Crying Babies/Toddlers

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

OK, this doesn’t seem to warrant it’s own thread, so let me piggyback a question here:

What do you suggest when it’s your own very good friend who lets her kid act like this?

One of the kids I babysit for is the child of a friend. With me, he has his moments, but he’s generally pretty civilized. When the two of us take our kids out together, on the other hand, he’s completely functionally insane. Screaming, climbing tables, running around the restaurant insane. That kind of screaming that isn’t because he’s upset or mad or sad, just because he likes to scream (of course if I tell him to come sit quietly, he looks at her and then the screams turn into mad screams.) She’s the kind of mom who says “No, sweetie” the first five times, and then gives in on the sixth because he’s irritating her. Which, of course, only encourages him. He’s absolutely learned that if he screams long enough, she’ll give in! Not only that, but she sees any form of correction more declarative than, “Sweetie, do you want to sit down and be quiet now?” as “stifling and overly strict.”

He’s 2.5. My own daughter is 2.25 (and she looks at me like, “What the hell’s wrong with HIM?” when this happens. She’s no angel, but his behavior shocks her into silence!) I’m not being an overly judgmental non-parent, really I’m not. I’ve done this before (son is 14, and I’ve been a nanny and a babysitter before to dozens of children). But how do I tell her that her “sweet little adorable cutie” is in fact a monster - but only when she’s around? I’d like to be friends with her at the end of the conversation!

22

I love babies. What I don’t love are their slightly bigger brothers and sisters – the primitive little people who know just enough to know what they want, and that the best way to get it is to stomp and shriek and shit themselves until all resistance is crushed.

So I guess I don’t really love babies all that much. :rolleyes:

23

I feel for you. A good friend of mine is going through the same thing - with her daughter and granddaughter. It has gotten to the point where she doesn’t look forward to their visits (they live out-of-state) because the granddaughter doesn’t seem to know the meaning of “no” or “quiet”.

And it is confusing to other children, who don’t understand why the other kids are allowed to run shrieking around the resturant when they must sit still and use inside voices.

I have never found a polite way to tell someone they are raising hellspawn and still remain friends when the conversation is over.

24

We went through this a few weeks ago at a funeral. My four-year-old was acting up a bit because he didn’t want to sit still and be quiet, and he doesn’t understand enough about appropriate behavior in church.

So we wandered out into the hall and found the infant crying room. We’d brought books and such so we’d have them if we needed them, so I read a story while he calmed down. Then he saw the priest and altar boys serve communion, announced he was hungry, and tried to go into the sanctuary to get in line. We left and went for lunch. It was important to the family that he be there, but I wasn’t going to deprive them of the dignity of mourning their loss because of my son’s behavior.

As to the rest of the public behavior thing, sometimes you’ve got to get creative. We have the Quiet Game. The first one who talks, loses. Since my son is competitive by nature, the game just takes advantage of that. You’ve got to do what works for you, of course.

Robin

25

My baby is pretty peaceful, but my toddler and my preschooler are not. My 2-year-old is, well, acting like a 2-year-old, and my 5-year-old has autism.

One thing I’d like to point out is that autistic children sometimes have tantrums that may seem extreme for the age of the child. The kid can’t help it, and it isn’t a result of bad parenting. It’s a developmental/behavioral disorder, with no known cause and no cure. There are no visible indications of autism, to my knowledge, so that 9-year-old brat in the Wal-Mart aisle may not just be a brat, but may have a serious disability.

Just sayin’, something to consider before judging and critiquing parenting skills.

26

I’m not a parent. That said, I’m around youngish (5 and 6 year old) children a lot, for various reasons. While they all love me because I take them fun places, I do NOT imitate their parents when they’re with me. Their parents tend to not punish them, and it DRIVES ME INSANE. Grounding them to their room, where all of their toys are? Yeah, that’s a great idea.

One time one little girl and I were at the store and she was driving me nuts, and she went into one of those modes, for about the third time. This particular little girl is very precocious, so it means that she knew that her screaming would work. This time it didn’t. I spun around, looked at her in the eye and said “I’m not going to treat you like a big girl if you’re not going to act like one.” And walked around the corner. I could still see her but she could not see me.

She stopped crying immediately. After a few hours of her being good, I did treat her to an ice cream cone, but I made sure she knew it was because she didn’t have any more outbursts. To this day, she has not acted up in a public place unless she was reeeally tired.

I’m not saying it’s a good way to handle the situation, but I just took a page from my mom’s book - it’s what she did with me, and it worked like a charm.

~Tasha

27

Like many others have mentioned, crying *babies * don’t especially bother me. It’s certainly not something I enjoy, and it makes me a bit twitchy, but babies cry, and no one is to blame for it.

Fit-pitching toddlers make me crazy though. Take that outside. Yes, sometimes it’s inconvenient to drop what you’re doing to discipline your child. Tough.

