Unauthorized Cinnamon, are you sure you’re not me?
fessie, I’m trying to wait for her to ask, but she doesn’t see them as problems! I try to model things for her, since I am the babysitter, but I’m very leery about stepping on her toes while she’s there. Luckily, so far she simply laughs about how I “unconsciously” respond to him when he calls for “Mama” even if she’s there, but I don’t think she knows that I often do it on purpose to try and head off her ridiculous catering to his whims and model more appropriate boundaries. I even lie a bit about “how much trouble WhyKid was until I tried XYZ!” Thing is, she really is one of those hippie-dippie Indigo Children lovin’ mamas who thinks he needs total unrestrained freedom to blossom into the flower of childhood that Spirit wants him to be. Me, I’d like to share a conversation with her over lunch that isn’t constantly interrupted by shrieking AND I think kids blossom far more healthily and fully if they’re not always anxious because they’re the boss. They need to know someone can beat all the bad guys out there - and if Mom can’t beat a 2 year old boy at his game, how will she beat the robbers and dinosaurs and elephants and terrorists at theirs?
I did “mistakingly” say to her the other day, “Did I ever give you that extra copy of Parenting With Love and Logic that I told you about? What? I haven’t shared it with you? Huh, must have been my sister-in-law. Her toddler is such a handful. Whatever, I have another one, you should check it out sometime.” Of course, now I have to go buy another copy of the book to be my “extra” - but if she reads it, it will be SO worth it!
I think that’s about as far as I can go right now and maintain our friendship. But I did think it was worth seeing if any Dopers had some brilliant ideas, 'cause usually y’all do!
41 posts and the phrase ‘over-tired’ hasn’t come up once about toddlers crying in airports? Is my youngest the only child of a member of the board that after having had a really long, hard day, can occasionally have a cranky melt-down? (Followed shortly by a nap/sleep?)
Two years ago, after TSA searched the heck out of us and after a really cramped Og-awful flight to Orlando, my youngest saw a poster ad for a McDonalds on the way to the luggage carrousel. He wanted McD’s mindlessly and was inconsolable. Because he was spoiled & wanted his way? No, because he’d spent the past 6 hours shuttled through strange looking, strange smelling places with grumpy strangers that he neither knew nor trusted. He’d been good the whole flight, but he was totally alienated and out of his familiar environment. McDonalds represented a familiar part of his routine, something he wanted to get back to desperately. I calmed him and he fell asleep on my shoulder less than 5 minutes later.
The stealing/hoarding thing is different; that requires a different response than just sending the child to his/her room.
But I’ll reiterate what I said upthread: Sometimes, sending them to their room for quiet play does a hell of a lot more for self-discipline because it teaches the child that it’s okay to be alone if s/he wants to be, and if that’ll make him/her feel better. It also gives the adult a chance to calm down and get a grip before s/he does something they’ll regret later.
I was in Wal-Mart on Saturday night about 9 PM (and I have no idea why it was that crowded) and it was full of small kids. Several of which were crying–not for anything in particular, but mostly infants just crying. My thought, no matter where I am, is generally the same and along the lines of “I agree kid, Wal-Mart sucks.”
My take on the “sending them to their room” debate is that’s it’s usually pretty lousy PUNISHMENT, for the reasons **tashbot **explains, but it’s often a fitting CONSEQUENCE. That’s okay, 'cause I’m not a big fan of punishment. I’m not all that interested in making my kids feel bad for the sake of feeling bad. But I am interested in them being safe and out of my sight while I cool off so I don’t slug 'em.
Plus, if a child is acting out, I don’t actually have a problem with it as long as it’s not bothering ME (or any other innocent party.) Want to scream 'cause screaming’s fun? Cool - go scream in *your *room, please, with the door shut so I don’t have to hear it. Come on out when you’re all screamed out. Civilizing House Apes isn’t about teaching them that you can’t scream EVER ('cause what fun would some adult activities be without screaming, eh? KnowwotImean, nudge nudge, wink, wink? I think you do!) Rather it’s teaching them how not to piss off other people while they blossom into their little flower selves.
You may scream in your room during daylight hours with the door shut so Mama’s not bothered. You may scream in the car while it’s not in motion. You may not scream in a restaurant, airport, grocery store or mall. If you make the bad choice to scream in one of those places, I must move you to a screaming-allowed place: your room or the car (or, given the difficulties of airports, maybe the bathroom or a broom closet). It’s not punishment per se, it’s me helping you to follow the rules.
So many of these stories happen on airplanes, I suppose I should speak up about a very pleasant surprise I had flying from Chicago to L.A.
The flight was on a wide-body aircraft with two aisles, and in coach they had two seats near the window, then three or four in the middle, and then two more on the other side. I had the aisle seat of one of the pairs, and when I got there I found a young mom with a baby in her lap. I have to confess that I thought I was in for it now, but in addition to having some very enjoyable conversation with the woman, I found that the baby just slept for nearly the whole trip. It amazed me that a baby could sleep through the takeoff and landing, but she did.
