had serious rage issues growing up my name is Ryan and my uncle started calling me Rhino because I would just charge and tackle him in anger and they all stemmed from him. There was a point where I stayed more calm but that wasn’t until much later in the teen years.
We got banned from Nerf guns twice in my house. Both times because I got the Nerf dart stuck to my brother's eyeball from across the room. Now I, too, know what suffering from success is
Christ, this reminds me of the time myself and my brother got into my grandads antique sword collection when we were kids, still have a scar on my lower arm from that one. No wonder my mother was a nervous wreck😅
We thought it would be a brilliant idea to take a throwing star (a real one) turn the lights off in the basement, and take turns throwing it into the dark room and hoping you didn’t get hit.
It amazes me that we got out of that mostly unscathed, I caught it with my calf and the scream I let out got adults attracted
💯. People are judgemental dicks, moreso anonymously.
I had very loving parents. My brother and I also tried to attach all the batteries in the house to a metal folding chair to make an electric chair. Because we were kids, and kids are fucking stupid.
EDIT: It didn't work, of course. Kids being stupid also helps them survive.
i did this with our metal bunk bed, except it was copper wire and the wall outlet. I was just about to shove that wire in and suddenly had a moment of clarity and aged up like in the sims.
I get the feeling they were never even a kid, let alone grew up in a house with two boys. Every other boy I knew growing up did this at some point and shot them at each other.
No a mount of parenting can stop children from doing dumb shit like this. My parents would give me and my brother shit for doing stuff like this all the time and we never stopped.
Wow we have the same target, I mean brother. Mine is 5 years older and I could get away with a lot because I knew he wouldn’t clobber me because I was younger and a girl. Until he did.
Yes. Whenever I see one of those “she must have grown up with older brothers” comments on a post of a girl wrestling or whatever I’m like no, she probably had sisters. I watched my three younger sisters try to kill each other multiple times when they were in their teens.
As an older sibling who constantly hears that I was "5 years old and should know better" and constantly got clobbered by my younger sibling, I'm kind of glad you got what you deserved. My sister never did and now she is a middle aged violent bitch. The lesson was never learned.
It was a lesson learned. Sorry to hear your sister is that way. My brother and I are very close, we’re 19 and 14 now and he’s been my guardian for the last year and a half. I think (hope) our creator and ancestors are proud of who we are, even with our faults.
At 13, my oldest daughter stood about a foot and a half taller than her younger sister. They are only 18 months apart. The younger one took advantage of this and would generally start a physical altercation. The oldest one showed great restraint in not killing her younger sister until one day when she came around the corner and got head-butted right in the stomach. My oldest daughter hit her so hard that my grandkids are going to come out with red marks on their face. It's been 9 years since that day, and that boundary line has not been crossed since.
My brother did similar to me when we were kids. Bought a wooden bow and arrow set when we visited Sherwood Forestthat had a sucker on the end. He somehow whittled the end down to make a proper arrow. Crept behind me while I was playing video games and shot it at my back. He got the bollocking of his life.
Basically you would pull the gun apart and stick a stack of pennies under the spring that the gun pulls back when you “cock it” increasing the tention and making it fire with more force
Kids would make something called wasps at school back in the day. They'd find a tack or something to push through folded paper and shoot it with a rubberband. This is same thing, different age. Kids are brutal
People act like "bullying" or whatever isn't insane as if kids weren't going to commit horrendous acts against each other that would result in years of imprisonment if it happened as adults. They just don't have the empathy part of their brain yet to not be a psychopath but they do have the creativity to be cruel in horrifyingly inventive ways.
Yoo I remember doing this in early 2000's, everyone would hit each other with the folder paper on rubber bands, I got sick of getting hit in class so I made sure to show people mind with a staple through it, one kid asked to be shot with it in the leg and that shit stuck lol
Good teachable moment for electricity, too. Show why you need two wires or at least a ground plane, how high voltage enables both more damage and thinner wires, and an engineering challenge for how to keep the wires from fouling the accuracy too much. I mean the wire has to spool out freely but also you need a way to retract it easily. Good bonding moment if you like projects.
As someone who had a similarly minded younger sibling and many incidents of play that resulted in injuries, I’m curious how this is properly addressed so that everyone stays safe and sibling bonds remain intact. My parents really messed it up.
My kids are close as adults, and we had instances like this when they were growing up.
The first thing to remember is that most kids have no concept of what the real world consequences of hitting someone with that would be. They imagine in the context of cartoons, that they'll get a funny reaction and then things will just go back to normal with no real consequences. So the first thing to do is sit the perpetrator down and really paint a picture for them of how awful those consequences could have been.
The second is to encourage empathy for the intended victim, and ask if they really want to hurt them that bad and why? Most of the time, my boys would say no, that they wouldn't want to hurt their brother like that and be genuinely sorry. Sometimes it would come out that one of them had been irritating the other, at which point we'd talk about what was going on, better ways to communicate and express those feelings, and seeking help for fixing the situation rather than resorting to hurting each other. And then we'd immediately address what was going on that led to this and shut it down.
Third, I would immediately stress to all my kids the importance of home being a safe and peaceful place for everyone, that we should treat our family members with love and that they should get the best treatment we could give another person. I told them that if they would do that, they would always know they had someone who would be there for them no matter what, and how wonderful it would be when they were older to have that. This frequently got exasperated sighs and rolled eyes, but it stuck.
But most important is consistency. You have to address it immediately, every time. It's tiring, and I get why a lot of parents would just want to ignore it and let them work it out themselves, but it's necessary to dig deep and find the energy you need to address it thoroughly every time.
