Some lady was letting her kids run around the mall...

She was just sitting there on her phone and a four and 6 year old were just wandering around, messing around, all over the food court. They even left her sight a few times, she didn't seem to notice, too busy on her phone.

So I tracked the kids to make sure that she was in fact their mom (or whoever was there with them). And I stood near her until she noticed me and then bent down and said

"Excuse me, I don't mean to bother you, but you might not want to let your kids wander around since known sex offenders shop here."

She responded with an "omg, oh thank you." And then I left.

I can't stand it when people let their kids run wild in places like a mall or a grocery store... Maybe we're just catching the parents at a bad time, in their defense. Honestly, I'd never let my kids run around, I'm pretty paranoid as it is :P

Ok, not to seem mean or childish, but I was at the mall a few years back, and they had a lady doing the same thing. She had the cell phone glued to her ear, and her 2 kids were running around, and she wasn't even paying attention, so I happen to have just left the food court, I shot Pepsiballs? Yea, muwhaha. Anyways she hung up the phone mighty quick.

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Originally Posted by Neal

so I happen to have just left the food court, I shot Pepsiballs? Yea, muwhaha.

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I can't make sense of that sentence...at all :confuzd:

you know what.. as a parent of a 2 year old and a four year old.. there is no excuse for not watching your children in a public place. No excuse!!! there is no such thing as a bad moment when you are with your children in a public place. Okay I gotta walk away from this one......

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Originally Posted by Nate

I can't make sense of that sentence...at all :confuzd:

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I agree :confused:

Yeah what are Pepsiballs, and why do they turn an action you were preforming into a question?

Parents these days.... :disbelief

Because instead of sticking paper in my mouth to get it wet, which I figured would be nasty, I dipped the paper in my pepsi and put it into a straw, and I put a ? at the end because I made up the name pepsiball. :)

Ah. Gotcha.

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Originally Posted by Oxylepy

Ah. Gotcha.

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Yea I figure spitballs would be a bit too much. Though i'm sure she had no clue it was pepsi.

Too large a percentage of people Just Don't Care these days. They're too busy with their own precious social lives to give a darn about others, including their own children at times. Most of them just expect everyone else to keep tabs on the kids for them!

Reminds me of the woman on the Bus who let her 8(ish) year old boy RUN up and down the aisle of the bus white it was moving, screaming and slapping the seats, while she just sat there staring out the window. The driver asked her nicely several times to get him to stop and sit down, and each time she weakly told him to sit which he would do for 10 seconds before starting up again. Finally, after the kid toppled over forward after a stop, the driver asked the woman and kid to get off the bus. She looked ANNOYED at that! Some people...:colbert:

yeah I cant stand when parents let their kids run a muck and do whatever they please (in public or at home) just because it's easier for the parents.

Ive seen where little kids start to throw a fit and want candy or one of those little toys at the registers and just to shut them up, the parent(s) get it for them.

I've seen where parents at the fair have let their little ones run off on their own, go to the bathrooms by themselves, all kinds of scary scenarios todays world isn't the same when we were young! (Im 31 so this includes people my age or "wiser" ;)) Wayyy too many sicko's!

I have a 10 y/o niece and I dont even let her go to the public bathrooms alone (single stall bathrooms I wait outside the door, more than 1 stall, I go in with her) due to the fear of what happened to that little boy years ago.. (anyone else remember this story I'm sorry to say the little boys name has been long forgotten, I was younger when it happened) Anyway, the little boy was at a park and his aunt took him to the bathroom and waited outside for him to come out. Well a guy went in right after the little boy did and he stabbed the little boy to death. The aunt was right outside and had no clue what was happening until she seen the man run out with blood all over him!

Ive seen where kids are let run up & down at restaurants almost plowing down the waitresses that are carrying HOT foods. yelling & screaming! It's not enjoyable and relaxing when I'm trying to eat my dinner that I just paid good money for. Or when they are allowed to stand on the chairs.. I always say to myself "have fun when that child is a teenager!" Not saying that our 3 y/o is a saint, cuz she is by farrrr a saint, but if we're in public and she starts to throw a tantrum like any other toddler, especially at a restaurant she's taken to the car to let scream & cry, when she's calmed down THEN we talk to her and explain bad behavior does NOT get rewarded! (oh and you have to LOVE when the parents that allow their kids to behave like this look at you like you're a horrible parent. Yeah we'll see in the future where the spoiled brat is and where our well behaved child ends up) (well in theory lol there's no guarantees)

Parents need to be ready for the FULL commitment of having children. The children are the innocent ones in this, its up to the parents to raise them correctly and hope someday your good parenting will pay off and they will choose to make the right choices in life.

