From: Choochclwn@aol.com
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2000 06:42:43 EST
Subject: Re: Handling Parents
To: balloon@fooledya.com

One solution to this is to carry a bunch of the small plastic animals T. 
Myers sells by the gross. These come on a variety of colors and allow you to 
make sure the child doesn't leave empty handed.

This works more often than not, but there still are parents who will give you 
a hard time...their child, after all, is an exceptional genius who doesn't 
put things in his/her mouth. (I'm not the first twister to observe that 
parents can be bigger children than the children.) All you really can do is 
stick to your guns. Only once did a parent make it a major issue, and 
canceled my booking because I told him in advance that balloon twisting was 
not appropriate for his party full of two year olds. In my heart I've worn 
that cancellation proudly.

Something else I've found is helpful in getting parents to understand that 
small children should not have balloons: If I'm twisting balloons as part of 
a clown show, as I'm tying on my apron I tell the kids that if a balloon 
breaks, it's super-duper important that they pick up the pieces right away 
and throw them away, and I ask them who can tell me why. One of the children 
(usually a girl) always answers that it's because a very small child could 
pick up the pieces and put them in their mouth. I tell them that's right, 
that the small child could choke on it, and since we love them we don't want 
that to happen.

Hope this helps.

Twistin' the night away...
Bennett (who believes children were not meant to be choked...now parents, 
that's another story...)/Chooch
<A HREF="http://hometown.aol.com/choochclwn/myhomepage/index.html">Chooch the 
Clown</A>