Thanks. Believe me I tried. Usually I was seen as the “way to strict” guy.
BTW, I don’t know what it is about my name that causes the same error by many people. It Cosmos…not Cosmo… no biggie. Funny how people keep doing that.
I have used The Lood with great effect; once, when I was a cashier, I saw a smarmy little brat aged about 11 knock a sack of powdered doughnuts off the rack. Instead of bending his lazy little ass over and picking them up, he began to kick them under the rack. I looked at the doughnuts, looked at him, and frowned. He sheepishly bent over and picked them up.
On a slightly more fun note, my best friend related something she saw the other day at the store where she works:
Mom and little girl, probably about 5, come in and go over to the cooler.
Mom: Juice or water?
Little girl: I want the red soda!
Mom: No, you can’t have a soda. Juice or water.
Little girl: Red soda!
Mom: No. Juice or water.
Repeat the above about six times, with little girl getting louder and mother getting more impatient. Finally,
Mom: That’s it. You’re getting water.
Little girl: NO!! I can’t drink water!
Mom (very exasperated by now): Why not?
Little girl (in full Outraged 5 Year Old mode): Because the fish have sex in it!
I was laughing too hard to inquire whether Mom gave in and bought the soda.
I bet that’s because “cosmodan” is easier to say than “cosmosdan”. Try saying both out loud, you’ll see for yourself.
So people are mentally hearing “cosmodan” when they write your name.
Good theory. You’re probably right EdieTidyFruedy 
Hmph.
That’s “EdieTidyFreudy” I’ll have you know!
Church, today.
I expect squirming. I expect wiggling. I expect the sound of scribbling. I expect occasionally standing on pews. I expect “whispers” by people who haven’t quite yet figured out how to whisper. And most of those things, I’m pretty ok with. (Church can be hard when you’re 5.)
But today, there were 3 of them. The first was running back and forth in his pew. Instead of being in between the people whom I think were his parents, he was off to the side… playing and talking to himself very, very loudly. Occasionally, the closer of the parents would absentmindedly tap him on the shoulder - but it didn’t seem to be in response to the noise or the movement. Just kind of a random reaching out. Chances are, he would have been ok on his own - but then.
I have to preface this, usually, the sight of a kid sitting on her dad’s shoulders brings a smile to my face. It’s cute, it’s adorable, it says “love” and “bonding” and all sorts of good things. But that is not the way people usually enter into the sanctuary - especially not mid-service. I was wrong though, they weren’t the main show. Her sister was. She went nuts, running up and down the pews. Not just her own, but that and the four or five pews in front of her. There was sitting and moving and sitting and lying in the aisle, there was grabbing note paper, there was loud talking and giggling with the aforementioned little boy. There was some kind of (exceptionally loud) game with stickers. After a while, someone from a few pews away (not the guy who brought them in, but they seemed to know her) noisily took them away- and then brought them back, with food. She sat down far away from them.
It was amazing.
Don’t most churches have some kind of kiddie church with Jesus coloring books and such so that kids can be kids without disturbing the service for everyone?
It does seem pretty demanding to ask a wee one to sit quietly for 45 minutes to an hour although it can be done.
The whole treat thing is a poor tool. That just means whenever the kid wants a snack all they have to do is misbehave until snack appears.
When I was a kid and my mom used to drag my brother and I to church, I do remember there was a kiddie service in another area that went about half an hour. I don’t know if all churches do that, though.
I also remember that when I was a kid, if someone else’s kid started screaming, crying or generally having a tantrum during the service, most parents would take the kid outside to calm down. In recent years, though, I’ve noticed many just continue to sit there while the child wails and disturbs everyone else.
Guinastatia, that was a pretty clever rapport between your mom and the old lady. Effective for the situation, and no doubt taught your sister to be more aware and cautious during future outings.
You can bet she did give in. That was a child who knew how to manipulate and was on the way to becoming a horrible child.
I believe that children learn how their world works by the time they are 5/6. While the older childs behavior can be changed, the best work happens before they are 5.
Parents who do not teach their children; manners, acceptable behaviour and that ‘No’ is just another way of saying 'NO ', BEFORE the child is 6 are fooling themselves if they think they ever can after that.