:soapbx:

If you guys want to learn a nice trick with your kids:

When they are very young let them play around with soap in the bathroom and in the kitchen and other such things, make sure it's an enjoyable activity for them. When they get around 5+ and you go to the grocery store instead of saying you'll get them candy if they're good tell them "If you're good you can each get your own bottle of scrubbing bubbles and we can go home and clean the kitchen!" to which they will probably say "yay, can we each get our own paper towels too?" to which you should reply "Of course, but only if you're good."

Also if you ever say "we will leave if you continue to misbehave" you need to leave if they misbehave, right then and there, put away the frozen foods and ditch your cart and just leave.

I'm picking up so many nifty tricks off my psych professor.

Also on topic... The kids running around didn't annoy me, I just kind of followed them from a distance to be sure nothing happened. What annoyed me was their mother not seeming to care and instead being on the phone, this is where children are kidnapped. Oh yeah and I was also annoyed by the cleaning staff who kept hovering around me and weren't wearing gloves. I was gunna report that had I not seen the kids.

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Originally Posted by Oxylepy

If you guys want to learn a nice trick with your kids:

When they are very young let them play around with soap in the bathroom and in the kitchen and other such things, make sure it's an enjoyable activity for them. When they get around 5+ and you go to the grocery store instead of saying you'll get them candy if they're good tell them "If you're good you can each get your own bottle of scrubbing bubbles and we can go home and clean the kitchen!" to which they will probably say "yay, can we each get our own paper towels too?" to which you should reply "Of course, but only if you're good."

Also if you ever say "we will leave if you continue to misbehave" you need to leave if they misbehave, right then and there, put away the frozen foods and ditch your cart and just leave.

I'm picking up so many nifty tricks off my psych professor.

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You're insane, lmao. Actually your psych professor maybe insane.

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Originally Posted by Neal

You're insane, lmao. Actually your psych professor maybe insane.

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I can see it working, though. And I will do that when I have kids... if I see much of them... hrm having kids and being a surgeon could be difficult... Meh, who knows I may not get into med school.

But really if you learn about reinforcement and punishment and you properly use both (messing up either is fairly easy and constantly done by everyone) you can mess around with your kids so easily. My psych teacher was telling us about how she taught her kids that Halloween was about running around getting candy for her and that if they got a good haul she'd give them each a piece. It took them until the second grade to realize that she was messing with them.

Kids are smarter then you give them credit for. lol

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Originally Posted by Neal

Kids are smarter then you give them credit for. lol

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It's not about giving them credit for it, it's about learning and behavior. You can make just about anything seem like a fun activity if you do it properly. This has been proven in the past and it's part of Operant Conditioning.

For example, have you ever wondered why some people love math and other people hate it? It's all about how they learned to look at it as children. I didn't much care either way with math as a child, I just thought it was something we did in class. Then I happened to get a 100% on a test and this was reinforced by my parents to the point where math is my favorite subject (and yes I drool when I get a good calculus problem)

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Originally Posted by Neal

Because instead of sticking paper in my mouth to get it wet, which I figured would be nasty, I dipped the paper in my pepsi and put it into a straw, and I put a ? at the end because I made up the name pepsiball. :)

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Well that just makes it a stupid action on your part instead of just being nasty :weirdface.How did you doing that help the situation?

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Originally Posted by joepythons

Well that just makes it a stupid action on your part instead of just being nasty :weirdface.How did you doing that help the situation?

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It made her hang up the phone, and pay attention to her kid. It was also quite funny.

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Originally Posted by joepythons

Well that just makes it a stupid action on your part instead of just being nasty :weirdface.How did you doing that help the situation?

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Well he got the woman off the cell phone. But I would still suggest doing what I did to anyone, as it will hopefully actually push the person to not do it.

And come on the chance that a known sex offender shops there is pretty good... I mean just in the town I am in there are 6, and assuming you have 3 in any given neighborhood and 1 in three people shop at malls, there is a chance that they will be there ~_~

Mind that the mall I was at is about 6 miles from home, I just go there to avoid the rednecks and obese people (go go preppy mall) as well as the people who beat their children in stores.

And I may have said this before but, personally, I don't have a problem with the kids running around. I adore children, I just know that children get kidnapped and I have studied serial killers before and I know the kinds of things that people do to other people and children. I'm just paranoid something bad will happen to the children, which is why I was watching them as they ran around, since their mother clearly wasn't and I wasn't going to let something bad happen.

It is definately sad that parents neglect their kids. I have a pretty horrible story of what happened at my old employer; you shouldn't read on if you're easily offended by tragedy. A woman drove her carseat-sized infant to daycare daily. Well, one day, she forgot that he was in the car, parked it and went into work.. it was a 90-degree day and she had left the kid in the car all day in the baking sun.. he was dead by the time that she came out to go home. Horrible, but true. It enrages me to see people even leave their pets in the car alone; let alone children! (we travelled cross-country with our cat and ball python; at NO time were they left alone in the truck, even with the A/C on or a window open..nope.)