I do feel for what babies go through in situations like that. Everyone’s too busy to pay a lot of attention to them, and they can’t read books to while away the time, so no wonder they get cranky. Sure, they may have a couple of toys along, but I don’t think infant toys are designed or expected to be diverting for more than a few minutes, are they?
I’ve been on flights with incredibly well-behaved babies and toddlers – they’re not all monsters. I was once on a flight that had 17 children under the age of 6, and not a single one cried! Even the flight attendants were astonished. So airplanes aren’t always misery pits for small children.
The children I truly do not blame for pitching a fit are the toddlers being dragged around Wal-Mart at 1:00 a.m. I’ve seen far too many of them. There was one rule in our house that was rigidly enforced, and that was bedtime – kids need their rest, and in order for that to happen they have to go to bed, strange concept though that may seem to some people. (Sure, there were exceptions, but they were few and far between; my kids knew bedtime was bedtime, and that was it.) I truly do not understand parents who keep their children up till all hours and then get mad at them for being exhausted and cranky and badly behaved. There is no reason in the world to take a toddler grocery shopping with you in the middle of the night!
Sometimes I wonder. Has anyone ever seen us in the same room at the same time?
Mama Tiger, didn’t you know? Children are just accessories - when you have them, you can just live your life the way you did before. Anyone who does differently is catering to their kids and spoiling them!
Oh sure there is – what if Dad works the night shift, Mom works days, and Grandma (the usual babysitter) has the flu?
I agree, when you push a kid’s limits, you have to accept their awful behavior, expecting otherwise is just silly.
But since I have twins, I’ve been up to my elbows from day one, so I can relate to people for whom parenthood is not an orderly experience. Mine went through a spell last summer when they’d take late naps (3-6), and then not go down again until 11. So, heck, we’d go out and run a few errands at 9:30. I don’t recall them having screaming fits during our excursions, but it’s always possible that one of them fussed a bit.
I was thinking about that grandma screaming in Spanish, mentioned upthread - yes, she could have been a beotch, I don’t know. But I sure DO know how a little kid can drive you batty – it’s possible that she asked that boy to go potty 7 or 8 times before they left home, and he completely refused UNTIL they got to the store.
Mine just turned 3 and they do that kind of thing all the time - Do you want this? No! Do you want this? No! Do you want this? No! WAAAAAHHH I want THAT!!! Little kids are just insane. And after days & days & days of it, a bit of the crazy rubs off.
I must be evil, because the sound that really melts my sanity is the sound of children laughing. The worst is when it goes on and on and on, because you may not be able to hush a crying child, but you can damn sure make them quit laughing. If you don’t believe me, I’d be happy to demonstrate. The squealing, the whoops of joy, the incessant giggling…aaargh!
It doesn’t help that one of the doctors here brought his child with him today. I can hear it in his office alternately having hysterics of joy and of sorrow as I sit here and grind my teeth to powder.
I’ll post from the minority here. I find the sounds of a healthy baby crying for her bottle or his mommy heartening; it makes me want to help the parent if I can, and if I can help (even by not giving the parent unnecessary grief) it makes me miss my son a little less.
My daughter does know how to behave in restaurants, has since near age 2. She puts her napkin in her lap and nearly always behaves well. If she doesn’t one of us does take her to the car and we let her know if she doesn’t behave well we will just avoid taking her to restaurants until she shows signs of being more responsible. As she gets older she has been somewhat less likely to behave well. I think this is in part from us not being as careful to see that she is well rested before we go out. Sometimes it has just been unavoidable.
She is not at all confused by other children crying and carrying on in restaurants and public venues. She stares at them with contempt and rage and then makes very quiet comments to us about their behavior. She used to try to correct them but we extinguished that behavior pretty quickly. Now that she has had a few times where she has misbehaved in restaurants I intend to remind her that is how she looks when she misbehaves.
Back in the day, I used to work at a public library. In that time I was not too fond of crying children/babies. Upon hearing a baby burst into “song” I’d always say, “Yep, it’s another official day at the library, now that we’ve had our daily helping of crying baby.” They did not amuse me.
I don’t know when, but at some point something changed. Maybe it was just growing older (I was in my 20s then; now I’m almost 39); maybe I just got used to hearing the noise; or maybe I just came to a rational decision that, hey, babies cry–it’s what they do, no sense getting wound up about it. These days, I’m usually not bothered in the least by a crying baby. If anything, I’ll often go into sympathy mode, giving the kid a wry grin and telling him or her, “Aw, it’s OK. It’s not so bad.”
Now, my sister has two babies, one about to turn two, the other almost 5 months, and I don’t get particularly put out when I’m visiting and either has a crying fit.
The point being, your reaction to the experience can change (though I’m not sure what makes the change).
That said, I almost never fly, and have not been on a flight longer than an hour in more than 15 years; I’m sure I’d get tired of hour after hour of high-decibel lung work.
Older kids throwing tantrums is another matter entirely. That shit does not play, period.
