kids screaming in public
Aug. 14th, 2013 11:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pantryslutSo today is the day I discuss being the parent of an inconsolable child. In public.
My kids are remarkably even-tempered most of the time. Most of the time. But occasionally they will melt down. Rarely in stores, which seems to be where most people complain about "parents whose children are hollering and they don't even bother to try and do anything about it." Restaurants, only once or twice and usually the threat to LEAVE NOW reduces it to quiet sobbing.
But there's been more than once that we were walking home from preschool and one or the other kids didn't want to leave their friends (who were leaving anyway), or wanted to spend all afternoon looking for salamanders under the rocks and I needed to get home to meet our "mother's helper" or something like that.
The most recent was a few weeks ago, during the last week of summer school. I don't remember the trigger, but I do remember April being so frustrated with me that she just started screaming at the top of her lungs. Walking up the block and screaming. She's got quite a voice, my friends.
I tried to mitigate things by quiet discussion (again, I don't remember the specifics so I am being vague by necessity). I tried waiting it out a bit. I offered hugs. Everything just increased the screams.
So I started walking home.
She followed me, screaming. I ignored the screams. People up and down the street turned to look at me and her. I kept walking. She kept walking. She kept screaming. Full-throated screams. Very unlike her. Very loud.
We made it up the block and across the street to the nice set of stairs situated about halfway home. And there I sat down and told April to come talk to me again. I said something like "you want to cuddle with me?" and she screamed. I said, "you want to cuddle with me and you're mad at me at the same time and that hurts, doesn't it?" And instead of screaming again, she started sobbing, nodded, and immediately crawled into my lap while I said "I'm sorry it hurts. It's OK to be mad at me and want to cuddle at the same time."
And then she stopped sobbing, and while she was still sad, she only sniffled a little on the second block home.
I was very proud of myself and of April for figuring all that out and reaching a resolution. But for that first block, I was the parent whose child was wailing inconsolably and disturbing all the neighbors, and that's what I want to dwell on today.
It is no news to anyone that parents often get dirty looks when their children are screaming in public. And extra judgment when it looks like they're "not doing anything." It was news to me today that other parents do some of that extra judgment, though I probably shouldn't have been surprised -- it's an easy way to perk yourself up about your own parenting approach and skills, to look down your nose at those other parents who aren't doing things perfectly. Or are just having a bad day.
Dirty looks aren't going to kill me. (!!!) I just want to say that sometimes -- for a variety of reasons -- doing nothing in the middle of a public outburst by one's children might be exactly the right thing to do. You, the bystander, don't know the context, what has been tried before and what might be tried in a few minutes in a different location.
And I'd rather have a parent ignore their screaming child than hit them or yell back.
My kids are remarkably even-tempered most of the time. Most of the time. But occasionally they will melt down. Rarely in stores, which seems to be where most people complain about "parents whose children are hollering and they don't even bother to try and do anything about it." Restaurants, only once or twice and usually the threat to LEAVE NOW reduces it to quiet sobbing.
But there's been more than once that we were walking home from preschool and one or the other kids didn't want to leave their friends (who were leaving anyway), or wanted to spend all afternoon looking for salamanders under the rocks and I needed to get home to meet our "mother's helper" or something like that.
The most recent was a few weeks ago, during the last week of summer school. I don't remember the trigger, but I do remember April being so frustrated with me that she just started screaming at the top of her lungs. Walking up the block and screaming. She's got quite a voice, my friends.
I tried to mitigate things by quiet discussion (again, I don't remember the specifics so I am being vague by necessity). I tried waiting it out a bit. I offered hugs. Everything just increased the screams.
So I started walking home.
She followed me, screaming. I ignored the screams. People up and down the street turned to look at me and her. I kept walking. She kept walking. She kept screaming. Full-throated screams. Very unlike her. Very loud.
We made it up the block and across the street to the nice set of stairs situated about halfway home. And there I sat down and told April to come talk to me again. I said something like "you want to cuddle with me?" and she screamed. I said, "you want to cuddle with me and you're mad at me at the same time and that hurts, doesn't it?" And instead of screaming again, she started sobbing, nodded, and immediately crawled into my lap while I said "I'm sorry it hurts. It's OK to be mad at me and want to cuddle at the same time."
And then she stopped sobbing, and while she was still sad, she only sniffled a little on the second block home.
I was very proud of myself and of April for figuring all that out and reaching a resolution. But for that first block, I was the parent whose child was wailing inconsolably and disturbing all the neighbors, and that's what I want to dwell on today.
It is no news to anyone that parents often get dirty looks when their children are screaming in public. And extra judgment when it looks like they're "not doing anything." It was news to me today that other parents do some of that extra judgment, though I probably shouldn't have been surprised -- it's an easy way to perk yourself up about your own parenting approach and skills, to look down your nose at those other parents who aren't doing things perfectly. Or are just having a bad day.
Dirty looks aren't going to kill me. (!!!) I just want to say that sometimes -- for a variety of reasons -- doing nothing in the middle of a public outburst by one's children might be exactly the right thing to do. You, the bystander, don't know the context, what has been tried before and what might be tried in a few minutes in a different location.
And I'd rather have a parent ignore their screaming child than hit them or yell back.
no subject
Date: 2013-08-15 05:55 am (UTC)My usual response to screaming children is to think how hard it is to be small, sometimes. Because it is. And how hard it is to be the Big of a small who is having a hard, hard time.