Have you ever been grounded for something ridiculous? Well, chances are the rule you
broke was nothing compared to the strict rules some parents around the world have.
From having to pay parents real money to watch Saturday morning cartoons,
to getting grounded over buying too much furniture for your Sims, to having to wear diapers at
sleepovers, these are some of the weirdest rules from strict parents around the world.
Before we get into the absolutely crazy stories told by people who lived under the
roof of strict parents, let's talk about some weird general family rules that you probably
didn’t even know existed in other countries. These aren’t just specific to a certain family
but are followed by many households in the country. The craziest thing is that even a
rule you might find absolutely wild may be common to a lot of different people.
In Vietnam, parents are incredibly strict about a rule related to potty training. In this country,
the rule is that you are potty trained by 9 months old or get scolded by your parents.
To put this in perspective, the average child in the United States begins potty training between
months 18 and 24. Having Vietnamese parents might mean that a child will start having strict rules
before they even reach the age of 1. A rule for a child to learn proper bathroom
etiquette at 9 months old may seem extreme, but it works for Vietnamese parents. The way
they do this is by whistling. Since a 9-month-old can’t be reasoned with, and most words don’t have
meaning yet, this seems to be the best way to enforce the potty training rule. Parents
begin by observing when their baby starts to urinate or shows signs of needing to go pee.
They then make a whistling sound that the baby associates with going to the bathroom.
As time progresses, the baby can be placed on a small toilet, and when they hear the whistle,
they know it’s time to go to the bathroom. This process happens only a few months into
the baby’s life, but by 9 months old, almost all Vietnamese children are potty trained,
which is super young compared to the rest of the world. So, perhaps having the strict rule
about going to the bathroom at such a young age is one the rest of the world should adopt.
Sticking with the rules for younger children,
there is one rule that the Kisii people of Kenya follow that might seem harsh to us.
Kisii moms have a strict no cooing or crying policy for their babies.
The mothers tend to take their babies everywhere,
but if at any point the child starts to make unwanted noise, there are strict rules enforced.
The Kisii mothers immediately avert their eyes and refuse to look at the baby
until the sounds stop. This may seem a little mean to parents in other parts of the world, but eye
contact is a sign of power in their culture. By avoiding eye contact, the mother is showing the
baby that they do not have the power to get what they want by making noises. This rule is strictly
enforced and leads to Kisii kids being less needy and more self-reliant as they grow older.
The next strict rule parents implement on certain Polynesian Islands may end up giving you anxiety.
The parents on these islands are busy making sure their kids have
enough food to eat and a roof over their heads, so they need to work.
This has caused the creation of a system based around children taking care of children.
There is a sort of childhood hierarchy in these cultures that allow the rules of the
parents to be passed down through the ranks of their children. It works something like this.
The parents take care of the babies, but once they are old enough to walk,
the rule is that they need to start learning skills to help care for the next baby to come.
The initial set of skills a preschool-aged child must learn is to calm down toddlers. The older
kids watched the younger ones, which teaches self-reliance and responsibility as a child
progresses through each age group. These dynamics are strictly enforced not by overbearing parents
but by them stepping back and letting the children work out the best ways to support one another.
So, although the children-watching-children rule in some Polonysian communities may seem odd to us,
it is strictly enforced, or the whole system would fall apart. Luckily the
parents have help maintaining the status quo from a constant supply of younger kids growing older
and new babies being born into the community. And although some people would see this form of
childhood upbringing as neglectful, it has been a rule that older kids must take care of younger
children for generations in Polynesia. And so far it has worked out just fine.
Some parents have a strict time that their kids must go to bed.
But Spanish parents are strict about bedtime in a different way.
This flip flop is so crazy you’ll wonder what you missed by going to bed so early as a child.
In Spanish families, many social events and family gatherings happen well into the night.
This means that one rule for Spanish kids is that they need to stay up late,
not go to bed early. In some families outside of Spain,
it is not unheard of that kids have a bedtime of around 7:00 P.M. Or if they are really lucky,
they can stay up until 8. But in Spain, this is just when things get started.
The social connection between family and friends is so important to the culture that kids need to
be a part of it. This means there is a strict no going to bed rule before the party begins.
And since there always seems to be a gathering of some sort, children’s bedtimes are pushed
until much later in the evening for many Spanish families. A more common time for a
child to go to bed in Spain would be closer to 10 P.M. and that is on the early side.