My sister has two toddlers, and I love them, but after a couple of hours, I’m done. My god, the screaming. Yesterday I actually grabbed one of them, picked him up and said “Did you know that I have a very tiny, dark closet?” He stopped for a second, said “Where?” and I said “Make that noise again and find out.” My sister was Not Amused. Tough. This is my house. You want to sit and drink your coffee and pretend that sound isn’t happening, do it at *your * house.

28

Yeah, but sometimes ya gotta. Sometimes it’s not about depriving them of their toys, but removing them from a situation which is obviously upsetting to the parent or the child or both. Sending a child to his or her room gives everyone a chance to calm down and get over whatever the problem is.

Robin

29

Yes. It is. Our kid hates being sent to his room. Sure he’s got his toys, but what he wants is our attention and our approval, and sending him to his room deprives him of that. When he’s sent to his room he doesn’t pay any attention to his toys anyway: he’s too busy asking if he can please, please come out now.

30

I fly a lot and on very long flights. There is nothing worse than being crammed in cargo next to someone with an 18 month old on their lap. I firmly believe that airlines should require every passenger to have a seat. Even a year old is too old to sit on a lap for 10 hours. By sitting next to them you become a default caregiver. And people think because you’re a woman, you don’t mind. I didn’t procreate for a reason, people!!

I also have a best friend who raised a hell spawn. Essentially, we just didn’t see each other very often until the child was 5 and had learned to behave. The kid’s extremely intelligent (much smarter than I) and I think a lot of his misbehavior resulted from his frustration from his inability to communicate. But that didn’t make it any easier on the rest of us…

31

This happened to me. Finally, one night when the kids (there were two) were riding roughshod in my own home, I opened up just a bit about it. I did not blow up or anything, but I did correct the kids right in front of their parents. Oops.
The parents were defensive and upset and there was a year-long rift, a coolness, between us. It was sad but I could not regret making my feelings known. Eventually, the parents began actually parenting, and the kids’ behavior improved, as did our relationship. (Later, I found out from mutual friends that they’d gone through the same exact thing.)

32

Amen.

I have to think people who complain about children at airports don’t fly a lot. Far and away, the people who’re a pain in the ass at airports are ADULTS. I’ve seen far, far more disruptive adults than I have kids, and adults are capable of a far higher level of disruption.

Sure, I’ve seen the odd crying kid, but it’s just a crying kid - and the great majority of kids behave well. On the other hand, I’ve also seen monumental assholes scream and berate counter personnel because weather delayed the plane, as if the gate person has some sort of magical power over the weather than they’re refusing to employ. I’ve seen idiots who tried to bring suitcases onto planes that quite obviously would not fit into the overhead bin and then scream and swear at the flight attendants and refuse to move when told the bag would have to be checked. I’ve seen flight attendants sexually harassed, I’ve sat next to adults who apparently hadn’t showered in weeks, I’ve seen more first class drunks than I can count. Quite frankly, I’m relieved if there’s kid sitting near me. They’re much likelier to be pleasant.

33

When a parent does not remove the misbehaving child, I usually walk away – be it out of the store or out of the restaurant. I’d rather start my shopping or my meal again elsewhere than put up with that sort of nonsense.

34

That all depends. How tall are you and do you handle confined spaces well?

( and, how secure do I truly feel going down this path??? :stuck_out_tongue: )

35

You did a polite and wise thing there, but all situations are different. My grandmother died just after my neice was born. A few months, anyway. The baby was brought to see gramma but gramma was pretty much unaware of who this baby was and what it meant.

During the memorial service, my neice started crying. Now, she was what- 3 or 4 months old? The Rabbi- without missing a beat- said something like, " That is the most beautiful sound we all cound share right now". My gramma ADORED babies, cared for them for family and friends her whole life. We all laughed, and cried a bit and tension drained from the room.

All because my neice started to cry.

MissGypsy, I never gave such a thing any consideration. Thank you for making that point.

36

I guess I’m one of those parents who patented the Death Glare™ when my kids were quite young; they only misbehaved out in public for brief moments, and then they figured out that it really was worth their while to stop it. Although they both were very good kids in public, I will say – and not because of anything I did, necessarily, just because they were neither one screamers to begin with. (As Rushgeekgirl points out, some kids just like to scream!) So I certainly don’t take much credit for their good behavior.

I’ve found, since my kids have grown up, that a little gentle interference can often help. If the parent really is trying to quiet the child and the child just won’t be quieted, and it’s a situation where it’s only going to be for a few more minutes (like in a grocery store line), I’ll often say something sympathetic to the parent and then try to distract the child. It’s surprising how often that works, and if you’ve been nice to the parent first, they virtually never object to you trying to help out. And the kids often are interested enough in the strange person to stop screaming and interact with you.

On the other hand, I’ve found that in a situation where a child is doing something like kicking the back of my seat on an airplane, turning around and giving a Death Glare™ while saying, very politely but loud enough for the parents to hear, “Please don’t kick my seat,” it’s usually enough to embarrass the parents into at least making an attempt. Sometimes just turning around and glaring at the parents will work, especially if they’re tuning their kid out. I usually try just glaring at the parents first and only speaking up by about the third time I have to turn around; most people get embarrassed after a certain point. The ones who don’t, if it’s a short flight I put up with it, and if it’s a long flight I ask the flight attendants for assistance. Sometimes they help, sometimes they don’t, sometimes they can’t.

