Her Son Refused to Put Away His Tablet at Checkout, So She Used a Classic Parenting Trick to Get Him Moving
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Teaching kids to listen to their parents can be a challenge, and sometimes the most effective option is to show them some extreme consequences.
That is what happened while a parent was checking out at the store in this story and her child refused to come over when it was time to leave. After warning him three times, the mom smiled at the worker and left without her child.
Moments later, the worker warned the young kid that his mom was leaving, and he absolutely freaked out trying to get to his mom. You can bet that he will listen better in the future.
I think Mom handled this very well. Read through the full story, and see if you agree.
Epic Parenting
So, I used to work at a Retail store that, for the purposes of this story, we shall call “Paper Clips”.
This story will take some minor setup just to describe how the store is set up.
We have one main desk that is at the front of the store and works like a customer service/checkout/Tech Support combo pack.
I’m sure this helps to prevent theft.
To the right of the Front Desk is a “one-way” enter door that only opens to people entering the store.
To the left side of the desk is the actual door that allows you to exit the store.
Right in front of the service desk is our selection of tablets, which as you can imagine is quite popular with they young kids and sort of allows the adults to shop in peace as their kids play games.
I’m sure the kids never want to stop playing games.
On this particular day, a mom comes in with her 3 kids (we’ll say the oldest was about 8 and the youngest 6) and starts shopping.
The oldest of course immediately goes to the tablets and starts playing games, oblivious to the rest of the world.
The mother starts to finish her shopping and warns the kids to stop playing games and get ready to leave.
He has no interest in anything other than his game.
The 8-year-old boy of course ignores her completely absorbed in a game of Angry Birds (or whatever he was playing).
As I am checking this lady out her two youngest get ready to leave with their mom and abandon their games like good kids.
She gives the oldest two more warnings by the time I finish up her order, but he keeps playing and shrugs her off.
This is where her Epic Parenting kicks in. She looks at me, says thank you for ringing me up, takes one last direct look at her oldest kid still playing the game, frowns and then leaves the store.
Is she really going to leave him behind?
I look at the oldest kid for a minute and watch her load up her bags and kids into the car.
At this point I get worried cause I really don’t want her to leave the kid behind (too much paperwork). So I turn to the kid and say “Hey kid! Your mom is leaving you behind.”
Now then at the same time he turns around looks for his mom, she is actually slowly driving away in her car (essentially looking like she is leaving him behind, but not really).
Kid goes into FULL PANIC mode and runs the wrong way to our door that only opens for incoming customers and, realizing it isn’t opening, starts trying to pry it open with his bare hands like he is about to be killed by zombies or something.
I guess he should have listened.
Kid also starts yelling for his mom and is almost in tears (I am too but it’s because I am laughing so hard).
Now our doors aren’t really heavy but for a 8-year-old, it would probably be like trying to pry open a steel trap.
The mom, meanwhile, is slowly driving away along the front of our store.
I’m in tears laughing so hard and was about to help the kid, but my manager got there first and managed to flip the reset switch at the top of the door which made it open for the kid.
A lesson well-learned.
The mother sees this happen and stops the car to let her kid catch up and jump in.
I catch her gigantic smile as she drives off, probably knowing he will never do something like that again.
My manager looks at me confused as heck wondering what was going on and I tell him “She was going old school parenting on him” which gets a nod and smile from him as he goes back to the office.
Some kids won’t listen until you force them to listen, so that is just what his parent did in this story.
Let’s see if the people in the comments on Reddit like the way it was handled.
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Well done Mom. Well done.
People always think they know how to parent, until they become parents.
What a great story.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a mom who wants her daughter to help pay for her own cell phone, but her daughter says she can’t force her to get a job.
I just call this good parenting, though.
This commenter has seen this type of thing many times.
Kids who don’t listen need to be shown the consequences of their behavior. This mother handled the situation well and won’t likely have to remind the child to come when he is called again.
It is nice to see that this type of parenting is becoming acceptable once again, though.
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