Kris and I took a stroll through the neighborhood today to visit the weekend garage sales. First we walked down to Lane’s house to browse his books and knick-knacks. (Lane is a GRS reader, and when we showed up, he said, “J.D., this is all capital-S Stuff!”) Then we hit other sales on the way home.
At the last house, Kris got side-tracked looking at unused vintage postcards. (“They have spots for one-cent stamps!” she told me.) Because I was bored, I visited the corner of the yard where two young (10-year-old?) girls were holding a bake sale — with cookies and donuts they’d bought at the grocery store.
As you know, I always try to support entrepreneurial kids, so I bought one dollar’s worth of goodies. The prices were absurd. The donuts, which probably cost 33 to 45 cents each, were marked at 25 cents. The cookies, which probably cost about 20 cents each, were marked at 50 cents. Who’s going to buy a cookie for 50 cents when they can buy a donut for half that price? Not me.
I bought two donuts and a 50-cent lemonade, paying with a five-dollar bill. The girl I handed the money to looked confused. She opened her cash box and fumbled around for a bit, and then handed me a small stack of coins. Mostly nickels.
“Is this right?” I asked.
“It’s close,” she said.
“Really?” I asked. The girl shrugged.
“How much did I buy from you?” I asked.
She though for a moment. “Seventy-five cents?” she asked. She didn’t seem to know.
“Well, actually, it was a dollar. And how much did I give you?”
“Five,” she said.
“So, how much change should I get?” I asked.
The girl stared at the ground and looked uncomfortable, but she didn’t answer. Finally, the other girl chimed in. “Four dollars,” she said.
“And how much did you give me?” I asked, holding out the pile of mostly nickels.
The first girl shrugged and then said, “But I don’t have enough change.”
I was laughing on the inside; I knew the girl was uncomfortable, but this was silly. I mean, what does she do at the grocery store when she pays cash? Doesn’t she check to see how much she gets back? What’s she going to do when she works an actual job and somebody pays her? Just guess at what the change should be?
“I have an idea,” I said. “Why don’t you ask your Mom if you can borrow some of her money to give me change?” And so she did.
Kris, who had been absorbed in her quest for cheap postcards, didn’t get to see this episode. When I told her about it on the way home, she laughed out loud. “You have to write that up for Get Rich Slowly,” she said. And so I have.
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Learning how to give back change is an important skill to have. Sadly, many of our youth (and adults) do get confused.
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Pathetic!
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You guys laughed about this? Seriously, this is the most depressing thing I’ve read recently… a 10 year old that doesn’t know what 5-1 is and how much a nickel is worth.
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Meredith is right that’s it’s depressing, but all I can do is laugh. Mathematics in our country is terrible (but explains a lot).
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Era of plastic money my friend!
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My 8 year old could figure this out with ease and probably has been able to do that for a year or two. I agree that a 10 year old not getting it is kind of depressing…
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That’s horrific. We had a garage sale several months ago and had the kids set up a table of their own selling cold lemonade and cookies. We also had them on the street using a small bullhorn to bring in customers. They had a blast. My kids are younger (1st & 2nd grade this year) and we used it as a way to teach them about money and math.
We explained briefly about PROFIT MARGIN and how we wanted their take home at the end of the day to be more than we spent making the cookies and lemonade. In the end, they came out even between expenses and earnings because we only sold half of the 300 cookies we made, but they had a blast doing it and said they wanted to do it again the next time we had a garage sale.
But 10 yr olds that can’t do basic math? Horrendous!
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In addition to the lack of math skills, I am dismayed by the lack of parental guidance and involvement.
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I’m surprised no one has mentioned this so far, but where were the parents? Between food allergies and all the nut cases out there, I’m not sure I’d leave two 10 year old girls alone to sell baked goods and handle money without any supervision.
This venture could have been a really good experience for these girls if they’d had someone to help them with the business and customer service side of it.
