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In a Shopping Mall
an excerpt from "The Small Moments of Our Lives" Bob Green
In a shopping mall, a child was screaming and crying. The child seemed to
be tired, and with each passing moment the crying grew louder. Apparently it
had been a long afternoon, and the child was throwing a bit of a tantrum.
Other people in the mall looked over, some with annoyance, some with
concern.
The child’s mother, carrying two large shopping bags, knelt down next
to the child. The mother did not yell, and did not scold, and did not yank
at the child’s arm. Instead the mother talked quietly with her child for a
minute or two; at one point the mother smoothed the child’s hair with her
hand. Within two minutes the child was quiet, and seemingly in a better mood;
the child was even giggling. Hand in hand, the mother and her child walked
toward the mall’s exit.
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