Dear Walgreens Employee/Manager(?),
I understand my children were behaving unruly in your store yesterday. I understand that they may have not put all the toys back where they belonged in the toy aisle, I understand that they were being noisy and disruptive.
I am truly sorry if we made anyone’s job harder or anyone’s shopping experience unpleasant. Truly.
I’m sure your kids are grown, I’m sure your kids would’ve never behaved that way.
I’m also going to assume that your children didn’t have a plethora of three letter acronyms after their names, like SPD, ASD, ADD, ODD and more like my two youngest do.
Bringing four children into a store to shop for supplements to help them with their various issues and trying to read labels and compare prices is not an easy thing to do. Especially when two of your children have sensory and behavioral challenges.
The judgmental and unkind way you approached first my 6 year old special needs child, and then me, when you threatened to kick us out of the store, turned this already stressful situation into the single most humiliating experience of my life.
Although my children and I will never again darken the doorway of your store, I do want to pass a little bit of advice on to you, in (the very likely) case you come across another overwhelmed mom with seemingly misbehaving (special needs) children:
A kind, gentle approach can make the difference between a mom being able to walk out of your store slightly embarrassed, but with her dignity still intact, or a mom leaving completely humiliated, crying the entire way home, feeling judged and like a complete failure of a mother.
And to anyone else reading this: try to see others with grace and love, knowing that you don’t know what it is like to be in their shoes or how hard of a day/life they have had. You can make all the difference in someone’s day.