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It’s been more difficult to teach our kid about money than it was for me to learn about it… we use credit for everything so there aren’t so many real examples. He does understand that 1 quarter = 1 honeystick… but that’s about it at this point. When we were going through one of his pre-K work books and I was trying to explain what pennies and nickels are… there just weren’t any examples, like when I was a kid, a nickel meant lemon drops, 10 cents was now and laters, 3 pennies was a mary jane, 3 candy bars for a dollar, etc. He may have to learn multiplication before money so we can say, 5 nickels = 1 honey stick.
He’s still a preschooler, so there’s time, but the examples we have for him are pretty artificial. One day he’ll get his own allowance, but there’s no drug store for him to walk to to buy penny-candy. It’ll be mostly book learning rather than practical.
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It is sad that the girl had no idea how much change to give you.
Their entrepreneurial effort is admirable but it sounds like a little adult supervision would have been really helpful to them in terms of pricing and money management.
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Parents of kids with food allergies are the ones that need to be concerned about kids selling cookies in their own driveway, not the parents of the kids selling them.
And I’d be surprised if these kids were actually 10 – that would be 4th/5th grade, and kids ought to be learning about money in school well before that. I know, I’ve got a 4th grader who is well aware of the value of a dollar, and her 3rd grade best friend knows too.
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I think it is great the children were trying to sell something and make a profit. When I was raising my children I tried to praise them for what they did right and the negatives worked themselves out in the end, mostly without intervention on my part.
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I agree with Nicole. It is harder today to teach children about money because so many transactions are done in debit/credit form today. A parent has to make a focused effort to teach financial lessons with actual dollars and cents because, quite often, they’re not using dollars and cents themselves.
Our solution has been to intentionally use cash for a lot of lessons with our kids. Our desire to teach them how money works has just created additional incentive to use cash in front of our kids.
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Scary…Not even homemade cookies.
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@Beth (#9)
The parents of these girls were around. It was a fenced yard, and the “bake sale” (such as it was) took place in a corner, while the Stuff was stacked around the rest of the yard. In fact, one mother (I’m not sure the girls were sisters) actually overheard the conversation, so was prepared when I suggested they ask for help.
Jennifer (#12)
I just asked Kris, “How old were those girls at the garage sale?” “Nine or ten,” she said. And then she added, “Old enough to know better.” This is precisely right. I might be off on their age, but they were clearly old enough to do the math and to ask for help.
@Trent (#14)
I like your solution. Even if kids aren’t exposed to a lot of cash transactions, you can teach them on your own.
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One thing we do to expose our son to cash is that we use the Bank of Dad method for allowance (his allowance is 25 cents a week but he gets 10% interest on savings – right after birthdays and Christmas he makes a ton of interest.) except he only gets the interest if he sits down and counts it.
Unfortunately his grandma got him a money-counting bank so that got a lot easier, but he’s still handling all the coins and seeing the numbers on the bank change.
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J.D., I’m very disturbed by your article. The girls you encountered are just children. You didn’t ask their age so you don’t really know how old they are (my five year old is often mistaken for 7 or 8 because he’s so tall). You don’t know what they are or have been studying in school. You don’t know what grade they are in. You really don’t know anything about these girls. You write an article basically making fun of these innocent children when really you have no facts. You have no idea how much they purchased the donuts for. You didn’t ask them. You just assume they paid 33-45cents each. Maybe they were day old, maybe one of the parents is a baker. Or just maybe mom or dad paid for them and the girls keep all the profits.
Some kids, 10 year olds included, struggle in different areas and it doesn’t make them “pathetic” if math is one of them. These are children that are still learning, not little CEO’s.
If you think the prices were “absurd” then please go somewhere else.
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I hate to say this – but I’m a little surprised nobody mentioned it. That girl knew how much to give you back. She just was playing dumb, hoping that if she gave you the wrong change that you would just not count it, or if that didn’t work, she could tell you she didn’t have enough change and you would just let her keep the $5.
