Reply #16: in the case of public tantrums, then parent and child need to leave venue.

[politicat]

Period. With my step-daughter, the tantrums were far worse when she was tired and should not have been in public to begin with. Her father and I made an agreement early on that if she misbehaved in public, we either left the place entirely and went home, or one of us took her to the car, outside, etc while the other one finished as quickly as possible.

I see parents with their kids at the grocery at 10, sometimes midnight on school nights and Fridays when I know the kids have been up since 6 or 7. Of COURSE the kids are cranky and whiny. They need more sleep than adults do. I see parents with kids at the bookstore, forcing the kids to stay with them in the adult section when the kids are clearly bored to tears, tired and tempted. It's not kind to dangle something in front of a person and then say "no, you can't have/look/taste it." How would you feel if someone took you to your favorite toy shop (be it books, music, electronics, tools, kitchen stuff, whatever) and then said "Nope, you can't look around. We have to go directly to the most boring part of the store and stay there." I'd have a tantrum too! Kids have a very strong sense of what is fair, and being a tempter like that is not fair. They learn quick enough that the world isn't fair... the least that parents can do is to treat their children fairly.

Are parents more selfish than they used to be? I think so, or at least, are less willing to give up their own desires for the needs of their child. I know that parents are also busier than they were when I was growing up, so perhaps the need to snatch even a few minutes to themselves is greater. They also don't seem - as a class - to have the consideration for others that was one of my parents' better traits. Yeah, it's damn inconvenient to have to abandon a cart full of groceries when the kid gets cranky, but my inconvenience is pretty small when compared to the inconvenience and annoyance that my cranky six year old causes to a few dozen people when I make the mistake of not listening to her needs.

Maybe that's the problem... which is related to cellphones, anti-social driving, and movie theater chatter... somewhere in our culture, we forgot to teach the people who are now adults to consider the comfort of others.

Pcat