and it wasn't something she could deal with while there. he could have a medical condition also .

her purchases, as though nothing odd was happening.

If I had been there as a customer, I would have left the store.

It was annoying, but not enough to make me leave. I was puzzled, though.

Or are there just more screaming babies these days?

I always put as much distance as possible between me and the child.

Maybe you'd have had to be there. People were still talkin about it when I left.

Bus to get there o would stay until I finished my shopping

Let me say this, also: You saw the end of something.

Perhaps she was at the end of her rope; perhaps he had been bratty and unreasonable for a while, and so when she couldn't take any more of it, she simply put him in the cart and allowed him to carry on.

Or maybe she was just a lousy mother.

5 minutes seems like an exaggeration.

It went on the whole time.

The mom knows her child better than we do. I'd give the whole situation a pass.

First the other mother will tell me not to judge as we don't know what that woman's situation is. Maybe it's her only time available to shop and cut her some slack.

Yet these same women will jump to the defense and easily accuse a parent if a child is being abused or neglected. But for some reason, leaving a child screaming to the point of gagging in a shopping cart in a store is ok.

I have been there with my boys. But I did what I needed to do and got out. Not because I didn't want to disturb other shoppers, but it really was not helpful to my child to let him cry and gag to the point of almost puking so I could continue to shop.

Mother needing to do some shopping, kid missing his nap and getting overtired and overstimulated in stores had a major meltdown. Not feeding into bad behavior was the right way to do things. She could talk to him later when he calmed down. Ignoring was good in this case.

But yes, the screeching really is obnoxious if it's not your kid and sometimes when it is your kid.

I'd withhold judgment unless I saw her "giving him something real to cry about."

I'd just be grateful I'm not the one who had to go home with him.

My 4 kids are well past the tantrum stage, but I remember it like it was yesterday. The dumbest thing could set them off, often even if they WERE well rested, fed etc. Sometimes, there were just things I HAD to get done THAT DAY and the child's tantrum would just get ignored, because anything done to try to 'make it better' usually just made it worse. Trying to comfort made it worse, distracting made it worse, taking the child out for a moment made it worse...and so on.

Often, the best and most efficient thing to do was to just get whatever it was I was doing DONE as fast as possible so I could get out of there and take care of the issue at home. I probably only had to do that a few times over 4 kids over many years, but I'm sure the people in those stores I was in weren't thrilled with me. Oh well. Usually, my kids are extremely well behaved (constant compliments now, people gush over my kids) but toddlers will be toddlers. It happens. Everyone was a toddler once. As you said, when I was a kid, a good smack along with "I'll give you something to cry about" was what we got when we acted that way and all it did was make us scream louder. I much prefer the ignoring TYVM.

A friend of mine had a kid with the most amazing screech I've ever heard. I loved going shopping with them because if the kid let out a shriek, crowds would part like the Red Sea.

I've got no kids, I've just been around my friends and their kids enough not to get all Judgeypants when a kid is misbehaving in public.

The only thing I've ever seen work on a tantrum is walking away, even in public. No perv or ransom kidnapper wants to get near a kid in full tantrum. Nobody does.

a baby, she might have had a different set of actions but this child being 3-4 years old... could be throwing a tantrum and she was not responding to insane demands, kids can be little dictators by acting that way and the best way to handle it is to not respond. That being said, too bad everyone else had to suffer through it. But if it was one of those kids who demands constant pampering and will scream until they get it, could be that the mom was doing what was most reasonable, ignore the tantrum as long as the little one is contained in a safe place and go about her business... perhaps she didn't have time to take the child out of the store and the time she spent there was all the time she had to shop.

It's not that unusual, annoying to bystanders but not abnormal, even when I was a kid many, many years ago. If a mother jumps every time a child of that age starts to throw a tantrum, the mom has lost the whole ball game for life.

worse. One day we were in the grocery store and he threw himself on the floor and screamed and kicking, etc. I just walked away. After a few minutes he looked up and saw that I was not around (not playing the game) and that all kinds of stramgers were staring at him. It gave him a good scare and the behavior changed almost immediately. Every time he started, I'd walk away. I'm sure the other shoppers were horrified but sometimes there is just nothing else to do. That was almost 30 years ago so I don't think it's really any different now than it was then.