MAYBE if you had bought like $3.77 in stuff and she gave you the wrong change I would buy it – but $1 out of a $5? No way. I think people would be amazed at what kids can pull down in a day because people just say, “Oh it’s okay! You just keep the change!” Unless you were there REALLY early for that garage sale, do you really think that she hadn’t sold enough stuff to make $4 in change yet?
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Hmmm…everyone apprears to pretty tough on these girls. Maybe, just maybe, the fact that she was not looking you in the face reflected discomfort with dealing with an adult whom she didn’t know. Sometimes the simple reason and most obvious reason is the “real” reason. Kind of a “benefit of the doubt” approach to life.
One of my favorite quotes obliquely applies to this situation: “Those who suspect conspiracy would do well to consider incompetence”…of in this case…lack of confidence.
Just my 2-cents.
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Wow, J.D.! That’s pretty sad (but still funny). I can see how kids may not be used to counting money since we use cards so much anymore. I’m going to make a point to teach our kids these skills if/when we have them. I like that Bank of Dad approach that Rosa (#17) mentioned.
I’m amazed at how many of my friends can’t do simple %s (10, 15, or 20) in their heads. I see it all the time when it comes to splitting a restaurant bill and figuring out a tip. It’s such simple math that I just can’t fathom how people can’t do it.
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@ J.D. Thanks — I think I can picture it now..
Still don’t get why the parents weren’t more involved though — maybe letting their daughters make their own mistakes? Not sure I understand why they’d only have quarters when the items were all multiples of quarters. If nothing else, couldn’t they have used a calculator?
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I have a different take on this. What if she had a learning disability? What if she was really 6 or 7, but big for her age? What if she has special needs? The list can go on. You are right, most kids know 5-1, but there could be other issues going on here.
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These kinds of stories are always fun because they point out how our kids are so much better than those kids and how, as parents, we are so much better than those parents.
Rather than speculate about how stupid, poorly educated, neglected, and possibly devious these girls are, let’s take a different approach:
This is the first time these girls have ever been fully responsible for any kind of financial transaction. Their parents, rather than standing over the girls with their HP12Cs blazing through every sale, want them to go through this experience on their own. The kids chose the products, figured out pricing, calculated how much they’d need in the till, and it was all wrong. JD even said the girl was uncomfortable when she realized the transaction wasn’t going right.
It was a safe environment, the patron was just amused and Mom was close by. They could fail, they could understand what they have to do the next time they sell, and so they can learn. And the whole neighborhood got to help them get a tiny bit better as individuals in their society.
Jeez!
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At the local farmers’ markets, generally a few booths will have kids there helping their parents. Since it’s all cash, it seems like a great way to learn how to handle money and do the arithmetic required to calculate totals and change. It’s nice to see the parents helping to walk their kids through the math.
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Hi, new commenter here!
I was about to say there’s no excuse for this, but I guess there are excuses (as others have pointed out). But ASSUMING this girl was nine or ten, and ASSUMING she doesn’t have a learning disability, and ASSUMING she wasn’t being conniving…well, then there’s no excuse! Ridiculous!
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My first thought was may be they had some kind of learning disability. I mean if it is something complicated(!!!) like you bought stuff for $2.79, may be they need to learn. $1 out of $5? something is wrong.
BUT, if they are like that I would never NEVER leave them alone until they really ready for it, I don’t think there were in this case. I won’t do the math for them, but I would have had the conversation that “you” had with them and help them learn by a way that was easy for that and a way that they are used to learn. Everyone of us have a different way we learn things and the parent would know what way his/her thinks and help them remember.
Anyways, if this is their first garage sale and if a lot of people asked like you did (at least you were not rude and tried to make sense, some people don’t do that, they behave just outright rude) it might have scared them more and ruined a good learning experience for them. Unfortunate.
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I was at the gas station recently and went in to pay. I said I wanted 10 gallons of premium, and asked how much premium was. The guy knew the price per gallon, but then grabbed a calculator to figure out how much 10 gallons would be. Really? I did the math and told him before he even got the calculator on.
