Kids tipping and teetering chairs

[blondeviolin]

This is a horrible habit my older two (11&9) have picked up. If I catch it, I make them stand. You'd think they'd want to sit, but nope. What sort of things have you employed to prevent this?

 

ETA: It's something they do mindlessly...

Edited October 3, 2017 by blondeviolin

[Elizabeth86]

 

 

Sometimes, experience really is the best teacher.

Thats what I was thinking, at this age especially. I could see if thet were small.

[lllll]

nm

Edited October 11, 2017 by lllllll

[Sandwalker]

This is a horrible habit my older two (11&9) have picked up. If I catch it, I make them stand. You'd think they'd want to sit, but nope. What sort of things have you employed to prevent this?

 

ETA: It's something they do mindlessly...

I yelled "4 on the floor" and if they did it again, they sat on the floor.

[solascriptura]

My ds broke 4 chairs this way. My dd started dioong the same thing so I bought the two offenders a bench with no back.

[Selkie]

You could do what my second grade teacher did whenever she caught a kid tipping back - yell, "You're going to crack your head wide open doing that!" 

[sassenach]

We got exercise balls to sit on and do school work. We still have one at the computer.

[wintermom]

I think I stopped doing that as a kid when I fell backwards.  I guess I needed to be the one to "pee on the electric fence." ;)  I would have LOVED an exercise ball. I'd have too much fun to actually eat at the table, though. 

[Tanaqui]

Get rocking chairs or exercise balls to sit on. Seriously, life is too short.

[nixpix5]

I let them do it until they fall. Every child I have has done it or does it. Right now my only teetering kid is one of my 6 year olds and he almost fell out of his chair last week. It scared him a lot and I haven't seen it since. One of our chair legs was loosened once by it and I just had him come up with a plan to fix it and then help do it. I agree, life is too short to stress certain things. Natural consequences are always the best teachers anyway and causes internal learning as opposed to being externally focused on making sure we don't teeter in chairs when mom is present (but do it when she isn't around) which is what happens most often.

[Mommyof1]

My DD4 has been teetering/flipping (or trying to) since she was in a high chair. It doesn't matter what we did, it wouldn't stop her. She would just laugh if she flipped herself over.

[Julie Smith]

Your child sits.  :scared:

 

I'm just laughing since Youngest went to a teen group event. (It's actually for grades 8 to 12. But they let him join since his brother and best friend are in the group, and enrollment was low) Today they had to sit for 50 minutes. Afterwards Youngest insisted they ran the 1.5KM uphill home since he had never sat so long before. I did point out that he has sat that long before when tied down (in the car) but he said that doesn't count. 

 

For the most part we only have computer room style chairs, so you can't lean back incorrectly on them. So I can't offer you any advice. 

[KatieJ]

My DH still does this. 🙄

[alisoncooks]

Oh my word! My 9 yr old has been doing this so much lately! I honestly don't mind, except we have cheap chairs, and I'm afraid she's going to snap the leg off one.

[Guest]

My daughter and I teach K at church. This is an issue every single week. Last week I suggested we not use tables and do all our activities on the carpet. The kids loved it, and it kept me from having to quietly remind them "four on the floor" a million times. I think it may be of norm, because I hate worrying about them cracking their heads.

[OneStepAtATime]

Exercise balls/mini trampoline/rocking chair/indoor floor balance beam/gymnastics/martial arts/dance...

 

Seriously, tap into those skills and hone them.  :)

 

DH still does this, by the way, and he also balances really well on two wheels using a wheel chair...

 

[Seasider]

We don't have much of the problem...

 

However, I have VIVID memories of my next sister down, she was probably like 5ish. She had fallen on a rock and hand stitches in her head with a giant bandaid. I note that because, that's what I see falling backwards as she tipped her chair back too far and fell backwards, bashing the back of her head against the counter behind the table resulting in more stitches on the back of her head.

 

 

Sometimes, experience really is the best teacher.

And I have been tempted to stretch my foot over, unseen under the table, and help them fall over. For experience, y'know.

 

But I could never intentionally harm my kids, so I resisted the temptation. I sounded like a broken record for years, though, reminding them to keep the chair legs down. Honestly, at times I thought it was totally subconscious on their parts, like they didn't even realize they were doing it.

[Seasider]

My ds broke 4 chairs this way. My dd started dioong the same thing so I bought the two offenders a bench with no back.

Brilliant!

[blondeviolin]

Yeah... our table is counter height so yoga balls don't work. They don't fall often, and even when they did, it didn't teach my 9yo. ...but more than one chair has become unsteady or broken because they're rocking them at joints that shouldn't be. Normally I wouldn't care, but I don't want my chairs damaged.

[Tanaqui]

Yeah... our table is counter height so yoga balls don't work.

 

They sell cushions that go on chairs, so it's like an exercise ball... but on a regular chair. That might curb some of the wiggliness.

 

[myfunnybunch]

I reminded them. A lot. Or I'd just walk behind them and gently push the chair back to four legs and say "I like your head the way it is."

