For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for August 27, 2023

It is a very unusual parenting technique to complain to a store manager about your child having a temper tantrum. Has anyone ever tried that before, and if you did, was it successful?

April is overindulged, typical of a “tail end charlie” child. My younger brother was one such child, but his problem was an overindulgent parent and big sister. :P. :D

The only thing starting (or ongoing) here is hippie era parental permisiveness that lets a kid be an obnoxious brat without consequence. Parents are often so numb to it that they don’t realize how irritating that is to most everyone else in a public setting.

It’s all fun and games with those dispensers, until you run across one that hasn’t been “refreshed” with knew contents in years, like I did. The round bubblegum was so hard, you’d think it was a jaw-breaker (which they weren’t).

“Wanna bet??”

So if the sticker price of the first candy was 25 cents and the store had a 20% off sale and Elly put a quarter into the machine would the store manager have to give Elly 5 cents back?

My wife likes to visit Las Vegas and when she isn’t shopping, she has been known to spend a little time with the slot machines. Somehow I just had a feeling that might be where this was going. I was surprised to be correct.

Don’t discount it!

The mother and the child both have problems that need to be addressed.

I have a story about this, Nevada, and gambling…and I was a kid about 12.

Saw a video of a kid who climbed into a claw machine thru the drop chute. Store keeper didn’t have key so they had to get her to drop back out, LOL!

Our bowling alley has two large game areas. They’re located in the end of the building where they have the children’s leagues.

That’s quite a tantrum you’re throwing, April. Is it possible that your mother ran out of small change?

I wonder if, after April grew up, she remembered what a brat she was as a kid.

my solution was to just leave the store and the child was not allowed to go back to the store/mall until they thought they could NOT throw a tantrum. Worked every time. Even once they got old enough to reason that I needed to go to the store for something important……..NOTHING is so important that you need to put up with a screaming child.

That kid needs a whuppin’.

It looks like Elly is done shopping. Just take the kid out of the store. Don’t waste time talking to any store employee. They don’t have control over the vending machines.

YES

Well, get woke dude. If it could possibly happen to someone, ever, you need to get rid of those machines. What the heck is wrong with you!? …sigh.

Mind your own business buddy!!!

LOL… and WHO is giving April the money to run the machines???

April is beyond misbehaving here. She needs to learn to accept “no”. And Elly needs to reinforce consequences for such behavior. Me? I would have dragged the kid out of the store immediately and taken them home.

Karen demands to see the manager!

Start of a sugar addiction, perhaps.

A know a good butt spanking should start there.

Another graphic display of the “terrible twos”!

I actually like these machines. The kids knew that once we were done shopping (and all went well), they would be getting a quarter to get candy from the machine on our way out. I also liked the fact that it was just a small amount of candy and they were quite happy with that.

I don’t like the way Elly is drawn from the side in these strips with her hair covering her eyes and her nose sticking out. She looked much better in later years of the strip.

Can you prove it?

May I remind everybody that April is three years old. Yeah, Elly should take her out of the store but sometimes trying to quiet a kid that age just won’t work.

Both provide that dopamine reward boost, as do video games, getting likes on tik tok, etc.

Yes. Should be able to find using a search engine. The title is something along the lines of Jury awards that are unbelievable or boggle the mind. Lady was awarded thousands of dollars for tripping/falling over a child run-a-muck; It was HER child and the store had to pay!

No, just a bratty kid.

I do not know if this was gambling addicition per se, but I noticed this as a teenager when I worked in a lumberyard. Ranchers would deposit their cattle in the stockyards, and afterwards they would come to the lumberyard, where I would be responsible for stocking their trucks with lumber, fence posts, wire, and other tools for the trip home.

Growing up where I did when I did, gambling was illegal in my state. However, I lived near a tri-state border where one could have a short trip across the eastern border to the next state which had horse racing, or cross the southern border where there was dog racing.

The majority of the men I worked with earned minimum wage or a little more. Many of them had large families to support. And yet, every Saturday (when I got paid) the majority of my coworkers cashed their paychecks and headed east to bet on the “ponies” or south to bet on the “puppies”, always expecting to win the trifecta.

Usually, they lost. Occasionally they won a little. On Monday I would hear them complain how their bills were unpaid, how their utilites were about to be cut off, or how they could not afford milk for their children. That got me thinking there is a definiite link between gambling and poverty.

April is acting like a black woman in public who does not get her way.

This reminds me of a Berenstain Bears book about how the Cubs get the “gimmes” in a store and how Papa Bear was like that himself as a cub, so his own folks told him at the store he was allowed to pick out one toy or treat, period. And if he got the gimmes and threw a tantrum in the store he got nothing.

More like a spoiled brat addiction