B's great-grandparents gave him a Halloween card with $5 in it. Today I took him to Target to buy a toy. Everything went fine (except that he kept choosing $30 or $75 toys, and couldn't understand why he couldn't buy them with $5). He found a set of three Marvel comics vehicles & bought them. I put the $1.33 in change in his pocket, and we moved on to Whole Foods.
Once we got there, he ran a little wild (Yeah, I was the mom whose kids drive you crazy at the store. Sorry. Sometimes all I can do is give up the battle to maintain calm & order, and do my shopping as fast as I can so we can get out of there.). We were in the bulk aisle and he kept lagging behind me. There were a lot of people in the aisle, so there were moments when I couldn't actually see him. Well, I couldn't find what I was looking for there, so I went around the corner & headed for the customer service desk. B caught up to me when I was halfway there and said "Mommy, look what I got!" and held up a partially-eaten dried papaya stick. The little thief!!
I marched him up to the customer service desk, handed it to the girl behind the counter, and told her that he had taken it. She said, in her bright, perky customer service voice and with a big smile on her face, "Oh that's ok! It's no big deal! He can have it!" My reply: "Umm, no, I don't think so. He may not keep and eat the stolen papaya." I took a quarter out of the change in his pocket, gave it to him, and told him to pay her for the papaya and tell her he was sorry he took it. She was very confused and didn't know what to say.
He was of course very upset about not getting to finish his papaya stick, so we went back to the bulk aisle and had a little lesson in how you bag & label your purchase. Then he paid for it with his own money. A whopping 12 cents.
I hope the lesson sunk into my little monkey's stubborn mind, even if Customer Service Barbie didn't get it.
4 comments:
Barbie may think you're weird, but kudos to you for a mistake well-handled!
I so HATE when people do that, "Oh, it's okay" think when I'm trying to teach a lesson to my kid. You scored a point for frustrated parents everywhere.
One day when Barbie's a mom, she'll go, "Oh, THAT'S what that woman was doing." (Or at least one can hope.)
oops, meant the "Oh, it's okay" THING.
Yaaaay!!! Good for you. I think you did the right thing - it bugs me when parents actually *tell* their spawn to go take a small handful of candy out of one of those bins. It's like they think it's only their kid and not that much candy...but when you have about a bazillion kids doing it, things change a little.
Barbie should have followed your lead
twit
good job mom
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