Managing Children

Today's "One Big Happy" comic in the newspaper triggered my memory of an incident I encountered this weekend. We were at Blockbuster and there was this little kid (I would guess about 2 years old) who was absolutely flipping out. She was wailing and screaming about wanting some movie. She was running around with tears streaming down her face and screaming loudly about a movie she wanted. The parents of this little girl continued their conversation and occasionally turned to her and said something like "Yes, honey. We'll get the movie some other time." My wife and I looked at each other as this scene continued for a few minutes. It just amazes me to see how some people deal with their kids.

As usual, I am not going to claim I have some magical parenting skills or that I am better than any others, so with that disclaimer, let me finish this story with my opinion on how this should have been handled. When we were all back in the car, I turned to my seven (almost eight) year-old daughter and asked her how she would have handled the screaming child if she'd been the parent. She said, without hesitation, "I would have taken the kid outside and taken her home and said No movie for you because you were misbehaving in the store!"

I told her that I would have handled it differently. To me, the key objective of a parent in this position is to bring the situation under their control in the short run while making steps towards managing such situations in the long run. For the short run, I completely agree with my daughter. The first thing I would do is to take the child out of the public area. No movie picking is that important that it cannot be delayed or canceled for an evening. But, once the out-of-control kid is out of the store, I would sit her (or him) down and ask if she wants to go back into the store so we can continue with the movie picking. If the answer is no (or if there is no reasoned response), I would simply put the child in the car seat and go home (and wait for a later time to talk to the child about how her reaction resulted in the outcome). On the other hand, I would guess that nine times out of ten, the child will want to return to the situation maximizing the likelihood of reward (go back into the store to pick out a movie). The moment I get the kid to agree that she wants to return to the store, I have gained a huge measure of control. I would then agree that we can go back to the store on the condition that ...

The moment the child agrees that she wants to go back into the store to pick out a movie, the parent now gains the power to set the ground rules. The rules then become very clear and any violation of those rules results in the movie being returned to the shelf and immediate departure from the store. However, this rarely happens. By this time, the child knows that his or her only choice (in order to achieve her goal) is to cooperate and the behavior comes under control.

It may be purely luck, but with three kids (now ranging in age from thirteen to six), I can swear that I have never had a screaming child in a store. There has never been a situation where one of my kids was so out of control that I could not immediately defuse the situation and bring things back in control. You'll notice that my only modification to my seven-year-old daughter's naive parenting response is that I would not escalate the situation by simply taking the child home. I think that results in bitterness (the child feels she was unfairly treated and deprived of some reward because of an unfair parent) and extended bouts of pouting. That is why, I would take the child to the car and then give the child the option of cooperating or going home. That way, if the kid doesn't get a grip of herself (or himself) the attribution for the punishment (going home without a movie) clearly rests with the child. (S)he clearly sees the immediate and explicit link between the outcome and his (or her) own behavior. The situation is defused, the child understands how his or her own behavior can influence a positive (or negative) outcome and you've taught the child to take responsibility for his or her behavior.

This is very verbose and probably makes a simple point. I am sure a better writer could make this point more elegantly, but since this is my blog and I don't have a ghostwriter yeat, this will have to do.

P.S.: Sorry for missing yesterday's post.