Leaving a baby in a car on a hot day is a bad idea, but having a couple of older kids wait in the car for a few minutes is decidedly non-lethal. At least, it never killed me. To the best of my recollection. 
That’s true, and when I was a kid, my brother and I would stay in the car sometimes (but we’d end up fighting). We were never abducted or hurt or killed in a hot car, but I don’t know that I would ever leave a child in a car these days.
With the hot car issue aside, I wouldn’t trust a child not to leave the car and start wandering around the parking lot. What if a cop comes by and sees a child alone in the car?
Anyway, any child who is old enough to be left in a car, is also old enough to behave in a store.
In this thread, I assume we were talking about preschoolish through age 7ish? Anyone younger than 12, I’m not leaving in a car alone.
I doubt it’s any less safe to do that today.
Maybe so. I don’t remember ever being left there for misbehaving- I was there because I hated shopping, and back then I could get out of it. 
People have different ages in mind here, but I was definitely staying behind long before age 12. At 12 and up, you can probably leave the kids at home and not drag them with you in the first place.
Yeah, when I stayed in the car, it was because I didn’t want to shop.
It may not be less safe to do that today, but I guess I’m more aware of the possible dangers now than I was as a child.
My sister was telling me about standing in line at Target behind a young mother who was ignoring her shrieking, tantrum-throwing kid. After several minutes of listening to the kid and seeing the mother doing nothing to quiet him down despite the glares from everybody else in line, an older gentleman spoke up and said, “Ma’am, I don’t think anybody in this line would call the police if you went ahead and just beat that kid.” While his statement drew appreciative nods from the rest of the patrons in line, the mother got rather indignant, informing the gentleman that “I would never beat my child!” “That much is obvious,” replied the gentleman.
Ignoring a child who is throwing a tantrum is often a very effective way of ending the tantrum. Of course, if it goes on more than a couple of minutes, you need to leave the store and come back another time. But simply seeing someone apparently ignoring a small child who has erupted into shrieks does not equal bad parenting, in my book.
And in Una Persson’s example, I submit that the parent in question had several options besides slapping/beating their child; namely, actually enforcing the threatened consequence. Time-outs can be quite effective on some children, but only if you actually use them, vs. just endlessly saying, “Do you want a time-out? If you keep that up, you’ll have a time-out. There is a time-out in your future, mister. DON’T MAKE ME GIVE YOU A TIME-OUT!!” Repeat ad nauseam.
And lest anyone think I’m simply defending parents who inflict their screaming children on other patrons around them, I have on more than one occasion walked out of a grocery store, or McDonald’s, or the shoe store, without buying what we came for, and in one instance actually leaving behind a half-filled cart of groceries, because I will not tolerate my child throwing a protracted tantrum in a public place. I don’t beat my kids either, but contrary to popular belief, you can have well-behaved children without smacking them around.
Anyway. I usually don’t ride this particular hobbyhorse in Internet fora, but the increasing number of “Just beat the damn kid already” posts in this thread was starting to get on my nerves.
Good thread (that has not fallen into the usual problems thankfully).
However - a couple things to clear up:
In many places, it is illegal to leave the kids in the car. That is not an option.
In many places, a swat on the rear gets you a visit from the cops. Cops are preferred to Child Protective Services, as CPS often has a “guilty until proven innocent” attitude. I am NOT saying that a spanking is not often justified or used - but that doing it in public can bring a level of attention down on the parent.
Ignoring tantrums IS a recommended method dealing with them. Teaching the child that a tantrum is not a form of socially accepted attention getting is important. However, too often the parents do not teach this lesson early and at home. Then they try to ignore the initial tantrum (per the advice), but then give in when the child ups the ante. This then teaches the child that a normal tantrum won’t get them attention from the parents, but a Grand Mal Tantrum will. The baseline is reset, and there is now even more work for the parent to do. The kid is seeking attention - even negative attention is fine for them.
To get kids to not throw tantrums at the store takes a concerted, thought out effort by the parents. It is not as simple as a spanking (some kids don’t respond), nor is it as simple as ignoring the screamer completely (though that needs to be done, it needs to be planned out in advance and first done at home).