Parents are firm in their beliefs that children should have a later bedtime to ensure that they
can make it through most family gatherings. A 10 o’clock bedtime for a young child may seem wild
to many parents from other parts of the world, but it is just a fact of life in Spanish households.
You might have been told you weren’t allowed to leave the table unless you
ate all your vegetables. This may have seemed harsh at the time, but there
are parents in one country in particular that take this rule to a whole new level.
Food plays a big role in French culture. It is important not only to the French identity
but to the rules in a family household as well. French parents provide their
children with strict rules around when they can eat and what they can eat. For example,
there are set mealtimes in France, which means that parents do not let their kids
snack throughout the day. They either eat with everyone else or don’t eat at all.
Then comes the expectations around what a child should eat. Basically,
if it is good enough for an adult, it is good enough for the children. The rule is
that a child will eat what everyone else is eating regardless of if they think they like it or not.
The thought behind this rule is that if a kid tries something enough times,
it will eventually grow on them. This includes foods like escargots
or snails, cuisses de grenouille or frogs' legs, and every type of stinky cheese you can imagine.
French parents require their children to eat these types of foods so that they can become
cultured. It is not up for discussion in a French household. You eat what is put in front of you at
mealtime or go hungry. And this particular rule is not likely to change any time soon.
As you can imagine, Russian parents can be pretty strict. But there is one rule
that children must learn early on, or the consequences could be dire.
It is considered rude to turn your back on someone in Russia. This means that from a young age,
Russian parents have a rule against turning your back on them or anyone else for that matter.
It is much more polite to squeeze past someone facing them than by turning your back to them.
This may seem weird if you’ve ever tried to fit onto a crowded train car or slip
past someone in a movie theater. It would seem odd to many people if you did these
things while facing the other person as your nose would practically touch.
However, in the Russian house, parents make sure that children follow the no turning your
back on anyone rule from an early age. It is strictly enforced to ensure that
when the child leaves the house, they don’t offend anyone by showing them their backside.
Parents in this next country have strict rules about which hand their children can eat with.
And the reason why is a little gross.
In many households in India, it is a rule that food should never be eaten
with the left hand. It does not matter if the child is right-handed or left-handed;
the rule is you only eat with your right hand. Parents in India put this rule in
place and strictly enforce it as soon as their children can understand the directions.
And India is not the only region to have this rule. Parents in Middle Eastern countries and
parts of Africa teach their children to eat food with their right hand from a young age as well.
But what is the reason for this? Why do the parents in these countries need to
be so strict about the hand children use to eat?
In some cultures, the left hand is thought of as dirty. This belief is connected to one simple
fact. Oftentimes the left hand is the one used to wipe after going to the bathroom. This rule most
likely has its origins in the past when sanitation and good hygiene were not as prevalent around the
world. But the rule has persisted, and parents still make sure to enforce it in their households
even though hygienic products are much more common than they used to be.
In some Asian countries, there is a rule that everyone must follow
before stepping foot into a home. Parents strictly implement the following rule to
the point that if a child doesn't follow it, they aren’t allowed into the house.
In many parts of East Asia, it is required that you take your shoes off before entering someone’s
home. This means that parents are very strict about this rule with their own kids as they
don’t want to be embarrassed when visiting someone else's house. It would be seen as disrespectful
and disgraceful if their kid walked in with shoes on their feet. The reason for this is
slightly different between countries, but it has its grounding in spiritual and cultural beliefs.
Therefore, making sure that children learn to remove footwear before entering a house
is incredibly important in many Asian households. Another reason for this rule could be that kids
who play outside all day could track in whatever was on the bottom of their shoes.
This would make it more difficult to maintain the cleanliness of the house. In some cases,
parents will even stand in the doorway to ensure that the no shoes allowed rule
is followed by their children and their friends.
Now we are going to move away from the more generalized rules and get
into the crazy specifics. Every family is different, and although
there are some overarching rules that most parents follow according to their culture,
there are some genuinely unique and weird rules that parents have implemented for their children.
If you haven’t found any of the rules weird this far, the next one will definitely get you.
Many children enjoy having sleepovers.
Sometimes they get into trouble or stay up all night, but that isn’t a problem for most parents.
