I find standing behind the parent, and joining in on the yelling to be very effective.
When they ask ME to stop making so much noise, I reply, “I thought that’s what we were doing today!.” 
When my new daughter is old enough to cause such a tantrum, I’m just going to carry duct tape to use as a “mute button” <hmm… interesting though… nah, no way Mrs. Butler will go for that.>
-Butler
It’s not neccessarily false. Eventually, one generation will be so annoying and loud and poorly behaved that their kids will be extrmely polite and kind, just to piss them off. And so the cycle begins again. 
Though maybe each generation isn’t *actually * worse than the one before.
Heh, I can see them now, researching Victorian etiquette and putting it into practice. Hmm, maybe I’d better invest in a calling card company, I could make a fortune! 
What exactly is the “time out” generation supposed to be? (what ages, I mean)
My brother and I were both raised with time-outs (He’s almost 31, I’m 26).
Also, Fear Itself… what the hell are you talking about?
Er - what?
I assume you mean that my children are going to abuse drugs and alcohol because I don’t hit them, or pay attention to their tantrums. I’m not sure how that follows, but FWIW my son is now sixteen, my daughter thirteen, both have had encounters with alcohol and drugs and neither have any problems with them.
If you mean me, I have already discovered both. And did so long before my son pitched his first tantrum.
Well, OK, and thanks for the advice. I don’t particularly see either selfishness or rudeness in the fact that I didn’t lock my children in the basement for fear they might offend you by doing what all children do from time to time in public.
Children pitch tantrums in public. It happens. My parenting style is to ignore it and teach the lesson that I don’t reinforce bad behavior. It seems to have worked out, as neither of my children has had a public tantrum in the last dozen years or so.
If that means that I offended the delicate sensibilities of some stranger back in 1993 by exposing him to a childish scream for a few minutes in the grocery store, it seems like a fair trade-off to me.
Regards,
Shodan
My son liked the duct tape on the mouth idea so much he’d come and ask me to tape his mouth shut. I once went out to meet the mailman carrying the child on my hip without realizing he was wearing a big black piece of electrical tape on his mouth, but fortunately HRS never showed up. :smack:
Perhaps I have a shot at convincing Mrs. Butler!
Now I have to develop Child Quiet ™ brand Duct Tape! Mint, Cherry, and Bubble Gum flavors! Now in dayglow colors, with Disney characters!
Another way to get the kids to chill. We used to hang 'em up!
We were staying with friends and there were a total of four kids and a baby. The kids started getting really rowdy and crabby, so my friend opened each of the doors (it was an older house with a lot of doors off the living room). Then he pulled up the back of their t-shirts and hung them on the protruding edge of the door. They loved it! What a site to see four little kids hanging from doors and giggling…
Kalhoun, that might not be the best of ideas. I’m glad the incident you saw had no problems, and don’t have a problem with that, but thought I’d also point out a recent news article.
Which is all I was pointing out; it is all about you and your family, with no regard for others. At least you didn’t thow in the gratuitous “Sorry” this time.
Yes, children screaming isn’t quite as fun a noise as the sound of the ocean or birds chirping. Suck it up. Kids make noise. If you don’t want to be around children, you don’t want to be around humans, and you should go live in the woods like a hermit.
The tactic of ignoring kids who have tantrums - providing they aren’t physically hurting someone or destroying people’s property - is a time-tested and effective approach that helps, along with a thousand other things, the children to NOT grow up and become juvenile deliquents or amoral jerkoffs, and therefore NOT cause you or the rest of society a lot more trouble than just making some noise.
Look, if it’s in a grocery store or something, you don’t have much right to fuss. There’s lots of people there and it’s not a fucking art museum, so suck it up and go to the next aisle. Assuming he didn’t do it in restaurants or movie theaters, which is absolutely unacceptable, then stop bitching. Sometimes humanity is inconvenient. It’s not like crying babies are the worst of it.
