My 4 year old is very sensitive and stubborn. The other day we were with friends at a park with a bouncy house that she really wanted to play in. There were a ton of kids and there was a long line to even get I so I told her "no honey, the line is way too long but we can come back another time". Well she lost it and started crying and screaming she wanted bouncy house. I stood there with her and tried to calm her down and suggested other fun activities we could do but she kept crying and saying she wants the bouncy house. Eventually she calmed down and let me pick her up so we could leave. How would you have handled this situation? I feel like lately she's been throwing tantrums a lot in public when she doesn't get what she wants. In other situations I've given her time outs in public (take her to a more private area) but that doesn't seem to work with her (instead of calming down she will cry even harder). I've threaten to leave (hoping she will follow me) but she will just stand there and cry. I've tried saying if you don't listen then I will take away x,y,z. She doesn't care about that either. How do you discipline your child then they are throwing a tantrum in public?
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I would physically remove her from the situation. Just carry her to the car. I only had to do that one time and it hasn't happened again. I don't thing bargaining or giving other activities works well for my kids and I don't want them thinking they get rewards for acting crazy. My husband tends to do that and we recently had an incident where he was going to take her home from preschool because he said "she wouldn't go" I'm like who's the boss your or the 3yo? He left her there having a tantrum, she was fine and had a great day and it was a lesson for both of then
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I just re-read the question and I guess my discipline is natural consequences. You act like that in public, we go home. I don't punish beyond that - that was the consequence for her behavior
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I would just try to stay calm and keep going and also validate ("I'm sorry honey, that really sucks, the line is just too long sometimes, but we'll try again another day,"). Maybe make another suggestion at the park. I like to validate and let her cry if she needs to.
But for my own example, like pulling hard away from my hand when walking near the street (something she knows she shouldn't be doing and is dangerous), I get down and tell her like it is sternly.
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For your exact situation I would have initially tried to calm and redirect (maybe a minute). But if it clearly wasn't working I would remove from the situation, like go to the car, and try to calm him down and explain if you can't calm down we'll go home. If you can calm down we'll go back and do something else that's fun. Often a change of scenery sort of snaps him out of it. We had a similar thing happen last weekend at the museum. We were at the Dino exhibit and there was a section to watch a quick movie about their extinction. He was running around and being disruptive so I grabbed him and said he had to sit. He threw a fit (kicking screaming crying) so I stood up and took him to another room. Explained if he wanted to watch he had to sit on his tush because other people are watching too. If he couldn't do that we'd go to another exhibit and be done with dinos. He calmed down and agreed. We went back and he was fine to sit there and watch.
It doesn't always go that way, of course - they're still toddlers! I've found it's crucial to follow through - if I threaten to leave and he disobeys again, we HAVE to leave. It's really taught him I mean business so it's fairly uncommon for him to continue to disobey. -
@Greentea: Yes agree when it's something more dangerous than just typical toddler tantrum, I am much more stern and he doesn't get as much of a chance to correct - like a one strike kind of thing - I just end whatever we're doing and we're gone.
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We would leave and he would/could have a large fit in the car and we would move on with our day with redirection or whatever. But I don't tend to let my kids flip out in public if possible. We are serial leavers.
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@gotkimchi: @Greentea: @SweetiePie: thanks for the suggestions ladies! In the past I have had to physically remove her and leave while she's crying and screaming (more times I'd like to admit! Lol!). In this case I forgot to mention I also had her 21 month year old sister with me. That makes it trickier as I can't physically grab both and it's not fair to DD2 that we have to leave when she's having fun.
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We use 1-2-3 Magic, so we leave (at least temporarily) if she gets to "3". Doesn't matter what we are doing.
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mine just had a mini-breakdown in the middle of the food court because we had to leave and there was a dead bird on the way to our car. she wanted me to walk an entirely opposite direction around the entire mall to get to the other side (in pouring rain!). I couldn't get her to budge and she was pulling so hard on the pram it nearly fell backwards. I had to call the food court cleaner to go outside and sweep up the dead bird
redirection rarely works for me, the only solution I have is two warnings that if the behaviour continues we are going to leave, and then on the third we pack it up and into the car we go.
