Parents Constantly Giving In

[MarmaladeSandwich7]

I work on a till & see an increasing number of parents initially (and rightly) refusing their child’s demand for yet another toy or sweets when they already have one or both on the counter ready to scan but then caving & the kid gets the extra item as well. Have to bite my tongue sometimes! Classic example the other day. A boy of about 6 or 7 started off whining then soon escalated to full blown screaming. His Dad had kept saying no but eventually shouted “ Have it then. Spoilt brat!” Well, who spoilt him?! He told the boy off for behaving like that but it works so he will keep doing it!

And a lot of us don't...

You also must see some well behaved kids go past your till as well.

As with everything in life some people are better at parenting than others.

In this particular example I would’ve said calmly and firmly, if you don’t pack it in I will put back the sweets and toy you already have. And if necessary have packed up the shopping and returned items to shelves (you tend to only have to do this once or twice and this is what I find bizarre with some parenting - do the long winded discipline once or twice and you get years of being able to just suggest afterwards - works, or did for us, every time - but then I was a hardcore meanie)

You reap what you sow in parenting.

But you see a tiny snapshot of a parent and child’s life and interaction.

And perhaps more parents are giving in with small things in shops because the cost of living means they can’t afford the day trips and holidays they used to.

The dad sounds awful. I think pester power has been a thing since I was a kid though and that was not very recently.

Obviously, you shouldn't give in to pestering / whining as it teaches them that they only need to pester and whine to get what they want. I have occasionally given into requests at the supermarket but not if it has involved bad behaviour to get to it and not if they have already been told a clear no. If a check out person judges me for doing so, they can frankly get fucked.

Continue to bite your tongue. You are definitely not in a position to be handing out parenting advice to complete strangers based on the fact that you happen to be scanning through their groceries

Well it is not your place to say anything OP. I used to work in a Nursery/ School, and the behaviour of some of the children was quite appalling. Some of the parents, parenting skills, were verging on zero, so it was no wonder that some of the children had no respect for the adults around them. The children were running the parents. Not good!

You know the shops organise their products intentionally to encourage this behaviour? To increase their profit. Yes of course it's the parents responsibility ultimately but there is a system there working against the parent. Your employers want these tantrums to happen, it's literally part of their business model.

T'was ever thus.

I remember being in the supermarket as a student 25 years ago and down the aisle there was a child badgering the mum for some sweets. Several "no"s were given, child went into tantrum, child smacked, child cried, child eventually given sweets to stop the crying 🤦‍♀️
Mum may as well have said "yes" at the start.

That memory did help me with standing my ground years later when it was my turn!

All this stuff must be cluttering up your till space toys and whatnot, If you see all this?

The Post Office is the worse for this, they have a full aisle of toys along the queue. You just have to be firm.

Pester power has always been a thing. It’s hardly a brand new behaviour.

I mean, they do it for a reason - because it works and makes them money. It’s the same reason bread and milk are generally at the back of supermarkets - so you have to walk past all the tempting stuff first.

I wasn’t saying it was. But I am saying that it seems to be getting worse.

I would never say anything.

I never say anything.

Or are you just noticing it more because you work in an environment where it happens a lot?

Instead of “can I have that?”, I trained my kids to say “that looks nice” when they saw toys advertised on TV or in the shop. Sometimes I felt they just needed acknowledgment that the toy would be lovely to have. If I agreed it was nice and maybe they could put it on their wish list, it defused the situation. Sometimes it’s the blanket NO that sets the tantrums off. Or did I just have easily brainwashed kids?

Mine were always told before we went anywhere, we are going to Tesco for x y and z. Do not ask for sweets/etc they knew no meant no but I do not do mithering, whiny pestering children, I also have 4 so if I were to give in then I’m buying 4 toys or getting home and little jimmy got a toy so the other 3 feel hard done by.

It just was not happening. If we were out and they’d been well behaved sometimes we’d get a treat but it loses value if it’s every time or you’re bribing them to behave with sweets etc.

I work with children so I see how some parents parent, it’s up to them of course and many do the same or complete opposite of their own parents. Some are just never really shown good role models so of course it makes it difficult at times, we also don’t know what someone is going through I know that affects your tolerance to kids mithering for stuff if you’re in a bad place/having a bad day/time of things.