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Tuesday 29 March 2011

Temper tantrums in the supermarket

Temper tantrums in the supermarket.

That's the children (and sometimes adults),  not me. Working in a supermarket, myself and my colleagues, often witness some ugly sights and sounds typical I guess of any supermarket, shopping centre, mall, kindergarten or war zone around the world. Sometimes it is funny to observe from a distance and you feel sorry for the parents, other times you just wish that a trapdoor would open up on aisle twenty-one and the little monsters would disappear leaving only the sound of their terrible tantrums getting fainter and fainter as they plummet ever downwards to the centre of the Earth. I've never worked on the checkouts but it must be worse down there with big queues and the child getting totally worked up because they can't have a Snickers bar this time. "Why not????? Why can't I????? Why??????!"

"Why not ????!"
 Not all kids, teens or adults are like this of course but the worst day for these outbursts seems to be on a Sunday.  I've even seen the parents (usually the dad) noisily joining in and using the long isles as a place to race up and down with the kid in the trolley hanging on for dear life. This is usually accompanied with Dad making tyre squealing noises like on a racetrack with total dis-regard for any other shoppers. The tot then encourages the Adult being Child behaviour by screaming "Again Daddy! Again!". And guess what happens? Yep, Le Mans kiddy style races with endless replays. It'll all end in tears I tell you now.

getting her diapers in a twist
Then there is the hissy fit child who attacks the food display, kicks violently at the innocent stack of baked beans and launches several packs of pasta into the air as a 'not very grown up' way of demonstrating how they feel or they spin round on the floor like a  bellowing dying fly with big 'out of control' vocal chords. Don't they know how totally stupid they look having their epic meltdowns? And I wonder where they get it all from? Answers on a blogpost please...


Just the other day my ears were criminally assailed by two small children squealing with joy in a way that was so high pitched that hundreds of dogs for miles around the supermarket put their paws over their ears and winced with pain. They were in the store for at least half an hour squeaking and squealing and egging each other on in their atrocious noise. The adults with them did nothing to shut them up. Grrr!

5 comments:

Unknown said...

they get it from us of course... there's no magic tantrum fairy... they see us do it and react... Ignore them I say... leave them to it and have a cup of tea.

A Super Dilettante said...

I used to be a nanny. And I have to say looking after the children is the most exhausting job! I'd never been tired in my life after a day of looking after 3 screaming kids. I wasn't allowed to say no (the parents are psychologists) because it's negative. Instead, the parents said "why not try to say, let's not do this...?" I thought in life, people have to cope with someone who says no to you.

Thank you so much for your comments on my blog. I believe we both have a mutual friend blogger, FF. She is a wonderful person and a dear friend. I'm so glad that you come by to visit my blog.

Jean said...

Having never had any kids I have no axe to grind but as not all kids are so badly behaved in public places it must surely be down to the parents. (I can hear the indignant gasps all around me now.)

I remember behaving like that myself, just once, at the age of about four. I then remember being distinctly grounded. A slight clip round the ear was administered and I then spent the next half hour hung from the coat hook on the back of the kitchen door by the loop in my little wool coat (the one with the velvet collar, two rows of buttons and my gloves on a string up the sleeves). I suffered no harm, just disbelief and a total inability to do anything about it. It worked.

Dean said...

I used to just take them back to the car and strap them in the car seat and sit there until they had finished the tantrum or if they were too noisy stand outside the car while they screamed inside, After they had finished we would have a talk and decide it wasn't the best thing to do and we would go find the basket/trolley and carry on.
One of the main things is learning the art of misdirection and steering them your way while making them think it is their idea, Easy on the second child but not so much on the first as practice helps :D one of the main things is don't get wound up yourself as it never helps and yes im speaking from experience as my kids know just which buttons to press as children are born with that innate skill lol.

Nat said...

One of the main reasons I do my shopping online.... avoiding such traumatic scenes!