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I don't discipline in public, basically. If there is a tantrum happening, I just let my son finish (whatever that means, crying, throwing himself on the floor) and then we leave. Past the age of 2 it wasn't really reasonable for me to try to restrain and carry him away, I would end up getting an elbow to the eye or something and it would inevitably make me more ragey.
Once we are home, it's straight to his room until he's ready to talk about what happened, then we decide if there is anything further to be done.
eta: I also wanted to say, that sometimes, it's worth it to me to let me son tough it out and if he wants to stand in the line, to stand in the line. Eventually, he'll get bored if it's really that long and want to leave. It is one of those things where I walk the line between trying to control the situation for him and also giving him the tools/experience to try to figure out for himself that it's not worth it.
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I really think it depends on the kid. Your DD sounds more like my DD than my DS. In that situation, I would have done the same thing, redirected, suggested something else, threaten a time out, and if those things didn't work, remove her from the situation/leave. With my son, we can be a lot more rational. If redirection doesn't work and the behavior continues, threatening a time out or having him take a time out on a park bench or something like that generally works.
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Your kiddo sounds a lot like mine! I think you handled it well at the beginning- calm and try to redirect. If that doesn't work for us and the tantrum is clearly escalating, we leave. I just pick her up and put her in her car seat at that point. After I have made the decision to leave, that is final.
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My daughter is the same way, and we remove her from the situation, otherwise she will just continue to carry on. There is no reasoning with her when she's "hit" that point.
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My boys are 20 months apart so I get it. DS2 is too small right to know he's getting yanked away from something, but DH and I typically don't take the kids out somewhere public without each other, so worst case one leaves with the tantrumming child, and one stays.
One thing I want to add is that, for my kid, tantrums about something (assuming no illness or something off in his life) usually mean he's not ready for that particular freedom or privilege. Getting to go on rides and bounce houses requires patience and waiting in line and standing right next to mommy and not running about. It also means the lines can be too long, that it's not an every day thing, and that sometimes we go and sometimes we don't. I typically like for my child to understand contexts and the norms that go with an activity before making it a regular part of his life. My kid gets overstimulated easily and is stubborn and loud, so we really try to think about where he is developmentally and if we think he can't handle the full context of a situation.
Obviously this isn't always possible. Like if you're at a park and there happens to be a bounce house, you can't avoid it. But it would be a tip to us that our kid just isn't ready for that privilege yet. We did a train ride and carousel last weekend and that barely succeeded with little/no lines.
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I just had a situation yesterday- she refused to get on the rideon board at the store (!) and no amount of talking was working, so I marched her to (luckily, a bench appeared in a nearby corner) to a timeout and had her sit, and I stood in front of her but looked off, didn't interact. I waited, then asked if she was ready to try again and magically it worked!
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@lamariniere: that's what worked for us! (Timeout) Phew!
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@dolphin: It may or may not be "fair," but if one of ours is having an epic meltdown and can't be redirected, I pick up the kid in question and have the other two hold hands/hold on to me and we all leave. It may not be fun or fair for the other two, but at the end of the day, it is a lesson for them, too, that there are some behaviors that are simply not okay and mean we can't stay and play. I get that it's super hard when you're trying to literally juggle more than one little one. When the twins were two and I had an infant, I tried to always keep our little stroller with me, even if I knew we wouldn't use it much, for situations just like you described. I could load up whoever I needed to put in the stroller and carry a kid if I needed to and get out of the situation fairly quickly and safely.
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@Mrs. Blue: Yes I agree. I always remove my crying child when we are in public to teach her that's not how she should be behaving and also because I don't want to disrupt other people. Redirection first, if not, we pick up and leave. It's definitely harder to physically pick up a crying defiant 4 year old when I'm pregnant but gotta do what you gotta do!
I wish time-outs and magic 1-2-3 works on my kid. When I see my friends kids misbehave in public, those methods seem to work like magic! But I get every kid is different and my kid has always been very sensitive, stubborn and a big crier!
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@dolphin: yeah, it's brutal! I tell myself that these are the moments I'll laugh about in 20 years, but right now it's still "too soon."
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@Mrs. Blue: Haha! Right?? That's a good reminder though!
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