Back to your point: I doubt these girls have ever paid with cash at a store.
-Erica
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Hmmmmm., I’m going to agree that folks seem to be a bit hard on these girls. About whom we really know nothing. I have a twenty three year old that still gets asked if he’s eighteen when he’s walking on the sidewalk during the day, ifyou get my drift. And frankly, we all have different skills and mental abilities. I would probably have helped the child do the math (although I would also probably have tried to give said kids change). As to your question about what do they do when they go to the market, my answer is, why on earth would they go to the market on their own? Theyre probably not purchasing anything on their own yet (maybe lunches and candy, or a special game), They may be disabled, they may be poor at math. They may be able to do it on paper and not in their heads (the same problem that I, an intelligent woman of fifty something has-I do mathmatical concepts well, but not calculations). I will say that if it were MY ten year old, said child would be near the checkout area or where momor dad were stainding rather than out on the street, where my line of sight and probably hearing would have been blocked by shoppers. Off topic, but when I did yard sales, one person was by the garage, and one person was at the street at a table.
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Hmmm, I’m with Leah above. Maybe she got stage fright, or panicked with no plan B for if they ran out of quarters in their “till” or something. Laughing at them on your blog (not to mention the uncharitable comments) makes for slightly uncomfortable weekend reading to be honest.
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My first reaction was shock, but then, like a few others, I thought this could be due to a learning disability or shyness at being put on the spot. Maybe she just struggles in math–my best friend was in AP English but had to retake algebra three times. She wasn’t stupid, just didn’t “get” math. Another consideration is the parents–how much time do they spend with their kids in educational activities?
We don’t know what the real story is, but if a 10-year-old can’t compute 5-1=4, there’s probably a reason for it that has nothing to do with a child being pathetic (not that J.D. used that word).
I’d even extend the benefit of the doubt to an adult who couldn’t do simple math. You just never know their background, and I can’t laugh at someone else when As came easily to me and I grew up in stable home with two involved parents. I count myself lucky for those things.
Someone else mentioned kids who help their parents work at the farmers market, and my experience with that has been that all of the kids there can count out change, and often they weigh the food and calculate the price per pound, too. They also know more about the food industry and food production than most adults I know.
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occhiblu: I was at a farmers market the other day, and paid a kid $50 for a $10 pizza. She gave me back two $20s and a $10. I just kinda stared at it for a second, probably with a confused look on my face, and then gave her back the $10. People, don’t let your kids handle the cash box.
leah: The prices were absurd because the doughnuts were way UNDERpriced. I doubt the girls understand the concept of a loss-leader, but maybe they are evil geniuses.
Erica Douglass: Sometimes you use a calculator so often that it just becomes habit. I’m an engineer, and while fully capable of doing simple arithmatic, I can’t count the number of times I’ve typed something like ANS*pi^2+2e(5+5) into my calculator, the (5+5) part being pretty stupid.
Rosa: That interest rate is phenomenal. Where do I sign up?
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I read this site daily and almost never comment but J.D. I am really disappointed with your mean-spirited tone in this post.
The kids don’t know how to make change and they should, granted. But their parents are trying to give them a learning experience with their own bake sale table— And you make fun of them??
To me, I think it sounds like you spoke rudely to those kids and you are making fun of them in your post. YOU are the adult and YOU should know better.
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Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident. My daughter’s Girl Scout troop held over 20 cookie booths at the beginning of this year. All of the girls were in 7th or 8th grade, and parents were there to supervise. Out of the first 10 booths, 5 didn’t balance their funds correctly. The largest shortage was $5.25, and the largest overage was $17.50. There was a chart at each booth with amounts calculated for cookie prices (i.e. 1 box – $3.50, 5 boxes – $17.50) and a calculator. Clearly, the girls had no clue, and the parents weren’t paying attention. With a profit to the troop of only $0.60 per box, every nickel, dime and quarter was important.
