While the OP was under no obligation to have any sort of empathy for the mother in his situation…he could of. Just a thought.
I’m personally incapable of having empathy for a woman who thinks it’s okay to allow their monster child to accost strangers without interference or even apparently caring. Empathy requires me to understand what’s going on their heads.
I mean, I can understand not dignifying the brat’s stupid demands with a response - it’s unfriendly to bystanders but “no reward of attention for awful behavior” is at least on paper a semireasonable parenting approach. But when your response to the kid accosting others is to wander off to other aisles, I can no longer get inside your head.
Maybe you shouldn’t go to Wal-Mart, if you don’t want to be confronted by bratty kids.
What? That’s approximately what Dopers told me when I posted about a kid shrieking in an ice cream parlor.
Hey, I never run into bratty kids when I go to Walmart.
Admittedly that would be at 11pm, but that probably doesn’t have anything to do with it.
I’m guessing most of the respondents to this thread have never been the mother of 2 toddlers. The shopping has to get done, and sometimes the kids are going to scream. Sometimes the little darlings are going to run amuck. In keeping with tradition, if you don’t like it, don’t shop at Walmart or any grocery store at all. In fact, use delivery service.
Sometimes the kids have low blood sugar. Sometimes the kids are autistic. Sometimes the parents have mental illness.
All kinds of shit can be going on that can’t be solved by some smug sneer.
Parents of out of control toddlers shouldn’t take exception to others telling said toddlers “no” when appropriate.
Even if you stipulate that Mom is making bad choices as a parent, how does this kindergartener need some stranger to sneer at him? If Mom is the caricature Scylla thinks, this kid probably gets plenty of that. A moment of levity and grace—an anecdote told to Mom about an annoying thing your kids once did, say—is the kind of thing that might actually help the situation. If you cannot manage that, a polite no, ignoring the kid, entertaining the kid…any of those would be a fine and normal thing for an adult to do.
I suspect that wouldn’t be kind to the checkout clerk.
I thought of calling store personnel; but I decided it wouldn’t be kind to them, either.
Actually, it’s quite possible that she can’t. Because she needs to do the shopping sometime; and she’s not allowed to take tyke home, put tyke to bed, and then leave tyke there and go shopping. And there may not be any other adult who can be there to watch tyke.
Mother may not have room in the budget for additional hours of childcare; or to buy toys every time she goes to the store. And it may not be a great idea to buy kids toys every time they go to the store, anyway.
– I have been known to make faces at crying kids in stores. Not scary faces, though; silly ones (or at least intended that way.) This sometimes works, at least momentarily, if only by startling the kid out of the crying fit. I’ve never had this startle a child further into a crying fit; if it did, I’d stop immediately.
I suppose I could have tried making a speech at a kid demanding lunchbox about how I carried my lunch to school in a paper bag. Sometimes a used paper bag, at that. (Perfectly true. Has nothing whatsoever to do with whether that particular kid needs a lunchbox, of course.) – I am now imagining a scenario in which I sit down right there in the aisle in front of the kid and start telling a story about bringing lunch to school in 1956. That might have gotten the mother to pay attention. Or the kid to turn around and run back to Mom. Or I suppose it might have gotten store security called on all three of us, by some other poor person who was just trying to get down the aisle.
Classic! But I’d wait around to see the consequences.
My standard response to similar situations is to softly ask the child whether they had brought their money, noting, when they replied that they had no money, that the person who has the money chooses what will go home.
I have not been 100% successful silencing the child, (more like 98%), but I always have gotten a “thank you” from the parent. I refrain from vicious scowls or raised voices.
YMMV
Some parents need to be trained, but those parents are also not my children and I do not feel the need to take on their education.
And sometimes kids who look old enough to know better are actually babies who are big for their age. Ask me how I know this.
Toddlers making demands in the store is a tale as old as time. Ignoring them is a viable option, although it may result in some temporary noise pollution. It’s a sad fact of life that this happens from time to time. The OP didn’t teach the kid of lesson or get him to be quiet; he just intimidated him to the point of crying. And then faulted the mother for being disturbed by a grown man doing that. Bravo, I guess?
If you say “no” in a quiet, calm voice, absolutely, that’s unobjectionable.
But if you get down in my kid’s face, sneer at the kid, and sharply say “No!” you’re being–well, let’s head over to the pit thread to finish that sentence.
Look, I say “no” to kids all the goddamned time. It’s literally my job. I say “no” to kids who are entitled, “no” to kids who are autistic, “no” to kids who are PTSD-afflicted, “no” to kids who are ODD, “no” to kids who are ADHD, “no” to kids who are well-adjusted darlings having an off day.
I never get down in a kid’s face, sneer at them, and say “no!” in a way calculated to make them feel like shit. Because I’m the grownup in the situation.
True. It’s standard advice for parents to ignore and even walk away from a tantrum until it gets to the danger-to-oneself-and-others stage. Strangers are another matter and a good lesson in not being the center of the universe. I seem to do well with the unsmiling gaze. It’s not even a judgmental glare.
Yelling back at a screaming child just proves that you are the same.
This was a really great story, except this genre customarily ends with some variation on “everyone clapped.”
I read this and thought “pit thread? Really?”
Then I looked.
I had a big smile when I walked out of Target.
It’s bigger now.
Checks out.
I can’t help myself.
What five things do you buy every Tuesday at Target?
Cool
Nicorette, fiber gummies, ,Mio, peanut butter pretzels, and Propel.
All the basic food groups.