Ah, but often the shrieking is not a tantrum. It is a child making the highest shriek they can either because they find it fun or they want to get a reaction, and a stranger’s reaction will often do just fine. If you want to remove the reward, sometimes you need to remove the child from the presence of stranger’s who react.
I have left my lunch uneaten at restaurant or eaten it in my car rather to endure shrieks from children who found it amusing to shriek. I have sympathy in a grocery store, not so much in a restaurant.
Ugh. That exact thing happened to me this afternoon in the Good Food Store (local organic grocery). I was looking at strawberries (too early, I know, but I was in the mood for something sweet), when I hear this glass-shattering screech from about ten feet behind me and to my left. I involuntarily yelped “Jesus!”, whipped around, and there was a small boy (three or four maybe) in one of those shopping carts with the plastic car fronts, just grinning at me.
I said to myself (under my breath), “Time to get the hell out of the produce department” and proceeded to do just that.
Jeez, that screech took a year off my life. It was so loud! And pretty much impossible not to react to.
When parents bring “bad” kids along to the vet, my technique is to speak a little quiter until I get Mom/Dad to shut the kid up. I will be explaining “Muffin’s” UTI and I just speak softer, and softer, and softer. Sorry, but the 'rents are paying me for 15 minutes of my time and I will not shout to be heard.
My above technique sometimes will get the client to say, “Oh, so you don’t like kids”. My reply is something like, “I love mine. Yours are misbehaving. Take them home.”.
This is really silly. Really, really silly and juvenile. I understand the need of occasionally letting the kid scream itself out. I would most certainly prefer you take your brat away, but as long as it’s somewhere where it doesn’t matter too much, (movie theatres, etc.) I don’t care too much.
But to issue a statement like that definitely hurts your argument. Disliking kids does not equal disliking people. They are nothing like adult humans. And there are horrible, horrible kids out there, with horrible, horrible parents and you know it and I know it.
Was this your parenting style in a restaurant? A theatre? Church? Let them screech for “a few minutes” as a learning experience?
I’m sure all those “strangers” were gratified to be props in your child-rearing laboratory. :rolleyes:
I have noticed that a lot of the responses here basically say “if you don’t like kids, too bad.” If I hadn’t had to listen to so many bad ones, I might not have as low a tolerance for them as I do. I really don’t care what your childrearing model is, IMO it is rude to make total strangers listen to your child screaming. You chose to have it - we didn’t.
(I apologize if anyone regards this for anything other than humor.)
I have heard your complaints and I have decided to give you my regime for keeping control of the carpet crawling set.
They are a devilish lot gifted with secret powers. The first of which is the power to summon sympathetic adults from all around with their demon-like shrieks. These unearthly cries are their second gift, the ability to scream at EXTREMELY HIGH decibels. Their third power is that of feigning innocence that has the ability to hypnotize the most martinet adult. They have other powers as well but these here listed are the most important for this post. My method revolves around the following tools for behavior modification of these demon spawn.
First: Secret and random beatings. They have done wrong and they need reminding of the sting of discipline.
Second: Use the “Ass spanking on the face” technique if you are confronted with a particularly staunch child.
Third: Be an advocate of the “Spank a Perfect Stranger’s Child Law.” Ever been in a line at an amusement park and see a child acting up, climbing on the rails, bumping into you, and screaming with the parent not doing anything about it? Well then, join me in being an advocate of the Spank a Perfect Stranger’s Child Law. Under this law, all adults are given a “Spank a Perfect Stranger’s Child Card” which entitles them to spank a perfect stranger’s child once after which, the card is taken from them. There would have to be rules. First, you can only use an open-hand on their bottoms without undue force. On point of contention is whether or not you would get to spank a bare ass but we had better leave the child clothed. Just imagine the attitude adjusting potential of being spanked, in public, by a stranger? I bet that child would never misbehave in public again and if they received multiple spankings this would clue the parent in as to their lovely child being a menace to a society at large.
And lastly, WILL SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!
If the parent’s not paying attention you can sometimes get in a quick slap. Even if it doesn’t shut the kid up, it at least feels good. And it’s not like the kid can tattle if it can’t speak yet.