21 Kid Characters Who Almost Ruined Perfectly Good Movies And TV Shows
"All I could think was, thank god that kid is not mine."
We recently asked the members of the BuzzFeed Community to tell us about the kid characters in movies and TV that get on their nerves, and they did NOT hold back:
2. Chloe in Big Little Lies

"I get what the actress and director were going for, but my goodness the precociousness was nauseating. The way her dialogue was written drove me crazy."
"If you've read the book, she’s the same way. I’m not surprised it didn’t translate well to the screen because it was pretty unrealistic on the page too."
3. Charlie from The Santa Clause franchise

"He’s just so whiny and spoiled. I find it hard to sit through any scene with him in it."
"I was a '90s kid so I grew up watching The Santa Clause, but now I find Charlie annoying AF. In the beginning he's whiny and ungrateful for everything, then he finds out about Santa and the North Pole, and he won't just shut up and keep it a secret despite ALL the problems it causes for his dad. And it's not like people need to know the truth for any important reason; he just tells them because he wants them to think it's cool.
Then he ran away from his mom's house on Christmas Eve because he wanted to go have a Christmas adventure with his dad and didn't care that his mom would be in a panic over her missing child."
4. D.W. from Arthur

"Arthur's little sister embodies every possible annoying trait of a younger sibling. 'Disaster Warning' is right."
5. Sydney from Parenthood

"My gosh, her character was a bonafide brat."
"When I rewatch the show, I have to skip her scenes."
"The character was oppressively annoying. She was a dick to her parents and her brother, who she eventually blamed for their parents' separation. She threw way too many tantrums and was all-around insufferable."
6. Rachel from 500 Days of Summer

"I love Chloe Grace Moretz, but come on, no child talks as her character was written. Kids can be smart and wise while still acting and talking like children, you don’t need to have them speak like your jerk philosophy professor."
7. Danny Torrance from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining

"He had no personality, moved around with no purpose, and basically just seemed like a placeholder in the story. In the book and the made-for-TV mini-series, Danny had so much personality and was fun to read and watch."
8. Rachel and Robbie from War of the Worlds
"Both the kids were jerks who treated their dad horribly, but she was the worst. Tom Cruise had to carry her around like a sack of potatoes for most of the movie and all he got in response was a bunch of screaming. He finally got her to mom’s house and she ditched him without one word of thanks!"
"I recently rewatched War of Worlds and I'd forgotten how horrible the kids were. The daughter is entitled and spoiled and the son is a piece of work. I say let the tripods make them into fertilizer and move on."
9. Ellie from Seasons 2 of You

"This character made me so frustrated. She was just such a know-it-all and never wanted to listen to her sister or Joe, especially when being told about Henderson. I get that she had a rocky relationship with Delilah and a tough life but still...she always felt that she knew what was best for herself. I know Joe is technically a bad person but if he hadn't shown up at Henderson’s house, who knows what would’ve ended up happening to her."
10. Myron from Glee

"He was given awful, gimmicky numbers, a rushed-out, poorly constructed character, and never seemed to fit into the group."
11. Michelle from Full House

"I’m a '90s kid and love Full House, but looking back now Michelle was pretty awful. She was never truly held accountable for anything."
"How was she the most popular character on the show? She was insipid, spoiled, and never settled for 'no.' Her constant messy food bits were disgusting and overdone, and no one ever tried to stop her when she tore into a cake or stole some food."
12. Every child in Fuller House

"The kids I babysit make me watch this and every single kid character is insufferable. They’re entitled, annoying, and cause more problems then the original Full House kids (their parents, I guess) ever did."
13. Maddie from Nashville

"She treats her mom terribly, blames everyone else for her own mistakes, and is vindictive toward her parents because they won’t let her neglect school for a music career (amongst other things)."
14. Mike from Stranger Things

15. Alex, Manny, and Lily from Modern Family
"Alex thinks she's better than her family and constantly talks down to them — and they let her because she's the 'smart' one in the family."
"As soon as a girl rejects Manny, he loses the will to live. This has been happening for years and has gotten worse the older he gets. He brings everyone down."
"I hate when shows try to give kids 'funny' lines to say to their parents, but they just end up sounding like disrespectful little brats. Lily's attitude toward her parents is disgusting and her sulky behavior is obnoxious."
16. Samuel from The Babadook

"I understand his purpose — to emphasize the chaos and exacerbate the mental and emotional decline of his mother — but he and his shrieks were the worst!"
"All I could think was, thank god that kid is not mine."
"I stopped watching the movie because of that character."
17. Anakin Skywalker from Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace

"I feel for the child actor stuck with all that George Lucas dialogue. At least he wasn’t played for unfunny comedy relief like Jar Jar."
"There were a lot of problems with The Phantom Menace but Anakin was by far the worst. The character makes me cringe every time."
18. Dawn from Buffy the Vampire Slayer

"The character's constant whining and unredeemable attitude almost ruined one of the best seasons of one of greatest TV shows ever."
"Dawn was the worst decision that the writers made."
"Introducing her on the show was like a glitch in The Matrix. All she did was whine and never contributed anything useful to the group. She was just a damsel in distress that Buffy had to keep rescuing."
19. Debbie from Shameless

"This character thinks she knows everything, when in reality she’s frighteningly naive and should maybe take advice from Fiona every now and then."
20. Sam from Diff’rent Strokes.

"35 years later and I'm still annoyed when I think about him."
"Sam happened because the producers didn’t know when to let a good show die."
21. Harry Potter and Ron Weasley from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

"Without Hermione or the adults, these two would have been dead by the end of the first year at Hogwarts."
Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.