Usually when I visit Asda I come back with tales of children being landed with names from the handbook of cruel parenting but today my blood was actually starting to boil with another gripe.
As I sat having a quick lunch in the Asda café a mother and son were sat behind us. The son was about 4/5 years old and climbing over everything – the seats, the table. The mother would meekly say ‘sit down’ ad nauseum and still he stomped across everything. And then the mother said one of the things that makes me grrrr….
"If you don’t sit down I’ll have to go and get a policeman"
Of all the bloody stupid attempts at controlling a child’s behaviour but sadly not at all uncommon. In fact I remember when we had nutty neighbour, she screamed outside at her toddler that if she didn’t come in and eat her tea she would phone the police and they would come and take her away.
When I was brought up I was taught if I was in trouble a policeman would help. If I was lost or in danger I knew to look for a policemen, in the same way when I was old enough I was taught to understand and respect how to call for help. What sort of message does threatening a child with the police when they are misbehaving send out to them? In fact as a child a family friend was a policeman and he commented how common it was for children to be frightened when they saw a policeman as their parents had used the police scare tactic.
Another cross over area for the scare tactic is threatening children with the doctor and/or dentist – then parents wonder why almighty tantrums are thrown when you really do need the medics!
Breathe and rant over!
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