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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don't think what the kids did was rude but I also think there are some social intricacies here that (1) it's unreasonable to expect kids this age to get, and also (2) as an adult you have an opportunity to help teach/model.

I like to think "what is the ideal way to handle this situation for adults?" If I were offering to buy a drink for a friend or colleague, I'd have no issue at all if they politely requested an alternative drink that was also available from wherever I was ordering -- I'm not going to tell a friend "No, my offer was for coffee only, I refuse to buy you tea." I think it's rude to restrict an offered treat that way. On the other hand, [b]I also think it's rude if someone offers to buy you something and you try to switch it to something much more expensive or add a bunch of add ons that will make it much pricier.[/b] Like if I offered to buy a friend a coffee and then they were like "could you also buy me a sandwich?" I would find that kind of rude. I also find it rude when I'm buying someone something as a favor and they get super nit-picky about it ("If they don't have oat milk see if they have soy milk and if not that I will do dairy milk but it HAS to be whole milk, otherwise I don't want coffee at all, instead I want...)

So in both these situations, I would have said yes to the requests, but I would also see if there is a way let the kids in on some "behind the scenes" info that would help them with these interactions in the future. You have to do it gently -- don't shame these kids. Like I might say "Of course I'm happy to get you the drink you want Larla, but that's a $10 specialty drink and I was planning to spend about $4 per person, what about one of the following options?" Or "If you are hungry, I'm happy to get you a croissant but we're in a bit of a hurry so how about we just get the croissant warmed instead of double toasted -- it's easiest to keep our order simple when we're a big group like this."

Sometimes people expect children to just know how everything about the world works and of course they don't. We have to teach them. I have less patience for adults who are oblivious to these kinds of social intricacies but then, they also probably never had an adult break this stuff down for them. The point is: if you want people to understand these things, you have to explain them so they learn.[/quote]

I agree with you, except I also don't think it's reasonable to think that kids know the relative cost of things. I'm pretty sure my kids think one drink = another drink, more or less, especially if they aren't familiar with the place or looking at the menu. Also, if they are used to going to starbucks and seeing their parent and/or they are used to requesting "double toasted," that probably doesn't seem like an addiitonal request. I think whether they are rude in this case depends on tone, the please/thank you, and how they responded to OP's no.[/quote]

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