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This afternoon at work a mother came in with two daughters -- one around five years old, and one probably about three years old. The mother needed, I think, to use our ATM. The kids immediately glommed onto the candy racks and demanded sugary snacks. The mother said no.
This triggered a rather restrained tantrum in the younger girl, but she gave in after a couple minutes, threw her chosen candy (Lemonheads) to the floor, and stomped off down the aisle toward her mom. The older girl clutched her chosen candy (tic tacs) to her chest, sank to the ground, and silently refused to move. She began to cry.
Her mother picked up the younger girl, tried to persuade her older daughter to give up the candy, and eventually resorted to going outside and pointedly looking back in through the display window, waiting for the girl to give in. The girl continued to sit there, silently crying and clutching the tic tacs.
After a minute the mother came back in and persuaded the girl to hand over the tic tacs, which I returned to the shelf. Then we had another standoff while the girl refused to stand up and leave -- if she couldn't have her candy right here and now, she wasn't going to do anything else. Didn't she want to go to the library to pick books and movies for the weekend? Apparently not -- the transitory but immediate joy of tic tacs was more important than the future pleasure of her favorite stories.
Eventually the mother gave up persuading her daughter to stand and reached down to pick her up. This triggered a new protest from the younger girl, who also wanted to be carried -- I think partly because she was being the "good daughter" and interpreted attention given to her big sister as unfair, since her sister was being "bad." So I stepped in and picked up the younger girl (this was not out of the blue; I'd been trying to talk to the older girl, in support of her mother's persuasion, for a couple minutes) and carried her out to their car while the mother carried the older girl.
So at least from the smoke shop's perspective, the situation was resolved -- the candy was put back and the potentially troublesome people left the store -- and I'm sure the girl forgot all about being upset within a couple hours, if not sooner. But it was weird for me to stand there wondering what to do. I mean, I would not have the patience to cajole a child that long, especially over something like candy. Candy is not a right. Candy is a gift, and if you make a nuisance of yourself in public, you get picked up and removed from the situation.
Of course, I'm also saying that because that's how my parents raised me and Vicky. They would talk and reason for a minute or so, but they didn't say things like, "Will you take my hand and stand up? Don't you want to go do X?" They just said, "We're going to do X now. Take my hand and stand up." They always made it very clear that they loved us, and when it was reasonable to offer us choices they did so, but they made it equally clear that certain behaviors were not going to be tolerated, and that they were the ones who were ultimately in charge.
My mom would have picked me up and hauled me out of the store -- kicking and screaming if necessary -- long before this woman eventually gave up on persuasion and picked up her child.
Anyway, I wanted to help, but since my idea of the right thing to do was clearly somewhat at odds with the mother's idea of how to deal with her child -- and since the child was not screaming or otherwise causing trouble for other customers, in which case I would've been required to take action -- I mostly just stood nearby to make sure the older girl didn't decide to slip the tic tacs into her pocket and steal them, and then crouched down to talk about stories in an effort to make the library sound more appealing. Which is better than doing nothing, I'm sure, but it still made me feel rather helpless and socially inept. :-/
This triggered a rather restrained tantrum in the younger girl, but she gave in after a couple minutes, threw her chosen candy (Lemonheads) to the floor, and stomped off down the aisle toward her mom. The older girl clutched her chosen candy (tic tacs) to her chest, sank to the ground, and silently refused to move. She began to cry.
Her mother picked up the younger girl, tried to persuade her older daughter to give up the candy, and eventually resorted to going outside and pointedly looking back in through the display window, waiting for the girl to give in. The girl continued to sit there, silently crying and clutching the tic tacs.
After a minute the mother came back in and persuaded the girl to hand over the tic tacs, which I returned to the shelf. Then we had another standoff while the girl refused to stand up and leave -- if she couldn't have her candy right here and now, she wasn't going to do anything else. Didn't she want to go to the library to pick books and movies for the weekend? Apparently not -- the transitory but immediate joy of tic tacs was more important than the future pleasure of her favorite stories.
Eventually the mother gave up persuading her daughter to stand and reached down to pick her up. This triggered a new protest from the younger girl, who also wanted to be carried -- I think partly because she was being the "good daughter" and interpreted attention given to her big sister as unfair, since her sister was being "bad." So I stepped in and picked up the younger girl (this was not out of the blue; I'd been trying to talk to the older girl, in support of her mother's persuasion, for a couple minutes) and carried her out to their car while the mother carried the older girl.
So at least from the smoke shop's perspective, the situation was resolved -- the candy was put back and the potentially troublesome people left the store -- and I'm sure the girl forgot all about being upset within a couple hours, if not sooner. But it was weird for me to stand there wondering what to do. I mean, I would not have the patience to cajole a child that long, especially over something like candy. Candy is not a right. Candy is a gift, and if you make a nuisance of yourself in public, you get picked up and removed from the situation.
Of course, I'm also saying that because that's how my parents raised me and Vicky. They would talk and reason for a minute or so, but they didn't say things like, "Will you take my hand and stand up? Don't you want to go do X?" They just said, "We're going to do X now. Take my hand and stand up." They always made it very clear that they loved us, and when it was reasonable to offer us choices they did so, but they made it equally clear that certain behaviors were not going to be tolerated, and that they were the ones who were ultimately in charge.
My mom would have picked me up and hauled me out of the store -- kicking and screaming if necessary -- long before this woman eventually gave up on persuasion and picked up her child.
Anyway, I wanted to help, but since my idea of the right thing to do was clearly somewhat at odds with the mother's idea of how to deal with her child -- and since the child was not screaming or otherwise causing trouble for other customers, in which case I would've been required to take action -- I mostly just stood nearby to make sure the older girl didn't decide to slip the tic tacs into her pocket and steal them, and then crouched down to talk about stories in an effort to make the library sound more appealing. Which is better than doing nothing, I'm sure, but it still made me feel rather helpless and socially inept. :-/
