"Don't Climb Up The Slide!"

I don't get scheduled for Clubhouse very often, but last week, I was scheduled for it twice. That astounded me. I picked out a good book, though, and settled into my little chair, ready to wait out a boring day.

And it was a boring day, until this group came along. Four children, all in varying stages of "My mother feeds me too much junk food." There were two kids who were siblings, one wearing a dinosaur shirt (hereafter referred to as Dino) and one wearing a Sonic shirt (hereafter referred to as Sonic). Their friends had on a Batman and a Red shirt (guess their names).

Now, these chubby kids sounded like little girls when they screamed. And that's all they did: scream. They all picked on Dino, claiming that he was a velociraptor. Dino thought the raptor was one of them. So they all screamed and chased each other. 

TreeTop echoes like nobody's business, especially in the enclosed space that is the Clubhouse. (It's got a high roof.) So I was fighting back a headache after about ten minutes of this.

Then things get out of hand. Dino starts screaming, and Sonic rushes out to his mother and says, "DINO CLIMBED UP THE SLIDE AND I SLID INTO HIM!" Batman and Red come out saying the same thing, so the mother scoops Dino up and takes him out of the playplace for a few minutes to recuperate.

The other three boys go back to their playing. Now that the velociraptor's gone, though, they calm down a bit, and there's no more screaming.

Soon, Dino comes back to the gate. His mother makes him apologize.

"Sorry I was climbing up the slide," he said.

"You can't do it again, buddy. Remember what happened when you climbed up it last time? I'll give you a warning the next time you do it, but I will kick you out. I can't have you breaking rules," I told him.

"I promise I won't climb up the slide."

So I let him in, and they resume playing. Not five minutes later, Batman comes up to me and says, "Hey, miss, that kid in the dinosaur shirt's climbing the slide again!"

So I get up and go over to the slide, and sure enough, Dino's climbing up it. 

"Hey, Kid, what did I just tell you? Remember what happened last time you climbed up the slide?"

He nodded.

"Now, if you don't stop climbing up the slide, I'm going to have to kick you out. This is your last warning."

His mother noticed me talking to him, and she added in, "Don't do it, Dino! Listen to the lady - she makes the rules!"

So I let him go, and I went and sat back down. I watched him this time. He stood where he was for about ten seconds, then he climbed straight back into the slide.

I got up and grabbed his shoulder. "Let's go, buddy." And I escorted him out of the Clubhouse area. His mother was waiting on the other side of the fence, and she fetched him. He was throwing a fit.

"I'm sorry," the mother told me.

"Look, I'm just trying to keep everyone safe. I'm sorry, but I can't let him back in today."

That didn't stop Dino from coming back at least six separate times begging to be let back in. "I'm sorry! I said I was sorry! I still have my stamp!" (The kid's about four or five years old, if I were to guess.)

"Sorry, buddy. You broke the rules. You disobeyed me when I told you not to climb the slide anymore. I sat here and I watched you climb it RIGHT AFTER I told you not to. I can't let you in today, even though you have a stamp."

"But I'm sorry!"

"You said you were sorry last time, buddy. And you promised me you wouldn't climb the slide again, but you did. I can't trust you, buddy, so you can't come back into the playplace today." 

And his mother came and dragged him away again, while Sonic, Batman, and Red continued to play happily in the Clubhouse.

***

Now, this was a little frightening for me. What if the mother had blamed me for what happened to her kid? What if she had dragged my manager out and demanded that I be fired for "daring" to speak to her kid like that? (I'm really good with words, especially veiled-threatening ones.)

This Week's Lesson: Stand your ground. Don't let anything anybody tells you get you to change your mind. You said you were going to kick the kid out? Kick the kid out. Don't worry about the reprocussions. If things are serious (the kid had a giant bruise on his skull by the end of the day!), your managers will side with you, and they'll agree that kicking the kid out was your only logical choice.

If, by some reason, the manger does reprimand you, wait until you get home before you unleash that frustration. Their job is to appease the customer, even if the customer's being an idiot. Just try to stay calm and act rationally. If you think that what you did was fair, stick to your guns. Just don't antagonize your boss. That would be bad.

Do you work anywhere with small children? How do you keep them in line? Have you ever had to outright threaten somebody in order to keep injuries from happening? How did you deal with the outcome? Talk to me!