Have you ever been in public and your sweet angelic child ends up throwing the temper tantrum to end all temper tantrums? She screams, she yells, and she refuses to get up? My twins have an advantage because I can really only pick up one at a time–and they know it. But I saw something curious yesterday–I’ve actually seen parents do this before–but for some reason it struck me as especially illogical yesterday.
Amazingly, my twins were well behaved yesterday on our outing. But some other mother was having one hard time with her baby who I am guessing to be about 20 months or so old–ripe time for the terrible two type behavior we’ve been talking about. The child wanted something and the mother said ‘no.’ What ensued was an all out battle of wills.
The toddler, began to plop herself on the floor kicking and screaming–essentially refusing to move. After several times of telling and asking the child to come, the mother said, “Fine–I’m leaving with or without you,“ and proceeded to walk away.
A Bad Technique
I have, as I’m sure you have seen, countless mothers try to employ this technique to get their unwilling toddler to move when the toddler doesn’t want to. Sometimes it results in the toddler coming as wished and other times it results in a power struggle but in either situation–whether the toddler comes or not–the parent has lost the battle.
Why is threatening to leave your child so ineffective? Because you don’t mean it. You are not going to leave your child literally there to wail. Since you don’t mean it, you are forced with no choice but to eventually give in and get the child to come in some other way. As far as the power struggle goes, your toddler has learned that you’ll give in and that when you threaten to leave her behind–you’re bluffing. It is a powerful lesson.
Sometimes the child comes for fear that mom or dad will actually leave. In theory, you’ve won right? You got your child to come. But in reality do you want your child thinking that you’ll leave her for something as arbitrary as a disagreement over a toy? I hope not.
A Better Srategy
So what do you do when you find yourself in this predicament? First of all, don’t give in. Whatever the issue is over, if you said ‘no’ stick with it. Secondly, I don’t think it matters what you do as much as whether or not you mean it.
We have told badly behaved toddlers that we will leave (if we’re willing to leave) and we have also told badly behaved toddlers that they must sit in the stroller if they do not come. (In fact this is our current ‘punishment’ of choice while out in public. It doesn’t really matter as long as the consequences are something you follow through on. My girls understand that if they want to walk, they must stay with us. . .if not, it’s in the stroller they go.
I think it’s also worth mentioning that we’ve all been there. I don’t know anyone whose children have not been badly behaved in public at least once. We all have bad days and so do our kids. Being prepared for the possibility with snacks, drinks and well rested children never hurts!
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