However, when a strict parent with an odd rule is in charge of several kids, things
can get a little weird. One person recounted his childhood in an online discussion. They remember
sleeping over at a friend's house and having to follow a rule that was pretty out there.
Their friend was a bedwetter and had to wear diapers until he overcame the problem.
This was fine, and the friends were understanding of the problem during
sleepovers. However, when the friend group went to the kid’s house who wet the bed,
his parents had a strict rule that made them a little uncomfortable.
All of the kids at the sleepover needed to wear diapers to bed.
This was regardless of if they wet the bed or not. This was probably done by the parents to
make sure their own kid was comfortable. But it didn’t seem absolutely necessary
as at other sleepovers he was the only one wearing a diaper and no one seemed to care.
The parents created an ultimatum: either everyone at the sleepover wears a diaper,
or everyone gets sent home. This is definitely one rule that was a little bit strange.
Video games, television shows, and movies are now hugely popular with
kids as technology has become cheaper and more accessible around the world. However,
this move towards digital entertainment has caused parents to come up with some pretty weird rules.
In some households, there is controversy over particular aspects of pop culture. However, could
any parents really be against Pokemon? The answer is yes, but not for the reasons you might think.
Many people have recounted not being allowed to play with Pokemon cards or
even watch the TV show growing up. This was often due to household rules around
too much screen time or spending money on things that were silly.
Although if you were one of the lucky kids who got a holographic Charizard and kept it, that Pokemon
card could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars right now. So, jokes on you mom and dad?
But not everyone was so lucky. Some parents had, and still have,
strict rules around no Pokemon in their house for a more bizarre reason. In
parts of the world where people are super religious and hold conservative beliefs,
parents won’t let their kids engage with Pokemon because it teaches evolution.
There is a lot to unpack there, but we would just like to point out that the evolution organisms go
through in the real world and the evolution of Pokemon are two very different things.
Most parents try to teach their children that cheating is bad. But there are some who have gone
to extremes to get this concept across, especially when it comes to cheating in video games.
In fact, one person even recounted online that they were not allowed to use the
“money cheat” in The Sims videogame. This cheat gave the gamer an infinite
amount of money to build anything they wanted in their virtual house.
The person’s parents said it wasn’t how the real world worked, and therefore,
their child would not be cheating in the virtual world either. However, kids will be kids, and
they used the cheat code. When their parents saw all the new virtual goodies in their Sims house,
they immediately grounded their kid and took away the game. This seems like an odd over-the-top
response to a simple cheat code in a video game, but strict parents will be strict parents.
In some households, there are strict rules around watching TV.
This single device can lead children to argue, learn about things they aren’t supposed to,
and even start all-out brawls between siblings. That is why some parents around the world have
come up with some unique ways to mitigate the television problem in their homes. However,
a few of the rules around TV time are really weird.
Some parents take the “payment route.” This can be in the form of poker chips with no actual value
or real money that must be cashed in to watch television. There is something strange about
taking your kid’s money in order for them to watch TV, but some parents believe so strongly
in this rule that they will gladly take it even on a rainy weekend when there is nothing else to do.
However, some of these weird pay-per-view rules may actually have some benefit.
For example, some parents will offer to give their kids more chips or money to
watch TV with by doing chores. Or kids can even lose their television watching
money by misbehaving or doing poorly in school. These incentives might also teach
children the benefits of moderation and saving money. Perhaps more parents should be stricter
about how much TV is watched or at least attach some type of monetary value to it.
Other parents take a much stricter approach to screen time. There are times, and even entire
days, that electronic devices cannot be used. This may seem like cruel and unusual punishment,
but it was not so long ago that smartphones didn’t exist. Also, it wasn’t always a guarantee
that parents could afford a television, so those kids who were lucky enough to have
access to them sometimes needed strict rules about how much they could watch.
Imagine not being able to look at your phone, stream your favorite movie,
or even watch the Infographics Show on Youtube because you had strict parents.
This is the reality in some families on certain days of the week. It would seem
that Sundays are the most common day for parents to deny access to any digital entertainment.
And although this is becoming rarer, it might be worth trying every now and then.
Some parents go overboard with grounding their kids for breaking their crazy rules.
And you won’t believe what some of these next people got punished for doing.
Most parents allow their kids some sort of privacy. However, some people had a strict
no closing the door policy in their parents’ house while growing up. This could sometimes
be taken to the extreme as the only time the bedroom door could be closed was while someone
was changing. If it was shut any other time, the parents could break in like a SWAT team.
