Does anyone have an unique way to control an over rowdy child? Tricky Ricky told me about a special procedure he used one day to control a nine year old. Tricky Ricky, do you want to mention the story to everyone?

This took place in the very early 1970s at the hat & Rabbit Christmas children's party.
Now, in those days rules for children for bad behavior was much stricter than today. Children were disciplined if they stepped out of line..
Sid Lorraine asked if I could do the magic show for that Christmas party.
A certain member had 2 boys age 7 and 9 years old, for name sake lets call them (Don and Juan) that would attend all of the functions and get together, They would drive everyone crazy especially the performers of that day. Sid told me after the performance that the reason he'd asked me is, all the senior members wanted to see how I would handle those 2 boys.
Herbie the Clown was on before me. These two boys drove Herbie up the wall and around the bend. They ran up and grabbed his horn, tried to get behind his table. He had a rough night to say the least.
As I started my performance, the older brother ran up and pushed my table almost off the stage which was about a foot in height. No sooner his brother followed, trying to remove my props from my table to the floor.
The elder brother sat on the edge of the stage and decided that would be his seat for the performance. All the coaxing could not get him to move back to his seat.
I decided to take the matter in my hands, after all it's my show and he wasn't going to ruin it.
I stopped the performance and steeped down walked over to the young fellow and with my back turned to the audience leaning over I placed the tip of my right toe on top of his toe while applying slight pressure, I said in a very nice and calm voice while shaking his hand with a smile " you're going to go back to your seat and be a good boy.
To everyone's delight, he politely went back to his seat and stayed there all through the performance. The applause was deafening, they all know the havoc these two boys heaved upon the members over the years.
At the following meeting Sid said some of the elder members wanted to know what I said to the boy that made him behave I told no one except Sid in confidence.
His father came over and complimented me on how I handle the situation and that other magician would be screaming at them. He then asked what did I say or did, for he would apply it when they stepped out of line. I said why don't you ask your son. He replied "I asked him and he said you did nothing.
I once read somewhere about someone using this method to control a boy who wouldn't behave and I decide to try it out.
True story, only the names has been changed to protect the innocent.
Tricky Ricky

Thank you for telling your unique child control procedure. If a child gets too rowdy with me, now I know what to do.

Here's another idea from another veteran Canadian kids magician (me!), although to be honest I can't remember who or where I got the idea from:

Tell the smarmy heckling disrupting problem child that he seems to know a lot about magic, and would he please help you with the next trick. Have him sit in a chair, place a large silk or hanky over his head covering his face completely, and ask him to stay as still as possible. Flatter him that he is doing a great job, and then ignore him and go right into your next trick. When the trick is done, remove the hanky from his face and thank him and have everyone applaud. The boy shall sit down and cause no more trouble. This has worked quite well for me in the past.

The Amazing Todsky

When a kid is a PILL....

I ask whos kid is this?

And 95% of the time the parents don't answer.

But some of the other parents that see the kid being a PILL
will point to the parent.

And I say, Can you help me here? Thanks.

Another: I was doing a Camp and it was Carnival Day.

When I got there the kids were eating cotton candy and Snow Cones.

So they were cranked up on sugar. Flying High on Sugar.

I tried every control I know and nothing worked.

So I just did the show and got paid.

It was a pain in the neck but I was nice.

Give the kid an old shabby deck of cards, tell him how awesome you are at reading minds, send him outside so there's no way you can see them, tell him to pick 9 very random cards. tell him you will call him back in and then read his mind, all the same.

Just don't call him back in.

I haven't done this yet but when the time comes that was my plan.

Frank, are you serious? If so, I would not consider something like that. Think about how his/her teacher, parent, guardian is going to feel. Imagine the kid getting rowdy and doing something out of hand to him/herself, to someone else, to someone else's items out of the view of others. All the blame is going to lead towards the magician. I like Tricky Ricky's professional showmanship method the most because his method did work at entertaining and controlling the nuisance children.

The kids I was dealing with were just wild. Their intention was to wreck the magician's props and destroy the performance. They were out of control and were well known to the members. The funny thing was, their father would just sit there and made no effort to put a stop to the what's going on.
I've to agree with Dynamike here---Frank you cant be serious on what you've just posted, or are you?
Tricky Ricky

Not as crazy as thinking that in todays society that you could try to secretly step on a childs toes and thereby intimidate him into behaving himself. I can only imagine the kid screaming and yelling that you're standing on his toes and can then imagine the parents of that child's reaction. Playing with fire with that method as well. Given the dad was in the magic club and was well known to everyone at the event was probably the only saving thing in that story. Given that your story happened in the 70's you could possibly get away with that method. These days with people using the power of leaving negative reviews and slamming you online, it's a dangerous fine line to tread. Google will not come to your defence, so you have to be careful.

There must be a misunderstanding. Let me try and clear this up for you. Tricky Ricky is a high qualified magician. He does not wear the big clown shoes like you. I hope you understand now.

Al Kazam.
You're not reading my post entirely. Noticed that I say slight pressure, it was a slight touch, I would not put pressure that would hurt the child.
Now, the world we live in today, I wouldn't dare try that sort of method. If you recall back then, parents were still using the strap.
Tricky Ricky

Come to think of it. The way I did it was not really putting my she on his , rather having the tip of my shoe pushed up against his shoe so there was some resistance. No damage was done to the child,. As Dynamike says--I'm a professional children's entertainer and have been for years. I love children and have raised 2 of my own.
Tricky Ricky

This reminds me of a Show we(wife & I)did - the sponsors warned me that a few kids would be difficult and to handle them any way I want-befoe it gets out of hand. First thing when my wife came on stage a yell came from the audience what this kid wanted to do to her- So , I asked, then told him to leave- - after the show the sponsors thanked me for handeling the dirty mouth kid-.. Later I got a letter from the City Commissioner that I would never be hired again in his city - the Mother of the kid was a VOTER-. guess the right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing. Oh well - once in a lifetime (70 years).

Tricky Ricky, I am sure he read your post right. He is just being himself, trying to be a nuisance because no one else would give him attention, (that's why he is the type of clown he is). He is one of the members of the "Overseas Gang." I remember a few years ago I dealt with all of those members to keep them from tearing apart our forum. I did not destroy the gang, but I exhausted them from coming back to look for trouble in our forum. If anyone feels uncomfortable from the cyber bullying of the "Overseas Gang", let me know. I still have energy left to send them back overseas.

Al is entitled to his opinion and I don't think he meant any animosity towards me. He's just saying what he thinks of the post.
Thanks for the support Dynamike. Maybe we should not start a fight---there is enough of that on the Café for which I don't think the Regulators are happy with and I don't blame them.
Tricky Ricky

Sorry I meant The Regulators are not happy about the fighting.
Ricky

Well said Tricky Ricky.

I feel you. I had some tough times I regretted from the past. The good thing is we all learn from our mistakes. Can't win them all.

That's CORRECT (we CAN'T WIN THEM ALL)
rICKY