Mom Gets Called Out For Letting Her Toddler Order For Himself & Holding Up A Drive Thru Line

Some people did not believe that it was the time and place to learn important social skills.

By Megan Quinn — Written on May 04, 2023

Photo: @ashlyn_ross / TikTok

Teaching your children how to order for themselves at restaurants and drive-thrus is an important life skill that can benefit them in various ways. It builds their confidence, promotes independence, and teaches them proper social skills. However, there are those who believe that there is a time and place to teach children such skills, and a busy restaurant during a rush is not one of them.

A mother recently took to TikTok to show off a cute video of her toddler ordering a meal for himself at a drive-thru. While she was clearly proud of her little boy, other people did not share the same reaction as her.

The toddler placed his food order at the drive-thru after his mother allowed him to do so.

Ashlyn Ross, a social media influencer and mother of two boys posted a video of her oldest son, four-year-old Cove, determined to order food himself at a Dairy Queen drive-thru. In the video that has been viewed over 540,000 times, Cove rolls down his window and sticks his head out across from the speaker before his mother reminds him to say “I’m ready!” to the employee behind the mic.

“Do you let kids order?” he asks the employee who is clearly having difficulty understanding the toddler.

Ross encourages her son to go ahead and place his order. He informs the employee this his little brother, Briggs would like a “Dilly bar,” and that he would like a dipped cone for himself. He even remembered his manners by adding a “please” at the end.

Although his mother steps in to help a couple of times, her son completes the order himself for the most part.

“At first I tried to tell Cove that Dairy Queen didn’t allow kids to order,” Ross captions her video. “But as you can see, he got his way.”

While the interaction between Cove and the drive-thru employee was undoubtedly cute, other TikTok users disagreed.

Some people claimed that it was difficult enough for employees to understand customers in the drive-thru speaker. “We love the idea of this but it’s already so difficult to hear adult customers through the speaker it’s almost impossible to understand children,” one user commented. “Girl don’t do this to the workers,” another user wrote.

Other users were concerned about the little boy holding up the drive-thru line and encouraged Ross to take him inside if he wanted to order himself. “I think it's great if you wanted to let him place the order, but inside assuming they aren't extremely busy,” one user suggested.

However, other users did not seem to mind at all, considering that there was only one car in the line behind Ross’ and praised the mother for encouraging her son’s independence.

“This is cute!! I have my daughter order her food most times when we go out for her sense of independence and also so she can get used to ordering,” one user shared.