Wee people are cute…our own children, even cuter. Puppies are cute, we don’t allow them to eat the funiture, empty the rubbish bin or bark aggressively at the neighbours. Kittens are cute, we don’t allow them to scratch the furniture, pee on the rug or destroy toilet rolls. Like most of us I would never hit a kitten or puppy to train it…BUT I would reinforce what the puppy/kitten should/shouldn’t do, with rewards, with timeouts, ‘evil’ looks, removal of favourite things.
Yeah, yeah I’m talking about children (though it works on puppies :D)
Children never need physical disipline, they need paents who are not willingly to give in to whingeing, what ever form that takes, BEFORE they are 5 yrs old.
Give in to a tantruming 4 yr old…look for a tantruming 8 yr old in your future.
I can’t remember who said “Give me a boy until he is six and I will give you the man” but he was right.
I’m feeling a bit holier then thou tonight because I have a son who I thought was immune to peer pressure…this weekend he proved he was.
I am NOT an overly strict parent now (k, I’m almost lenient now) but I was when he was little. VERY strict and he never had a smack ever.
I believe if a 2 year controls you then that child always will. If a 2 yr old cries because they didn’t get their own way…congratulations!
Oh, I can tell you where that one comes from. Some “experts” are still telling parents that ALL negative behavior should simply be ignored, and that paying any attention to it will reinforce the behavior. Poppycock. If a child is disturbing others, she needs to be taken somewhere private. Quietly and efficiently, with a minimum of fuss, certainly.
In my experience (not small, as a nanny) 90% of tantrums really are the pressure valve of emotional restraint letting off steam. They result from overtired, overstressed, overworked, overdemanded upon kids who just simply lose control. They need to be enclosed and safe while they manage to get themselves under control again.
I mean, think about it: haven’t you had horrible, terrible days when you just lose it and start sobbing in the shower? I know I have. The difference is I now know how to enclose myself and have my little meltdown in private - little ones don’t. So they need the opposite of ignoring in public - they need to be shown how to contain and manage their own feelings, and how not to disturb others in the process. The first step of that is to remove the child to as private a place as possible, while saying, “We need to do this in private, please!”
I had charge of one little sweetheart who would tug on my skirt and say “Private, please!” about 2 minutes before she lost it. The sweetie had become self-aware enough to know when she was about to pitch a fit, and so accustomed to my phrasing that she used my own words as her signal. She was 3. I would do my darndest to get her somewhere quiet and safe, and she’d start sobbing. I’d sit there quietly with her for about 5 minutes while she howled and made the occasional fist and swung at the air, then it was all over. Damn, I loved that kid!
The other 10%? They’re brats, pure and simple. Kids who have been positively reinforced for tantrums, and so the tantrum is no longer an organic behavior, but a calculated one.
Yes. The child should be removed BUT not as a reward for bad behaviour. They should be removed BECAUSE of bad behaviour. When you train a puppy it is common to do so with food rewards, when you ‘train’ a child (yes…we all know we don’t want trained dogs for children) similar rewards work.
It is not difficult to say to a small child…'we have to sit quietly while X happens. If you sit quietly afterwards we will do Y. If you can’t sit quietly then I will have to take you outside and there will be no Y.
Of course that only works if the consequences are carried out.
In my experience (not small, as a primary school teacher and kindergarten teacher. Oh and a mum.)
Many, Many, Many tantrums are exercises in control or ‘testing the limits’. Obviously the age of the child is a factor but over 2-under 5 is what I am talking about.
How did you learn to meltdown in private?
Perhaps some emotional moments in public can be appropriate, but most toddler emotional moments are learning moments.
“I can’t have that toy?..WAAHHHHHHHHHHH”. Time to leave the building.
“I want more!..WAAHHHHH”. Time to leave the building.
The child threw a wobbly in the middle of the supermarket over some sweet goodie when he was 2. He wasn’t feeling anything but “mum is MEEEEEEEEEEEEEAN”, I left the full trolley in the middle of the aisle. We went home and he got boiled rice for dinner. It was ‘yucky’ evidently.
