What a ride.
Yesterday while riding the bus, I saw a woman get on with her toddler son. Young enough that she still had a stroller for him. The kid was a real handful. He wouldn't stop screaming, wouldn't stop squirming, and generally made everyone around them miserable.
This woman was sitting next to a much older lady. The older woman started off saying nice things and asking questions. Pretty soon she was not so nice, all but openly accusing the mother of kidnapping and saying that they had cameras on all the buses.
The older woman got off at the same stop as me. Afterward she told me, "I've been around children for 45 years [whatever that means] and I've never seen any of them carry on like that." Which, well, you know, I have. I don't even have kids, but between having a young father as a roommate and, well, just seeing other kids on public transportation, tantrums that size are nothing new to me. Plus the woman with the kid plainly had a routine down, not like she'd just snatched someone else's kid. Obviously if I found out the old lady was right I'd feel like an asshole. But I won't. She was a lunatic.
Later on I was reading a newspaper in the library. Another woman was escorting her son around the media section. She told him to pick out five DVDs to take out. He insisted on ten. In fact he got into a real fit, screaming "ten!" over and over, quiet rules be damned. Pretty sure he negotiated his way down to zero. Anyway, I felt vindicated in some way.
Yesterday while riding the bus, I saw a woman get on with her toddler son. Young enough that she still had a stroller for him. The kid was a real handful. He wouldn't stop screaming, wouldn't stop squirming, and generally made everyone around them miserable.
This woman was sitting next to a much older lady. The older woman started off saying nice things and asking questions. Pretty soon she was not so nice, all but openly accusing the mother of kidnapping and saying that they had cameras on all the buses.
The older woman got off at the same stop as me. Afterward she told me, "I've been around children for 45 years [whatever that means] and I've never seen any of them carry on like that." Which, well, you know, I have. I don't even have kids, but between having a young father as a roommate and, well, just seeing other kids on public transportation, tantrums that size are nothing new to me. Plus the woman with the kid plainly had a routine down, not like she'd just snatched someone else's kid. Obviously if I found out the old lady was right I'd feel like an asshole. But I won't. She was a lunatic.
Later on I was reading a newspaper in the library. Another woman was escorting her son around the media section. She told him to pick out five DVDs to take out. He insisted on ten. In fact he got into a real fit, screaming "ten!" over and over, quiet rules be damned. Pretty sure he negotiated his way down to zero. Anyway, I felt vindicated in some way.
2 comments:
Pretty sure he negotiated his way down to zero. A very good line. Do you suppose he'd recently learned to count to ten?
While I don't know what was going on with either of the kids whose behaviour you described I think it's fair to note that kids are smart and learn how to manipulate early on. If they discover throwing tantrums in public is a good way to get what they want they'll do that. I'm pretty sure Dr. Spock's advice was that it was a parent's responsibility to be firm about their decisions so the kid wouldn't grow up expecting that they'd always get their way if they yelled loud enough. I've heard enough young people freaking out that it seems not all parents followed that recommendation.. or maybe it was those kids first encounter with alcohol. It's not always easy to tell what sets people off, young or old.
You might be right about him learning to count to ten recently. Good teachers know that different kids have different learning styles. An implicit corollary is that they have different ways of acting up as well.
I know a lot of people thought that Dr. Spock was in favor of giving children everything they want. Probably they thought that if you couldn't hit your kids everything would go to the opposite extreme. The advice about holding firm is good, and I think too few people follow it. If your child thinks they can manipulate you by throwing tantrums in public it seems like time to deprive them of an audience, one way or another. I know, easy for me to say.
Post a Comment