Reply to Strangers who talk to toddlers having tantrums

Forum Index » General Parenting Discussion

Reply to "Strangers who talk to toddlers having tantrums"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]These are tough situations for everyone involved.  I've been on both sides - as the frustrated, embarrassed mother with the tantruming child and as the woman who tries, as non-invasively as possible, to offer to help or redirect the child's attention.

My children only had public meltdowns a few times each but each is etched into my memory.  As the mother in that situation, it was a level of embarrassment and frustration for me unlike anything else I had experienced up to that point in my life.  The worse the tantrum, the deeper my shame.  Someone addressing me or my child in the midst of my sweaty, futile attempt to remove from public view a flailing 2-3 year old with superhuman strength feels even more embarrassing because it's an acknowledgment that someone is, in fact, witnessing my horrifying failure as a parent.  I never snapped at anyone addressing us, but all I could manage was a tight smile and a grunt that we were fine.  (Clearly we weren't).  But I was always too deep in my situation to recognize and welcome help or input.

As a woman who has offered to help another parent, I don't take the parent's response personally and negative responses don't dissuade me from helping in the future.  There could be all sorts of reasons why the parent responds that way.  I am never invasive or condescending - it's usually something along the lines of quietly helping to pick up something that the parent or the child dropped, or trying to make silly faces at the child who is sitting in the grocery cart or across the plane aisle.  One time I saw a stroller with an infant starting to roll away from a mom while she had her back turned and was dealing with a screeching toddler. I just stopped the stroller to keep it from rolling further.  She saw me and "you don't need to do that" in a rude way.  I just shrugged and said, "Ok, well, it was rolling away so you might want to activate the brake" and kept walking.

Most of the conflict in these situations stems from well-meaning people on both sides taking things too personally.

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics