How to Guarantee your kid will need Ritalin

[Writer Cath]

Over the summer, iced cappucinos were super popular at Tim Horton's - in fact, they pretty much spawned their own summer hoarde, because yay, cold drink + hot day = awesome.

The catch with iced capps is that they are super ridiculously caffienated - they're probably the most caffeine laden thing in all of Timmy Hos Land.

This guy walks in with his kids, neither of whom could be older than eight. The kids are behaving perfectly well and he orders three iced caps, one medium two small.

In my head I'm kinda going because I can just imagine what this much caffeine is going to do to an eight year old. I've seen people literally jonseing for these things, like all twitchy and irritable and everything. People will storm out of the store or peel out of drive through furiously whenever the machine was down. These iced capps are made by combining the liquid caffeine sludge (even with more than a hundred quarts of water, you can SMELL the caffeine) with a cream or milk or chocolate milk or whatever and whipping it all up. After personally making the sludge several dozen times, it rather killed any urge I might have to drink one of these things ever again.

So basically, even though it's cold out and it's a hot day, this is not a kid's drink. Plus, we have bottled juices and fountain drinks that are decidedly easier on the anatomy.

I try to explain politely, but naturally, since I work here, I have no idea what I'm talking about.

He buys the stuff anyway and as they're walking out, each slurping on a straw, I found myself debating over who to feel sorrier for.

[Azalea]

Ick. WHY do people give their kids stuff like that? I once saw a little girl about ten drinking a Mountain Dew X, the energy drink version of MD. This kid and her mom were on the bus. Mom was in a wheelchair, so the driver had to help her get her chair in the bus. Meanwhile, the little girl was running in and out of the open bus doors asking who needed that bus, and getting in the drivers seat playing with the steering wheel! Talk about an accident waiting to happen. What's worse than kids hyped up on caffeine is the crash they experience afterwords...

[hawkchick11]

I know that when my son gets older, it will be hard to keep pop out of his life... but I saw a mother the other day at Walmart give her little girl (probably around 18 months old) a Mountain Dew.

I wanted to go over and slap the mother upside the head.

[Sofar]

Item 1: T . . . Timmy Ho's? I'm not going to Canada.

Item 2: Wow, what does caffiene smell like?

Item 3: I don't like caffiene. Makes me stay up late. I like sleeping. I prefer your uncaffinated soda-pops, and none of these teas or coffees. Except . . . I like espresso brownies. Drugs are better when baked into something.

Item 4: My parents were very lax in a number of ways, but they still had the sense not to give us caffiene. And this was back in the nineties, (yeah, I'm young,) when we didn't have all these crazy energy drinks.

[AFpheonix]

Oh, I dunno. Mom let me have coffee and tea and pop (and occasionally I'd nip a little off of her glass of wine ) and I turned out mostly sane. No worries.

[Crosshair]

What's worse than kids hyped up on caffeine is the crash they experience afterwords...

Mabee that's the point. Instead of giving them cold medicine they just let them crash so they can toss them wherever they need to be.

I have the "Kidstoned Chewable Valium" comedy skit stuck in my head now.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Those kids probably ended up like Mike Myers in one of my favorite SNL skits.

He was tied to a playground jungle gym, and when he ate some chocolate he became hyper and strong enough to pull the jungle gym out of the ground and run down the street still tied to it.

[friendofjimmyk]

I have a friend who has a little girl about a year old. He was at a meeting with her once (she's cute as a button!) and he was drinking a Mountain Dew. He filled the cap with a little of it and let her drink some. He stated, "her mother is going to kill me!" I am sure it's not something they do all the time, but sometimes, as a parent, I guess (I don't know - I have no children) you get lax in the rules you'd say you'd set for yourself.

Babies can be just so gosh darn cute that when they want something that mommy or daddy has, the parent may let them try a little of it. I know someone who did that in order to prove to her kids that they wouldn't like it. It would backfire at times.

Soda pop was a treat in my house when I was growing up. Mom barely ever bought it and when we got it, we knew that we were not going to get it all the time. My mom was strict about what we ate. No sugary cereals, no processed foods, nothing - all meals were homemade. Those were the days!

[South Texan]

I remember as a child in the late 60's that Mountain Dew was one of the most popular soft drinks in my school. Kids even brought it with their lunches. In that era, very little was spoken or disseminated about the caffeine in such drinks. People tended to think only cola colored drinks had caffeine, and parents thought only coffee was really bad for kids.

The summer of 69 I lived on Mountain Dew and Big Red. Now I cannot stand either.

[shenzee]

Those kids probably ended up like Mike Myers in one of my favorite SNL skits.

He was tied to a playground jungle gym, and when he ate some chocolate he became hyper and strong enough to pull the jungle gym out of the ground and run down the street still tied to it.

I remember that skit! It was one of the funniest ones I remember seeing. Nicole Kidman was also a kid on the playground. Ah, back when SNL was actually funny....

[Tria]

Drugs are better when baked into something.

*Snickers*

[MystyGlyttyr]

I dunno, my parents gave me Dr Pepper in my bottle when I was a baby and I turned out perfectly normal!

I have to go now, my boss wants to talk to me about the burning effigy of Hulk Hogan that I made out of junk faxes...

[zzapp the witch]

Haven't drank sodapop in years, haven't ate fast food in years, (ok, quiznos, rarely), though I do like my hot mocha breve when its cold out, and if the kids are good, they get a hot chocolate.

My kids are spoiled, but not spoiled rotten, and thank god I have kids that are more likely to choose a healthy "candy" (like fruit) over a chocolate covered hunk of sugar.

An......aquaintance.... of mine gives her kids MD whenever, and her and her hubby are always walking around with a 2 liter (need I add that they are both over 300 lbs with no health problems (other than severe obesity)?) will actually put it in her babies bottle, and her 4 yr olds cup. Later, when they're both going nuts, mama starts with the spanking.

This last time she pulled that stunt out here out my house, I told her she'd better not be thinking of swatting those kids later, as they didn't deserve it, she did. "Are you questioning my skills as a mother?" she asked. "You mean you have skills???"

They still honk when they pass by on the road, but thankfully they haven't stopped, because next up is her lack of hygiene....no woman should smell that bad, unless they have a severe medical problem they need to have looked at.

[Mildew]

When I went to Busch Gardens one day, I was shocked (and greatly appalled) to see a father filling up his baby's (couldn't have been more than a year old) bottle with Dr. Pepper.
I was just staring at him with a raised eyebrow and my mouth hanging open until my friends dragged me away. Apparently, one of my friends (who goes to this forum under the name of DarthRetard) was raised on Coke in the same fashion. Now, he turned out fine (well... kinda >_> he's had minor kidney problems, which may or may not have been a result of the Coke) but I can't imagine that being good by any degree.

[Imogene]

Hmmm... I've almost managed to wean myself entirely off Mountain Dew... unless, of course, when I'm hanging out at a friend's apartment, as that tends to be all they have around.

One morning, I was over there (spent the night) and, being the early riser I am, I was up before they were... playing video games, cleaning up after them, and drinking an occasional Mountain Dew. No food in me yet, as I had to wait for them to get up, as they usually did 'breakfast' around noon, we'd go out and grab something... After about the fourth Mountain Dew I wasn't feeling so hot... and they were waking up finally. He suggested to drink a glass of the fruit punch that was in the fridge (the fruit punch seriously tasted of dissolved Smarties, he got it for a total of 25 cents, if I remember correctly, because I'd asked him to pick up something non-caffeinated)

I did drink a glass of it, and felt a little better later, but I was buzzing really badly until the fruit punch diluted the caffeine.