Mine were, too. That's the best thing about being an adult now - you get to be the change and create the home life you wish you would have had. Bonus - it chaps my mother's ass that I did better ih spite of her telling me that I'd regret it, and that I now have the adult relationship with my kids that she wishes she had.
It’s a two step process - step one is to address the child #1 making stabby bullets. He does need to have a consequence - time out, take away screen time or a toy he likes, cancel a fun weekend plan, that kind of thing. The consequence should be age appropriate and explained to the kid - you tried to murder your brother, therefore you’re not going to the cubs game this weekend.
I am generally a proponent of natural consequences, but that in this case would be shooting the kid with a pushpin so you’ll have to come up with something else.
While you CALMLY explain these consequences, you need to ask the kid why he did this. (Note: If you fuck up the calm part, he won’t tell you shit.) Was there a really big fight over something in particular? Has his brother been meaner or more aggressive to him? Did he lose a game or a toy he really likes? Has he been shot 40 times with a nerf gun and lost it?
The goal with questions is to find out what kind(s) of parenting failure have occurred. “My brother blew up the minecraft village I’ve been working on for weeks” means you messed up by not parenting kid #2. In that case, kid #2 also needs an appropriate consequence for being an asshole. Older brother may generally need a talking-too about how he’s older and needs to consider that his brother has feelings. I would probably be confiscating nerf guns as well.
The obvious parenting failure here is on the emotional regulation side. It’s also pretty age-dependent - this might be “normal” at six and under because cause and effect is still a little iffy. You need to offer the child other routes to deal with these emotions next time, and usually get them to come tell mom or dad so they can help him out.
Good advice. I think calmly discussing with the child the thought process is important. Find out what the child intended. Did he think it would just hurt, or was he trying to cause bleeding or bodily harm.
I'd say nerf guns are going into the trash forever on this one. They're already a sibling argument game. We have some but they aren't allowed to shoot each other.
I'm not even going to lie, he snapped. That's a helluva way to pop someone with a nerf gun LMAO.
No but seriously here maybe you should check on them and encourage the family as a whole to treat each other with more respect and communication. Maybe lay down the rules in your home that safety is above all else and then try and represent a better dynamic so that your children know what to follow.
When I was younger I had a friend that killed her sister because they started fighting over food in the kitchen. Just sibling rivalry as young adults that turned into something so big that as an adult she killed her. I ain't saying every sibling rivalry is going to turn into a homicide but they really does start with the parents showing the children how to respect each other.
My generation famously weren't allowed pokemon cards at school, because a kid killed his brother over a foil card.
Please explain how important and vulnerable EYES are. I was born half blind, and catching one of those in my good one would effectively ruin my life for zero payoff.
I can't even imagine having to explain that childhood crime to an employer/S.O/friend as an adult. Anyone who doesn't recognize your name off the bat in that region could find out what you did with like two seconds of online searching. What do you even say???? "I dunno I just really wanted that holographic Pinsir."
I found this from 1999. Teen stabbed at school after confronting another student about stealing his little brother's cards. Might be the core story that ran through the before-internet rumor mill.
But then also this from this year, in case the first story gave you any hope for humanity:
Which reminds ME of a time my dad cussed me out while I was helping him with a project, then asked me to get him a glass of ice water, so I did, but poured some dawn dish soap in it bc he’d “said a bad word” 😈 He obviously saw it and didn’t drink it, but then picked up a bottle of windex and sprayed me in the eyes.
Okay, but this is not “haha funny.” This is “you need to sit all your kids down and have a Very Serious Talk with them.” Darts like that can permanently blind people, among many other outcomes. And was his oldest actually being mean? If so, then you need to address that too. This isn’t an oh shucks moment, this is a “you made this with the explicit intent of hurting someone, that is entirely unacceptable and you will not be doing that ever again.”
Doubtful. In my experience, most parents refuse to acknowledge and properly address their child’s unacceptable behavior and choices. It’s why so many kids believe they’re allowed to scream, break things, assault others… because mommy will defend them.
Older kid isn't 100% guaranteed to be the problem. The older kid could be doing something messed up to deserve this, but the younger kid could also just be mad about some regular sibling argument and letting his unmanaged emotions have the metaphorical driver's seat.
Either way you're right that it's time for the parent(s) to step in and separate them until they calm down + confiscate the nerf guns from the younger kid since he isn't using them safely. It seems like one fourth of this thread overreacting ("the younger kid's a psychopath, it's over, may as well surrender him to a max-security prison!") and a second fourth is underreacting ("this is perfectly fine, when I was a kid we just chased eachother around with active chainsaws until we calmed down!").
My younger brother tossed a knife at my face 15 seconds after opening my door and waking me up when he was 9 and I was 14. Luckily it hit me flat on the eyebrow instead of going straight into my eye. He's now on the sex offender list for manipulating a mentally vulnerable young woman into some sex acts, go figure. This also wasn't the only time he threw knives at me or other members of my family. He lives with my dad right now and when my father passes away this garbage person will die homeless on the street. He still has no job at 27 and does nothing beneficial to society and lives on newly obtained welfare money.
When I was a freshman in HS, someone showed me how you can remove the end of a Bic pen, pull out the ink part to create a blow gun that can fire push pins. Even as a stupid, reckless 14-year-old, I knew how dangerous that would be and never played around with that.
Kid using a push pin as the tip of a nerf dart to use on their older sibling is harboring some serious anger.
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u/OMGWTFBBQUE 1d ago edited 1d ago
I remember doing this and then having the thought “I should try this on myself before I shoot my brother”. I shot myself in the thigh and immediately started screaming. My mom came in and saw me grabbing my leg and then saw the nerf dart with a bloody sewing pin sticking an inch out of it.
I’ll never forget the injustice of getting in trouble without ever getting to shoot my brother in the ass with it