The leader held a special meeting for the girls to practice making change. After the meeting, the remainder of the booths turned in the correct amount. I’m not sure if the girls made the right change or if parents made up the difference so they wouldn’t get in trouble for the mistakes.
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As many others have said, there are a zillion reasons that aren’t pathetic for the girl’s inability to make change or answer questions. But that doesn’t make the story less amusing
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All 3 of my children had a money unit in school. Each of their teachers also had some way of working it into a fun class project each year.
For example, my Son’s 4th grade teacher assigned jobs to each student, each job had a different pay scale, every two weeks the kids received a check for their work, had to cash their check and had an opportunity to shop in the class room store. Items had a wide range of prices, so that the students had to make choices about saving for the move expensive items or buying now. It was a great year long lesson.
My 3 children (aged 11,11,8) ran a lemonade sale 2 weeks ago. They made $20. I supervised, but the did not need my help once.
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A bit disappointing. On this day of national sorrow- this would be your choice- to chuckle at the expense of children. Really? And your wife is a teacher?
Thinking of my friend who died in the Pentagon today nine years ago.
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Not that JD needs others to come to his defense, but are you guys serious? As a nation we coddle children and encourage them to stay young forever by telling them “Oh that’s too hard for you. Here, I’ll do it.” It seems to me that JD used the experience as a teaching moment without becoming a professor on the spot. He kept his own thoughts to himself and handled the kids in an appropriate manner. And as someone without kids, I’m not surprised that he would be surprised that a 9 or 10 year old child could not figure out the correct change.
Children are very capable of so much more than we give them credit for. At 14-18 years old, I taught kids as young as 5 how to whittle and how to handle camping tools safely and respectfully. At 18 and 19, I taught others teens how to teach kids certain skills, how to listen to a child, how to handle conflict with children and adults. At 19, a friend of mine and I led 8 or 10 13-14 year olds on overnight backpacking and canoing trips, spent a night in a cave, taught them how to serve others, and how to lead their own excursion.
Should we gang up on the kids? No! Of course not! Should we gang up on JD for relating something to us? Absolutely not! But should we find it concerning? Absolutely!
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I have to agree with #19. 5-1, not so hard.
That’s not to say I haven’t had my share of adult cashiers being thrown off by being handed odd amounts of cash.
PS, though: Someone going garage sale-ing should always have small bills and change on hand, making this whole transaction a moot point.
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Sounds like something I would have done at 10. Not because I didn’t know my math but because I was a socially awkward kid and might have gotten nervous. I don’t think the girls are “pathetic” as another poster stated but they should have been better prepared by their parents.
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On the flip side, my DS has a definite “thing” for money. He is nine. He watches Suzi Orman with me every weekend. He wants to buy stocks. He was contemplating opening a lemonade stand earlier this year, and was totally able to calculate the likely expenses, including the cost for paper cups, lemons and sugar — he quickly pointed out that he could get water for free (though I did remind him that we pay a water bill every couple of months). We talked about where the best place to put the table would be (he picked a high-traffic area — Starbucks has nothing on this kid!). And we talked about how to price the lemonade to maximize sales/profit. He also suggested I join in by baking cookies and muffins — the boy is a negotiator! I think ultimately it comes down to what you do as a parent to reinforce kids’ financial skills. I wouldn’t come down too hard on the parents in this case — maybe they knew their kids were clueless and were using this as a memorable “life lesson.” Like “hey, remember the time you guys had a lemonade stand at the garage sale and LOST money?” Not how I would choose to teach them, but at least they are encouraging the kids to experiment with entrepreneurship.
Second thought — what kind of stuff did the family have at the garage sale? Maybe the parents don’t have a clue either, and are modelling selling at a loss all the time in their every day lives….
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Too many assumptions here. How old were they really? Perhaps she gave all the change she had. Perhaps she was nervous.
Seems that you didn’t try to help her at all, shame on you.
