Hear No Evil
Tell us about a conversation you couldn’t help but overhear and wish you hadn’t.
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At the local Walmart. Checkout lane. Mother and her boss in line behind me.
“Mommy! I want candy!”
“I’m sorry, honey, we have candy at home. You can have some when we get home.”
(Decibel level increase) “NO! I want candy NOW! Mommy! You’re BAD!! You’re hurting my FEELINGS!”
“I’m sorry, honey. Mommy doesn’t like to hurt your feelings. I’ll give you candy when we get home, okay?”
(Shrieking. Everyone in the whole superstore can now hear the child.) “NOOOOOO!! I said NO, Mommy. Didn’t you hear me? When I say no, I mean NO! I want candy NOW!”
“Honey, I’m sorry, but you need to use your indoor voice, okay? You can have candy when we get home, I promise, okay?”
(Now the child is taking deep breaths and cutting loose with bellows that could be induced only by the most severe pain imaginable. But between bellows):
“MOOOOOoooooommmy!! Listen to me! I’m CRYING! You HURT my FEELINGS! I’m telling DAAAAAAAaaaddy!”
This nonsense continued until I was finished paying for my things and heading to the exit. All I could wonder, as the deafening screeches receded like the Doppler effect, was if Mommy was going to get a time out when she got home. Obviously, there was no spanking going on in this family.
I could give a quiz here: Find five things that Mommy was doing that contributed to the child’s rotten behavior.
I’ll give you one answer: “I’m sorry, honey.”
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/hear-no-evil/
Moooooommy !!! Have you heard this? Give me reasons….
Do you mean you’ve heard the child asking his mother to give him reasons? Yikes.
This reminds me of a conversation I overheard one day…. I’ll have to post about it later; I’m supposed to be getting ready for work now. 🙂
I’ll give you another: “Okay?” I always cringe when a parent ends a directive with, “okay?” Just tell the child what you want/expect and leave it at that. Sorry, it’s a pet peeve.
You get a gold star! I agree. “Okay?” gives the child the opportunity to say “No! It’s NOT okay.” It’s a really bad habit, and I hear it all the time. Ranks right up there with saying to a child, “Do you want to_____________?” Fill in the blank with some chore. Better: ‘Please take out the trash; clear the table; make your bed;” whatever. It’s a command, not a question!
Exactly!
Yeah, what happened to “No.” Pure and simple. Parents don’t have to explain every decision. When my children were this age, I dragged them out of the store (even if I was in line) more than once to have a serious, private discussion in the car if they continued their misbehavior. And they knew if I said something, I would follow through. People told me I was too hard on them, but now they are both on their own, paying their own bills, and are completely self-regulating, fully functional adults. When will parents learn that they are harming their children when they allow them to act like this?
We were told we were too hard on our kids, too. No, we weren’t. We taught them to be self-confidant, capable, independent adults. I wouldn’t change a thing.
You two have hit the nail on the head. Someone very wise (a mother of ten children, too) told me one day that the reason we discipline our children is to teach them how they must discipline themselves when they get older. We exemplify this basic fact of life: you CAN’T have anything you want, when you want it, or as much as you want. It’s sad to see adults — marriage partners and parents even — who haven’t learned any self-disciple. They expect the whole world to bend to their wishes, like RIGHT NOW.
Divorce is usually a painful process that teaches much the same lesson, and some folks need multiple trips to divorce court before they finally catch on. Or to jail — where the ‘big bad boys’ teach them to give in. We could spare our children a lot of future pain by saying NO when they are small.
“I’ll give you candy when we get home.” Should be, “because of your behavior here, you will get a time out when we get home and will have no candy today.”
Or better yet, To the cashier, “excuse me. I am going to leave my cart here for a few moments. I need to go outside and speak with my daughter.”
Yes! The cart should have been left and the child dealt with long before they ever reached the checkout stand.
We used to tell our children that we would have practice standing in line at home if they could not do it well at the store.
Great idea!
What can I say? Teaching the values of respect for others, especially the parents, went out the window the same time the “fairness doctrine” flew in. By all means lets don’t hurt the little one’s feelings. Bull&%$#!
A trip to the bathroom or car and a good swat on the rear was in order; not promises of a reward (candy) when they got home. I’m so sick of parents tiptoeing around children. Of course, had the mother done what needed to be done, some fool would have reported her for child abuse. UGH!
If the parents had done it right, a child that age (4-5) wouldn’t have been behaving that way. Should have been dealt with long before that age.
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