Interacting with children can be a heartwarming experience, but occasionally, we encounter misbehaving children whose actions test our patience and tolerance. In this collection of stories, we delve into the memories of individuals who share their blood-boiling interactions with misbehaving children.
From tantrums and disrespectful behavior to disruptive actions in public spaces, these accounts shed light on the moments when frustration and exasperation overshadowed the innocence of childhood. Join us as we navigate the complexities of dealing with misbehaving children and explore the tales that remind us of the importance of empathy, discipline, and understanding in shaping young minds.
Get ready to empathize, reflect, and perhaps gain insights into how we can foster positive interactions with children, even in challenging situations.
All content has been edited for clarity.
Of Course, They Still Complained
“I worked at a grocery store during high school as a cashier. One typical busy Sunday, I was ringing out an older lady who was buying among her normal groceries, a birthday cake for her husband.
They had recently celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary and it was his 79th birthday. She had a large sheet cake with the typical happy birthday greeting and a photo of him on his first birthday after getting back from Europe in WW2. She left it in her cart until I had rung everything else out so as not to damage it.
A child was with his family in line behind her. The lady began to lift the cake out and the child screamed, ‘Oh cake, I want some!’
The lady politely said, ‘You do? This is for my husband, do you think he will like it?’
The child shrieked, ‘Yeah, I do and I want some!’
The lady giggled and said, ‘No hun, I would like to, I have a lot of people waiting for it. Maybe your mummy and daddy will buy you one.’
The kid, obviously not used to being told no threw a fit and did a Hulk Smash down through the plastic into the cake. He giggled and licked his hands. The lady was speechless, meanwhile, a*shole child’s parents laughed and said the usual ‘Oh, _______, you are so funny.’
The kid was still giggling and saying how fun it was.
I chimed in and ask them what their problem was, thinking it is okay for their kid to do that.
They just said, ‘He is 8, what can we do?’
I said, ‘Punish him, learn how to raise your child, should I go on?’
I closed my line down and left them standing there while I went back to the bakery to fix her cake. After about 20 minutes of cake surgery by our bakery ladies, reprinting a new edible image and new piping, the cake was good as new.
The parents complained, but after I told my manager, she took my side and all was well.”
She’s Going Places And They Aren’t Good
“So, a number of years ago my family got a knock on the door and it was one of my dad’s deadbeat cousins standing on our doorstep with her four-year-old daughter. My family is fairly well off and on my dad’s side of the family he’s the only one who ever went anywhere, so we typically get a couple of phone calls a year asking for money or whatever. This is the first time one of them has shown up in person. Nobody knows how she got our address.
Anyway, she asks if she can stay with us for like a week, and my parents, put on the spot, agree because cousin and daughter have apparently been living out of their car for the last month or so.
Anyway, as time goes on it becomes apparent that the cousin doesn’t know how to handle her daughter when she cries as her daughter is a bit of a screamer/temper tantrum thrower. Thus she typically gets whatever she wants just because her mom doesn’t want to deal with it. My parents were having none of that. So when daughter starts shrieking (including multiple times in public when we took them out to a nice dinner [the meatballs on her spaghetti were made of veal and not beef, god forbid] and bought them groceries [They didn’t have the cereal she liked]) my parents would just tell her to calm down as screaming wasn’t an effective method of getting her way.
Anyway, so one day during this week I was sitting around playing Final Fantasy 4 on the PS1 and I’d been playing for maybe fifteen minutes when her daughter comes in and says she wants to play. I told her that I’d only been playing for a few minutes but that if she wanted to go watch some TV for like a half hour I’d be happy to let her play all she wanted once I’d got a fair turn. She started crying and shrieking (including climbing up onto the couch so she could get her face right next to my ear and screaming as loud as she could). I told her that if that was the behavior she was going to use to get her way I wasn’t going to let her play.
So she punted me as hard as she could in the spine and walked away. It hurt, but she was 4 so I didn’t really think anything of it and thought it was the end of it.
A few minutes later, she came back looking all smiley but she was quiet so I didn’t bother talking to her. Finally, she asks me one more time if she can play and I tell her no because her behavior earlier was unacceptable. From behind her back, she pulls out my dad’s weighty, lacquered ceramic ashtray which she then uses to beat me over the head until it breaks. I, bleeding with pointy bits of pottery sticking out of my head, go grab my parents. They eject the cousin from our house and take me to the hospital.
And that, friends, is why I’ll never have children.”
The Parents Blaming Him Is Wild
“I own a grocery store. It’s the only grocery store in a pretty small town. I mean, there’s like corner stores and stuff where you can buy basics, but they don’t have a lot and their stuff is really expensive. So, my store is pretty much the only place you can buy groceries in town (the next closest town is like a 45-minute drive).
So anyway, we also have a bakery. And one of the nicest women in the world (who was also my former teacher) had us make a cake for her husband’s 90th birthday, she was throwing a huge party for him. It was a bada*s cake.
So, there was this little sh*t running around and his parents didn’t care. He was throwing things all over the floor and stealing cookies. Before I had a chance to stop him, he ran over to the bakery. He saw the cake we made behind the counter and started grabbing with his disgusting hands and shoveling it into his fat hole before someone was able to stop him. The cake was f*cked beyond repair.
The parents came like 2 minutes later and started complaining that we let their kid get all messy. They didn’t apologize. They didn’t act shocked. I was furious at this point. I started yelling at them and they asked to see my manager, because ‘you can’t treat a customer like that’ (I was wearing the standard uniform because someone called in sick for the day and I was filling in). I then told them I was the owner and they weren’t allowed in my store anymore and said if they ever come back I’m going to call the police. I took their picture and hung it up so every employee will be able to identify them.
Most satisfying feeling ever.
Also, the cake we made was totally f*cked up, but I had one express delivered from a specialty cake shop. That woman deserves it. I got invited to the party, too.”