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Agree 100% with Rachel211. She probably knew the math, or could do it, but was hoping you’d decide she was cute and just given her all the money. Clever move on her part — she’ll go far.
I know I sound cynical, but I was a 10 year old running a cookie stand once, too.
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#33 – exactly about the small bills. Just think of all that time wasted when you could have handed the kids a buck and be off and running and finding bargains at the next yardsale.
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Man a bunch of the people responding to this post are in bad moods today. I am a special education teacher and I also happen to teach 3rd and 4th grade (both in one classroom). And I know how much of a problem my students have with money BUT I didn’t think twice about that while reading this.
The prices should have been set by the parents. I thought the fact that the prices probably didn’t reflect the cost was probably a fault of the parents.
The kids don’t need to have a disability to be this dumb with money. I see general ed kids all the time who can’t do basic money math. Again, this reflects on the parents and not the children. The parents should have been there to make sure the kids were not getting ripped off and were able to make change.
And, even if they did have a disability, when did it become such a horrible crime to be honest? If you think it was bad that the kids couldn’t work with money and were independently in charge of such an operation, that is your opinion and it is fine. I don’t feel like the post mocked the children or made fun of them in any way. It just was honest.
I am very protective of my students, mind you. And I don’t let people talk badly about them or make fun of them. But being honest about what one of them is capable of doing and is not capable of doing is not a crime. And I hate when someone doesn’t know how to give change but is working that position. I once had a cashier INSIST that I was supposed to get over $15 in change back from a purchase of about $9… after I gave her a $20. She just could not understand why I was trying to give her money back. LOL
Do I care if she might have been math impaired? No. I still laugh at that story today.
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These girls should have known how much change to give you.
If they didn’t, the first girl could have: 1) had a pencil and paper on hand to write the math to give you your change 2) a calculator for the same 3) asked the other girl for help and resolving the sale or 4) called on an adult.
As a parent, the learning disability excuse doesn’t cut it with me, as the parents would have known to provide assistance, and yet were not close by enough to assist. We do have a problem with math in our country, and we need to own it.
Hand-in-hand with bad math is bad customer service. Like the time I used to buy paninis from a certain deli here in NYC, until I tired of explaining to the cashier that I didn’t want her to “round up my change” by a few cents (up to a nickel) because she was shorting me of my change by doing that! Oddly, the panini cashier’s excuse was that they would run out of change by giving exact change!
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The worse thing I find when I’m at the checkout, is I give them the extra change eg the .75c so they can give me a note or $1,$2 back and the person on the checkout has no idea what to change to give me back. Sad thing is it a very easy concept generally you just round it up to the nearest dollar, but someone cashiers struggle with it.
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Oh for Pete’s sake — directed at many of the commenters, not Trent.
At 10, I’d say the kids should have been able to set up the stand, price the wares, and yes, make change. That’s not to say they might not make mistakes (the under/overpricing problem for example), but that’s one way to have a learning experience, no? Beyond ensuring that the kids are in a safe location and have assistance if they seek it I absolutely disagree that the parents have a role here (and yes, I’m a parent). Beyond that, the parents may have tried to help (with setup, or math lessons) and the kids not wanted it. What a great way for the girls to start to learn that actually this stuff does matter (and to get motivated to learn it).
And sure, the kids may have been younger than they appeared, they may have had disabilities, etc., but — really? Can we not ever say, “Man, that was a dumb thing to do” unless we known someone’s life history?
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That’s pretty bad!
Hopefully, the little girl was embarrassed and will now try to learn how to make change!
Both of my kids could make change around 6 or 7…
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I agree with those that say the kids were playing the “cute” card, and the girl didn’t want to admit she knew she was shorting you when you confronted her.
I explicitly remember being in grade school and deciding that I should not be good at math because boys would not like it (!). Despite obviously being a numbers person by the time I got to college, I took (and struggled with) fairly basic classes throughout high school. Amazing the power of misguided self-fulfilling prophesies.
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