Hi everybody, Melissa here from cloudmom.com.
Answering a question today from a viewer, Nathan, who's written in on Facebook and is
asking the following.
"How would you discipline your toddler in public if he was acting up?"
Great question, I've been there many times and I've been there very recently with a child
who is no longer a toddler!
This is a really, really tough thing for parents, I mean let's face it, first of all, it's embarrassing.
It's just embarrassing.
And the problem is, that when you're in a public setting, your child is acting really
poorly or what appears to be poorly, you feel embarrassed, it can make you feel even more
angry and more frustrated and it can affect how you would otherwise discipline them.
It's very, very tough.
Another problem I see with it is that you might have something you want to do, like
count to give the child time to calm down, or say listen if you don't calm down I'm going
to impose a consequence, which you know is really a punishment.
But due to the fact that you're in public, it might change the way that you want to react
to your child.
So those things too I think make this much more complicated than when you are handling
a child who's sort of having a tantrum in the home.
So I guess here's really where I'm coming out on this, and I don't know if it's the
way I would've done 10 years ago.
But at this point I feel like when I see a parent in public handling a child who's really,
really melting down, my heart goes out to that parent.
And I certainly, it would never ever cross my mind that they weren't doing a good job,
they weren't a good parent or the kid is a bad kid, nothing!
I would think, you know what, that kid is really tired, that kid's had too much sugar,
that kid's just like fed up with something, I would never blame the parent and I also
think that it's important to do what really strikes you as being the right thing to do
and follow your own instincts and not worry too much about what people think.
So all that goes for handling the situation ideally in a similar way to how you would
handle it should you be home.
So, for example, if your kid just hit your other kid and that's a no-no in your house
and when that happens, you know, there's no dessert or there's no TV or there's no video
games, you know what?
Go for it, impose that consquence.
That being said, I know with my own kids, when something like that happens and I say
"You know what?
That is not acceptable, I want you to think about that and you're going to have to you
know go through the consequence."
They can sometimes go even more ballistic.
And if you feel that what you need as a parent in public is just to take things down a notch
to make things a bit easier for you, and take the stress out of the situation, so be it.
Nobody is going to be sitting there with a piece of paper in the sky counting down how
many times you let things go.
And you know what, your child might do something and you might choose to sort of let it go
and believe me, they will do it again and you will have ample time in which to address
that behavior.
That's why they're kids!
They will do it again!
You can count on it.
So just to sum up, I would say the following.
Number one, shut out everybody else and don't worry about what they think.
Number two, if you can, try to be consistent with the way that you would handle the situation
so that when you're in public you're handling it somewhat akin to how you would handle it
were you at home.
But number three, if the situation is really heated and you feel like you just need to
calm things down by letting something go, or by choosing to talk to your child about
it later, fine.
You're doing a great job, we've all been there, everybody's been there, don't sweat it just
get through it and you will have ample time to address the behavior in the future.
That is my advice; I hope it's helpful.
Thank you so much for trusting me with your questions it means so much to me.
I'm so thrilled that you wrote in.
I really, really appreciate it.
Hope you have a terrific day and I will see you next time on CloudMom.