Oh, and all kids are different. Same family, similar aged kids (within a year of each other) will often have distinctly different personalities and responses to various stimuli. What worked on kid number 1 will not necessarily work on kid number 2.
When I worked in clothing retail years ago I occasionally had the opposite problem. I would see a kid climbing on a fixture and think “he’s going to hurt himself and start crying. I don’t need that noise.” So I’d tell the kid get down because it wasn’t safe. At this point the oblivious parent would turn around and smack him for misbehaving. WAAAHH!!. Great, now he’s crying. Mission not accomplished.
Heh, this is why being a parent is so wonderful.
If you watch the child like a hawk, you are “smothering” and “overprotective”.
If you don’t watch the child like a hawk, you are “oblivious”.
If you don’t physically discipline the child, you are creating a public nuisance.
If you do physically discipline the child, you risk prosecution and you are creating a public nuisance.
Preach it, Malthus. And, great post, Algher.
Thank you. Some of us do plan on raising good kids without using physical punishment. My cousin managed it with her two, and at 16 and 15, they are two of the most well-mannered, polite, happy kids I know. My young nephew gets his hand smacked for various infractions, and it obviously doesn’t work as he either laughs or cries for a minute and then goes right back to what he was doing. Don’t even get me started on his parents using a hand slap in order to explain “We don’t HIT!”. :rolleyes:
Of course, this is a timely thread as I spent yesterday arguing with someone on another board about being disrespectful to other store patrons by letting your child scream (and I mean SCREAM) for ten minutes in Toys R Us while you wander slowly around the store with a glazed look in your eyes and everyone within the vicinity gets a goddamn migraine. That’s stellar parenting right there.
I fail to see the difference. Is it something you can explain to me? All three cases involve punishing (annoying? irritating? abusing?) workers for things they have no control over. Your scheme takes it a step farther and makes life miserable for other customers just like yourself.
Perhaps you missed the part where Sapo said there is no different carrier there. So this petty revenge plan will take your frustration out on other customers who don’t have a choice about being there. And Sapo wasn’t talking about speeding up lines.
Yes I do, grandchildren too. You’re right though. I should have qualified that statement. I meant children old enough to be left in the car, or with an older sibling or adult.
Well, it’s your office. It seems to me it would have been PIC to do it too soon but you did say three hours. After 20 minutes or a half hour of non controlled kids it would seem incorrect to not say something. YMMV
Why wasn’t the BOSS saying that? I’m sorry, that must have made you want to find a blunt object and commence batting practice upon your parent coworker’s head!
You’re right. The term “beating” used in jest is one thing. Spanking such as a swat or two on the ass used as an exclamation point, is a different matter. However, I do think it’s very possible to discipline kids without corporeal punishment if we are consistent and willing to do as you suggested. Walk out of the store and leave things undone because teaching our children is more important than the errand.
And as I said, it was politically incorrect to do anything, because “everyone likes kids”, and if you don’t, then you become even more of an outcast in the office. I’m old enough to know when to fight battles, and when to post whines on the SDMB.
Where’d he say that? I saw mention of being locked into a contract with Sprint. No mention of it being the only game in town. Sounds to me like che was talking speeding up the lines anyway. The whole kids thing is because che has to wait 3 hours.
Stiffing a waiter of a tip does nothing to hurt the restaurant owner (or whoever it is that you consider to blame for your food mixup). It hurts the waiter and nobody else. As I said, the intention of my misdeeds is to create a cost to the company, hoping for the super very long shot of that making them change their policies.
It is one of those things like recycling your cans or giving $10 to fight AIDS in Africa. Your individual contribution is not the one that will make the difference, but you just hope that enough people will do as you do to make a difference.
My kid standing on a chair won’t make the difference, but hopefully, if enough people do the same (and believe me, they do, whatever their reasons), the company might decide to shift more transactions to their phone lines or website.
As for competition, there are other companies, both for my cell and for the cable. For the cell, I am married to them by contract. I can’t just vote with my wallet and take my business elsewhere. As for the cable, I have voted with my wallet enough times already that I am out of other companies to run to. Switching would mean going back to a company I already left in discontent.
or at least drag them along with only quiet sulking and no tantrums.