 

A couple times one or the other fell over while tipping, and stopped doing it for a while.

 

They're in their teens now and mostly don't do it any more.

[heartlikealion]

My DH still does this. 🙄

 

Sorry but this made me laugh

 

[Arcadia]

My cousins and nephews have broken many stools as well. Even benches can be tipped. The only chairs and benches that were not tipped were the stone benches and the metal/wooden chairs that were bolted to the ground.

 

The librarians and library security guards have told my kids off many times about tipping the library chairs. They remember for a short while and forget again, tipping the chairs while they read.

 

My DH still does this. 🙄

My engineering classmates fell asleep during tutorial classes and tipped their chair backwards while sleeping. They landed on the floor and one actually continued sleeping. It was in the early 90s so nobody was worried since they didn’t hit their heads. Our tutorial classes had a class size of 24. It was funny.

[Wheres Toto]

When my kids do this I just tell them to stop.  They are doing it in cheap folding chairs usually and I don't think the chairs can take much of it without breaking.  We also have concrete slab floors under thin carpet, so if they do fall once I doubt they'll do it again.

 

When I was in 5th grade the back row of seats was against bookcases.  Kids leaning back in their chairs was a real problem because it was so easy, and comfortable.  My teacher was big on making kids write as punishments.  If you were caught for a 5th time leaning back, you had to write 250 times:

 

"I will not lean back in my chair because it is dangerous to my health and because I did not get special permission from Mr. McCann, I was wrong."

 

Guess why I remember that whole sentence 38 years later.  :glare:

[happi duck]

I was a public school teacher.

 

I explained that even though it felt like they would never fall it was possible to fall and even if they never fell it could damage the chair because it wasn't designed to be used that way.

 

And then I just reminded them.

[solascriptura]

Brilliant!

It totally worked. The bench is very heavy from IKEA and it literally cured the problem. I hate nagging anyone so reminding them constantly was bugging me more than them. They never did it again.

[barnwife]

With the 9th grade class I teach, I explain that the chairs are covered in white velvet. I tell them that I love my white velvet chairs. When someone points out that there is no white velvet, I act shocked. "What?! Are you saying you can't see the lovely white velvet on these chairs? I assure you it's there!"

Then I say that in order to protect that white velvet and keep it pristine, we don't put our feet on the furniture or tip/rock our chairs (because obviously tipping/rocking could break my precious white velvet chairs).

Then, when I catch someone in violation, I go with something like, "Sue! You aren't messing with my white velvet, are you? I'd hate for you to have to stay late and clean it!" Or "Joe, where will you find me another white velvet chair to replace the one you are trying to break?"

 

[SKL]

I yell.  Real creative, I know.  :P

[Frosch]

Mine have never done this. You sit in chairs.  6 feet on the floor.  (4 chair feet and your own feet.)  It's never been an option for them to sit any other way.  I think the oldest tried it a couple times and got fussed at by myself and MIL.  I can't stand it.  You could hurt yourself and you could damage someone else's property.

 

I had to pay $125 to get a arm chair repaired for my dining room because a visiting homeschool child decided to sit on the arm and put her feet in the seat.  Her mother thought it was oh so funny that the arm broke right off depositing her daughter in the floor.

She didn't offer to have it repaired either.

I gave her daughter a plastic folding chair to sit in for the rest of her visits.  

 

And, yes, I'm still bitter about it.

Edited October 5, 2017 by Frosch

[Stacia]

I'm no help because I did this all the time when I was a kid, particularly at my grandparents' house because they had the best wooden kitchen chairs for doing it. My grandfather used to tell me that I was going to fall through the wall (behind the chair where I sat), but it still didn't stop me from doing it. I could sit for a very long time balanced on just two legs.

 

I rarely do it now as an adult. You really need the right 'feel' of chairs to do it.

 

I guess in divine retribution, my ds falls out of chairs or tips over fairly routinely & has since he was little. (He's 16 now.) And it's not because he's tipping it. We had to ban him from chairs on wheels because he was particularly prone to falling over/out of those. (My parents have chairs on wheels at their kitchen table, but when we eat over there, ds still, even now, sits in a chair without wheels. :lol: ) His desk chair here at home is on wheels & every once in awhile he will just crash over. I don't know if he just moves weirdly or is clumsy or what, but he & chairs on wheels (& sometimes plain old chairs) just don't mix well.

 

Fortunately, we are all ok, as are all of our chairs.

[73349]

My line is, "Please do not tip in your chair. It's too hard to clean brains out of carpet."

 

I repeat it every single time I see a kid doing it. So far I haven't found anyone to be really incorrigible, but that might be luck.

[EmilyGF]

My dad built a bench and I had to sit on it for the next decade (!!!). The bench was a storage bench and backed up to a wall. There was NO WAY anyone could tip it.

 

At first it was so I wouldn't tip; at the end it was because that was the system in our household and it never changed.

 

Emily