The one time it totally didn’t work, wouldn’t you know, was on a trans-Pacific flight where the parents didn’t speak a language in common with anyone on the plane, as far as we could tell, and their toddler had perfect timing, waiting till our row was just falling asleep to KICK! KICK! We’d all jump and turn around and deliver our strongest Death Glares™ to the parents, and they’d smile happily back at us, quite oblivious to our annoyance. 10-1/2 hours of KICK! KICK! Yeah, that was a fun one. But there was nothing we could do, so we gritted our teeth and put up with it.

37

I remember seeing a kid - a young one, maybe 2 or 3 - in Sears once, crying loudly. An older woman was standing next to him and yelling at him in Spanish. I understand enough Spanish to know the kid was yelling cause he had to go to the bathroom and instead of taking him, she was yelling at him for not telling her earlier. :rolleyes: He’s yougn! Just take him! Finally she took him off.

As for the plane thing you do the best you can. I flew to L.A. recently and on the way back a baby a few rows back cried continuously all five hours. It was annoying and I felt bad for the baby and the parents. What can you tell a baby? He was only about a year old. You can’t explain to him that that horrid feeling in his ears will go away, or that they’ll soon be at grandma’s house (or whatever). When we finally landed in Newark and we were standing in line to disembark he became quiet and it turned out he was actually a pretty cute kid, when his face wasn’t beet red and all wide open mouth. :smiley:

38

Hm. Well, maybe that works with your kid, but it certainly isn’t with these kids. We go in and instead of being grounded, they’re playing with their playstation, or barbie dolls, or coloring, or whatever.

One parent recently graduated to time out in the corner, and it seems to be working a lot better. One of these kids has recently started stealing and hoarding things, and I clearly recall that when I went through that phase, my parents “threw away” all of MY things (meaning, they shoved them into garbage bags and pretended to throw them away, and when I wasn’t looking put them in the shed in t he back yard) so I’d understand what I was doing to other people. This particular girl gets grounded to her room. With her cache of stolen stuff. It drives me bonkers, but I’ve just made it known to said little girl that if she pulls that shit with me, she won’t be hanging out with me anymore. I can’t control how people parent, but I can control what’s acceptable when I’m taking care of the kids. Most of the kids are smart enough to get it.

~Tasha

39

Ah, the airport. Not much you can do there. My philosophy is that if your kid is screeching for more than a minute, you take them out of the situation, if not to calm them down, at least to spare the other people at the store/restaurant/museum/whatever. But you can’t leave the airplane, and you have to stick around relatively close to a gate when waiting for a flight, so what can you do? (And I’m glad to see I’m not the only adult who feels like pitching a fit at the airport - could you all explain to my husband about this?)

That said, I’ve had a combination of luck and good planning with our kid and airplanes. Luck - she has often simply slept through flights. Planning - now that she’s older she knows we expect her to think of others’ feelings, and we follow through on discipline. Combo luck/preparation factor - nursing is dynamite for soothing raging emotions, and helps equalize ear pressure to boot.

kittenblue, I totally agree with you. I’m starting to really hate those infant car seats that detach and go into the mall or wherever. It’s like they breed callousness in parents. And the irony is, if you strap an infant to you with a sling, barring messy pants they will most likely be quiet and content for an entire shopping trip, but for some frakked up reason I completely fail to understand, keeping your baby close to you is something that doesn’t occur to most people.

In the same vein, I loathe seeing parents berating or screaming at a little kid who is clearly just out of control and needs comfort. Sure, sometimes they will try to manipulate, and need firm discipline. But often even the most sensitive parents wind up dragging a toddler into a bad situation - too close to bedtime, no nap, kid is hungry, kid is bored beyond all reason, etc. When they melt down in those circumstances, they need a little slack, and help dealing with their fiery emotions, not the person who is truly at fault yelling at them to shut up.

WhyNot, I have a similar problem with my friend. Love her to death, but her first kid was ridiculously easy to discipline, and it’s like she can’t get over that to take charge of her insanely wild second child. I don’t care so much about the kid’s behavior per se, more that it triggers misbehavior in my child, then I’m in the position of saying, “I don’t care that BabyLordoftheFlies is running around screaming, you’re not allowed to!” Which handily confuses my daughter and backhandedly insults my friend’s parenting in one simple statement.

40

WhyNot, I’m surprised that your friend hasn’t discussed her son’s behavior problems with you, especially considering that you babysit him! I know you don’t need advice from me on what to say when a conversational opening happens - it just really surprises me that she’s so in denial about her child.

Surely one of these days she’ll reach her absolute limit with him (don’t you think he’ll keep pushing until she explodes?) and have to change her approach.

With mine, the answer is always more parenting (more proactive, more responsive, more attentive), although sometimes that’s the very LAST thing I feel like doing.