Not to even mention the kidnapping possibilities.. why can't people realize that an ounce of prevention is worth a lifetime of cure in this? How many children could still be happy and unscathed today if they hadn't gotten kidnapped due to parental/guardian neglect?

Ox, I definately think that you did a good thing. People get so wrapped-up in their social and work lives sometimes, that other things fall by the wayside. The fact that the mother thanked you, instead of getting irate, says to me that this probably happened.

I'm so relieved that I'm not the only one that gets ticked off by parents not supervising their children in public. I was cautious in my first post just to make sure I didn't step on any toes.

I used to work at Subway, and alot of parents with kids would come in, since we were right in the middle of two schools. I blame that job for why I have such low tolerance for stupid people. Kids would spill sticky soda, run around the small seating area, grab chips and throw them, and the mother would be sitting on the phone talking to someone "Are you sure you don't want a BLT? What about a BMT? Oh, could you tell me the difference? Oh what about.." So much patience is required. There was one girl that even admitted her 12 y/o was walking home IN THE DARK (Around like 9 or 10 pm, on a school night) and she knew he was probly waiting at the door for her! I was allowed to ride home on my bike, but not walk.

I'm gonna stick to my words that I was saying last night at our local fair... Some people just shouldn't be allowed to reproduce.

You can also try this (my mom used it on me and my sister--it's a trick she learned from her friend whose mother did it to them when they were young)--

Every time you're out, just tell the kids to keep YOU in their sights, so you don't get lost (because you aren't as smart as they are,) since if they lose you no one can get home. We stuck to our mom like glue because we thought she'd get herself lost. It gives the little'uns a sense of responsibility.

Beats the heck out of just telling them to follow you because you say so.

My parents never really had to use psych tricks or anything like that, it was either behave or get a whipping. I usually chose to behave ha

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Originally Posted by Elise.m

Some people just shouldn't be allowed to reproduce.

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I wish it was that easy... I think people should have to take a class or something.

I think I was just a good kid. I was such a little suck up, sure I did stuff that I got punished for .. but my parents for the most part say I was the best kid. I always made sure to follow the rules because that's what they told me to do, I stayed by them .. shopping was easy, and I always looked after my little sister.

I think its all a matter of caring, if you care about your children causing issues for others then you would keep an eye on them, safety and personal responsibility just are not in the forefront of people minds these day ... something about those cell phones turns people into zombies.

If I ever have children (adoption me thinks), there will be some of what my parents taught me instilled in my kids because I think they did a good job with me.

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Been around the world and found
That only stupid people are breeding
The cretins cloning and feeding
And I don't even own a tv

-Harvy Danger

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Originally Posted by Oxylepy

"Excuse me, I don't mean to bother you, but you might not want to let your kids wander around since known sex offenders shop here."

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That is totally uncalled for, you have no idea that there was one there and there is no need to create more scare. I uderstand that you would be concerned about preaditors however just an offender often poses no threat.'

after lots of reasearch and paper writing I have come to decide that america needs to change there take on offenders. to be an offdender you can do something as simple as moon a cop and get caught or rape someone. It seems to me that you should be more careful with your words

end current rant

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Originally Posted by oliverstwist

That is totally uncalled for, you have no idea that there was one there and there is no need to create more scare. I uderstand that you would be concerned about preaditors however just an offender often poses no threat.'

after lots of reasearch and paper writing I have come to decide that america needs to change there take on offenders. to be an offdender you can do something as simple as moon a cop and get caught or rape someone. It seems to me that you should be more careful with your words

end current rant

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Wow someone is a bit uptight :rolleyes:.

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Originally Posted by joepythons

Wow someone is a bit uptight :rolleyes:.

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X2!
Oliver your not a sex offender are ya? Its cool if it happened when you mooned a cop and got caught;)

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Originally Posted by oliverstwist

That is totally uncalled for, you have no idea that there was one there and there is no need to create more scare. I uderstand that you would be concerned about preaditors however just an offender often poses no threat.'

after lots of reasearch and paper writing I have come to decide that america needs to change there take on offenders. to be an offdender you can do something as simple as moon a cop and get caught or rape someone. It seems to me that you should be more careful with your words

end current rant

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In a mall with hundreds of people? I'm positive a sex offender was present in that mall. You saying there was no sex offenders is like saying myspace has no sex offenders, when in fact 1 out of 8 sex offenders had a myspace that was created in the last 2 years. Sex offenders are everywheres. Malls are a good place for them to pickup on people. Just because they're not convicted sex offenders doesn't mean that none are present. Somebody could be doing it, and just not of been caught. He was right what he told the parent, it made her pay attention.