One person recounted that they forgot to open the door after changing. Suddenly their parents kicked
the door in and started going through all of their drawers and closet. Nothing was left unturned,
and when the parents didn’t find anything out of the ordinary, the person was still grounded
for closing the door when they weren’t supposed to. This is obviously an extreme example of a
search and seizure by strict parents, but one that is not as uncommon as you might think.
Bedroom doors have been used by all sorts of crazy parents who go overboard with their rules.
Many people have told stories of lists of rules being nailed to their bedroom doors,
just like Martin Luthor nailed his 95 Theses to church doors.
There is something to be said about seeing a set of strict rules every day when you wake up. This
type of psychological warfare strict parents use to enforce their rules is a little over the top.
In some cultures playing an instrument is taken very seriously. But in certain families,
a child playing the piano can be so important to the parents
that they invent a bunch of crazy rules around it.
Many kids have parents who require them to practice their instrument each day to
become proficient. Some parents will let this slide from time to time, but not all.
Strict parents have implemented crazy rules such as for every hour of playing with friends
their kid has had to practice the piano for an hour. Imagine what that would look like.
A child would come home from school and be exhausted from spending 7 hours in a
building learning about different subjects, one of which might have even been music. The last thing
they would want to do is sit down at a piano and practice for hours. However, in order to
spend any time playing with their friends, they would need to practice their instrument first.
Just thinking about the practice to fun ratio involved with this rule is stressful.
Although depending on the child,
parents might take an even weirder approach to grounding their offspring.
Some parents actually ground their children so they will spend more time outside of the house.
This may seem counterintuitive until you realize what type of kids we’re talking about.
For example, some children lock themselves in their room to read endlessly or play
video games nonstop for hours or even days at a time. This has led to some parents creating
rules which force their kids to go outside and spend time with other people in the real world.
So, it would appear certain strict rules aren’t just for keeping children inside
the house but to get them out. And if that wasn’t weird enough,
some parents have a color-coding system to keep track of their own kids.
To be fair, the color system implemented by some households is put in place to try and reduce the
amount of fighting between siblings, but this doesn’t always work. For example,
if your parents assigned you the color green, you would have a green toothbrush,
green towel, green cups, green bowls, and all of your toys would be stored in a green bin.
Your brothers and sisters may have other colors, which you would not be allowed to touch.
This seems like a good way to stay organized, but in some cases, if the color code was broken,
there would be consequences. However, people who grew up this way have said that
the strict color rule implemented by their parents helped them become more organized.
So, maybe there is something to having a specific color and sticking to it as a child.
In some households, there are rooms that are off-limits. This varies by family,
but in at least one instance, a person’s grandma
had an absurd rule about one of the most important rooms in the house.
Everyone needs to use the bathroom, and there were two in this house in particular. However,
one was off-limits according to grandma. Anyone could use the first bathroom,
but there was hell to pay if you ever stepped foot in grandma’s bathroom. The consequence for
breaking this rule was that you would be dead to her. She would literally ban her own family
from her house and refuse to see or speak to them ever again if they entered her bathroom.
According to one of the family members, a cousin and their kids—which
would be grandma’s great-grandchildren—were all banned from the house because her husband
used the bathroom without any knowledge of the rule. The crazy thing was that grandma
refused to forgive the entire family even though no one told the husband,
now ex-husband, about the rules of the bathroom. It is unclear if the divorce occurred as a direct
result of the craziness of grandma’s rules, but it is not out of the realm of possibility.
In some cases, parents can be completely obsessed with
the material things in their homes. This can lead to some bizarre rules.
For instance, there are people who refuse to let their kids, or visitors, walk on carpets in their
home. Instead, strips of plastic or cardboard are used to create a winding path through the house.
Everyone must remain on the pathways at all times. Friends that came to visit the house
were required to wear special slippers or use the ones that were provided to guests by the parents.
There is nothing wrong with wanting to protect nice furniture in a house, but this rule seems
a little extreme, especially since even dogs were expected to remain on the walking paths.
This crazy strict rule was literally for everyone. It must have been more
like visiting a museum than a friend’s house when going over for playdates.
No watch “Insane Rules Bounty Hunters Have to
Follow.” Or check out “What Rules Do Former Presidents Have To Follow.”