Turn A Blind Eye Why Don't You!
I don't understand how some parents can let their children completely run amok. I think about how my brothers and I were raised and how my parents would have NEVER let us act the way some kids do today.
I was in the store today and a small child, probably about 4, had decided that he wasn't going to walk anymore. He threw himself down in the middle of the aisle and started screaming. You'd have thought he was being beaten. But he wasn't! His mother was completely ignoring him and had walked down to the other end of the aisle, shopping. I couldn't get by, so I had to turn my cart around and listen to this kid wailing for the rest of my trip.
Once I got to the checkout, there was another woman with several small children. I always feel bad for mother's in this position, but it seemed like part of the chaos she was surrounded by stemmed from her total lack of control. The smallest child was chewing on the cart handle (has anyone heard of germs?) and the child in the cart was throwing things out of the cart almost as fast as the other child standing outside the cart was putting candy bars in.
The mother said nothing. She just stood there as the checkout lady was processing her order and everytime a candy bar came through that shouldn't have been there, the woman would say, "not that", the cashier would have to delete it, and then continue. Not once did the woman tell her child to quit putting unauthorized things into the cart!! By the time this woman left, her receipt was a good twelve inches long. Why? Because the cashier had to delete several "not that" items that this woman's children had tried to slip through.
Later, I went to the post office. I hate going to the post office. One, no one seems to ever had their order ready when they go and as a result, what should be a five minute errand usually turns into a thirty minute exercise in frustration.
Today was my lucky day. Today, I was sandwiched in between a woman needing to by hundreds of dollars worth of stamps (can I see which designs you have in rolls? and how about penny stamps? I need about 100 of those too...) and a woman trying to mail several packages which were not labelled or sealed correctly. The good news? Only one of these women thought to bring their children who were tearing around the post office like it was a jungle gym. One decided the pen hanging from a chain was a "swing" and the other found the priority mail stickers and decided to stick them all over his baby sister while the mother tried to juggle her many packages. Not once did the mother reprimand the kids and tell them to stop running and to stand quietly in line! Instead, everyone else in line is looking at each other like "can you believe this"?
I have to go to Lowe's later to get some more bird seed and I'm not sure I want to go. I think if I see one more parent turn a blind eye to their child's miscreant behavior, I will say something...and won't be tactful about it!!
Ignoring a problem doesn't make it go away. Pretending your children aren't wrecking havoc isn't an effective discipline technique and reflects poorly on you as a parent.
I hate feeling frustration and being uncomfortable because someone else won't address the elephant in the room.
Do situations like this impact others as much as they do me? Am I just being too sensitive? Would my saying anything open a parent's eyes to what is going on around them?
Maybe someone else has had a different experience and can offer a suggestion. There are millions of well-behaved children in this world. But they are that way because their parents are on them constantly about conducting themselves in an appropriate manner.
Are children allowed to be terrors because their parents are lazy? Too tired to deal with them anymore?
I was in the store today and a small child, probably about 4, had decided that he wasn't going to walk anymore. He threw himself down in the middle of the aisle and started screaming. You'd have thought he was being beaten. But he wasn't! His mother was completely ignoring him and had walked down to the other end of the aisle, shopping. I couldn't get by, so I had to turn my cart around and listen to this kid wailing for the rest of my trip.
Once I got to the checkout, there was another woman with several small children. I always feel bad for mother's in this position, but it seemed like part of the chaos she was surrounded by stemmed from her total lack of control. The smallest child was chewing on the cart handle (has anyone heard of germs?) and the child in the cart was throwing things out of the cart almost as fast as the other child standing outside the cart was putting candy bars in.
The mother said nothing. She just stood there as the checkout lady was processing her order and everytime a candy bar came through that shouldn't have been there, the woman would say, "not that", the cashier would have to delete it, and then continue. Not once did the woman tell her child to quit putting unauthorized things into the cart!! By the time this woman left, her receipt was a good twelve inches long. Why? Because the cashier had to delete several "not that" items that this woman's children had tried to slip through.
Later, I went to the post office. I hate going to the post office. One, no one seems to ever had their order ready when they go and as a result, what should be a five minute errand usually turns into a thirty minute exercise in frustration.
Today was my lucky day. Today, I was sandwiched in between a woman needing to by hundreds of dollars worth of stamps (can I see which designs you have in rolls? and how about penny stamps? I need about 100 of those too...) and a woman trying to mail several packages which were not labelled or sealed correctly. The good news? Only one of these women thought to bring their children who were tearing around the post office like it was a jungle gym. One decided the pen hanging from a chain was a "swing" and the other found the priority mail stickers and decided to stick them all over his baby sister while the mother tried to juggle her many packages. Not once did the mother reprimand the kids and tell them to stop running and to stand quietly in line! Instead, everyone else in line is looking at each other like "can you believe this"?
I have to go to Lowe's later to get some more bird seed and I'm not sure I want to go. I think if I see one more parent turn a blind eye to their child's miscreant behavior, I will say something...and won't be tactful about it!!
Ignoring a problem doesn't make it go away. Pretending your children aren't wrecking havoc isn't an effective discipline technique and reflects poorly on you as a parent.
I hate feeling frustration and being uncomfortable because someone else won't address the elephant in the room.
Do situations like this impact others as much as they do me? Am I just being too sensitive? Would my saying anything open a parent's eyes to what is going on around them?
Maybe someone else has had a different experience and can offer a suggestion. There are millions of well-behaved children in this world. But they are that way because their parents are on them constantly about conducting themselves in an appropriate manner.
Are children allowed to be terrors because their parents are lazy? Too tired to deal with them anymore?