He never had a wobbly in the supermarket again.
Sounds like she had you very well trained.
Pardon me, but as an immigrant, our eldest child (the younger is only 7 months old) is the most polite and well-behaved on the block. This is not Mother’s Pride, this is from my neighbours - parents as well.
'Cause my mum taught me, in just this way.
You say tomaahto… I chose to view her as a very sweet girl who *never *pitched a fit to get her way, but needed occasional emotional support and was strong enough to ask for it. She’s 14 now and an honors student and a volunteer at the homeless shelter every month. so I’d like to think we did something right, her parents and I.
My own son pitched exactly one fit of the “I want THAT!” variety. Didn’t work. Stopped that pretty quickly. Of course, my mother tells me you only get one kid like that and my daughter’s bound to be a handful. We’ll see!
Sorry, cosmoSdan, I didn’t see the ‘s’ before. You know how people see what they expect to see…
Nanny? Mind if I ask a question, sort of topical?
My twins are pretty good about their tantrums, they just fuss briefly & I address the problem or distract them and it stops. We haven’t had a full-out “meltdown” yet ::fingers crossed:: (however, they’ll hit 18 months right at the time of the big family reunion in August, so I imagine we’re in for a spectacle right in front of our descended-from-the-Methodist-minister relatives).
However, my “No!” face must be lacking. I try eye contact, holding them right at my face, making different expressions, furrowing my brows, varying my tone. Nothing. My son in particular just laughs. Oooh, that makes me mad! Last night he was pulling my hair & wasn’t intimidated by my displays of anger. Any suggestions?
Well, I’m not experienced with kids, but I’ll tell you this…
Once, when I was little, I got mad at my mom because she said I couldn’t have something at the grocery store, so I hit her.
Well, she took all my favorite toys out of my room and kept them in a locked drawer for a month. To a kid that is devastating, let me tell ya. I never tried a stunt like that again.
Show your son he can’t do that to you by depriving him of posessions you know he loves. I bet he’ll sober up pretty quick.
Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Jesuits.
We do, during the services that have more kids (or maybe there are more kids during those services because they have child programs - chicken/egg). This service didn’t have that, so the kids were stuck with the parents.
But, when they are stuck, it’s usually a small amount of squirming and wiggling which I’m ok with; I squirm a bit myself sometimes. But usually when it gets out of hand, the parent corrects the kid. I’ll hear the sound of coloring, but there’s a difference between that and the sounds of paper being flapped about mixed with stickers (I think, I don’t know, it echoed on the pews) being pounded in. I’ve heard the carrying stage whisper of “Daddy, what is he doing?” and been fine. There’s again a difference between that and a long, squealed conversation.
I don’t expect kids to be perfectly silent and quiet and still. I do expect them to be parented.
When you say it, do you believe in your heart that he will listen because there is no way, in your universe, that your son runs your house and not you? I’m not a parent, but I use this on my cats, and they actually do listen to me, because I accept no other alternative. I am the only alpha female in this house.
As the mom of one angelic child (before puberty) and one hellion, here’s my two cents.
Something that hurts (like pulling hair) would have gotten a LOUD exclamation of pain. A very angry “Don’t you do that!!!” If it persisted there would have been serious consequences. A long time out in a room alone. Or no dessert. Or the next time she wanted something, I’d have answered, “No, you hurt me. I don’t do favors for people who hurt me.” I’m assuming a child above the age at which cause and effect can be understood.
The important thing is that it must not be *displays * of anger. It must be cause and effect, action and consequences. Children who yell in restaurants don’t get to go to restaurants. Children who throw temper tantrums in the market get immediately taken out of the market and home. Where they don’t get any treats.
OTOH, sometimes there has to be a carrot with the stick. As in, we’re going to the market. If you behave yourself I will <insert reward here> afterwards. Then make it stick. Keep to your word. Obviously we’re not talking depriving child of some necessity or even of something that’s good for her.
And as someone said earlier, there are times we should (but, being human don’t always) realize that we may be asking too much of a child. Some 2-year-olds can sit quietly for a half hour. Many simply cannot. So they should not be taken to places where sitting quietly for a half hour is expected.