A couple weeks ago she started crying because I wouldn't let her stay in the kitchen while I was doing more dangerous dinner prep and closed the toddler gate on her. She loves to "help cook" which is okay in most cases (she does well with mixing, stirring, and scrambled eggs), but I draw the line at having her "help" break down and brine a whole raw chicken at her age.
She threw herself down in the front room and started wailing. So I continued doing what I was doing behind the toddler gate, which included taking the brining pot to the garage, hearing her screaming out into the side yard as I walked out. Suddenly, it all went quiet, and as I came back into the house, I heard my husband laughing and the baby asking "Where's Dam-ma?, Where she go?"
As soon as she saw me, she threw herself back down onto the rug, and started crying again. And not getting any attention from either of us other than one quiet "Crying won't get you what you want." warning before ignoring her cries.
This went on until I finished cleaning up and asked Laz if he wanted some grapes and crackers for an afternoon snack. Suddenly, there was no more wailing, and we had a very interested, happy grand-daughter wanting to climb up on her Grandy's big chair to share his grapes with him and read a book.

Kids.

Haele

I would have handled it differently with my child, but it's impossible to know her situation. My wife and I work with disabled children and their families. As awful as our economy is for "typical" folks, it's even way worse for people with disabilities and their families.

Perhaps that child is autistic, and there's nobody to take care of him at home and no way to soothe him. Or perhaps the mother's a nitwit. Impossible to know.

only I was trapped on airplane.

Two parents, one 2 year old boy, and a set of twins about 10 months. All three children were screaming. It started in the terminal and extended on through an hour on the tarmac and 1/2 the flight. The parents did not pay any attention to the children. They did not comfort them, talk to them, give them anything to eat, drink or play with. Other passengers were asking them if they could help in some way and the parents completely ignore them as well.

Finally the little boy managed to get out of his mother's lap (he was sharing with one of the twins) and he laid down in the aisle and almost immediately went to sleep. The attendants decided not to wake him up and so no drinks or snacks were served. I was sharing a row with the attendants and they said this is a style of parenting they are now encountering on a regular basis. I decided to call it non-parenting.

When it came time to prep for landing the head attendant came from first class and told the other attendants that the little boy had to be put in a seat/lap. The economy attendants begged to let him stay on the floor. Finally they called the Captain. He said to get him off the floor. The moment he was picked up he started screaming again.

One other thing - this flight was in-bound to Orlando/Disney World. The attendants hate to work this run plus they could not figure out how two parents had three lap kids. I gather that is not allowed.

if they ignore them or act like nothing is happening they think the kids will not do it a gain.

the problem is the ages can seem too young.

and even in the case of the older kids you have to first explain to them why they should not do that.

You hear it all the time, "MY kid would NEVER...." when talking about toddlers. I never understood that - I had toddlers and they do the darndest things when you least expect it.

That said, 10 month olds are BABIES not toddlers and need to be comforted when upset. I'll never understand parents who don't comfort babies. Never.

...very young children to Disney. I have been there several times, and most of the time it seems that when I see families with very young kids, no one looks like they are having a good time - long days, long lines, over-stimulated and over-tired kids, etc, etc.

We waited until our kids were 8 and 10 before going the first time. Even a that age, our very competetive 10 year old melted down when he didn't get a high score in the Toy Story ride.

they want the pics and other things to show to others .

it's not enough to just have pics at your home . they need to show how they went to disney or other things involving a lot of money, travel time etc.

he woke up unhappy when I was in line to check out. Rather than bug other people and to calm him, we went outside. Maybe she just has other stress in her life, and that wasn't an option.

This sounds like a grumpy old man post.

I wasn't grumpy. Just puzzled.

w/ the sarcasm tag, if I knew where it was.

I'm not sure why you're telling me, though.

oh, well,

always next time! LOL

wha?

Dallas flight with a young mother with 2 children. The little boy ran wild the entire flight (even had to be kicked out of the cockpit at one point - this was way before 911) and the the girl screamed nonstop for the entire flight. Mom paid no attention to either child. The flight attendants finally handed out ear phones for the music system to all of the passengers. It was truly the flight from hell.

The last thing I would do is explain them to a person who happened to be in the same store for 10 minutes.

You really have to be there.

She might be in the middle of the worst day of her life, or the kid might be sick, or.......

I've seen enough to not try to be too judgmental of people in certain circumstances. Goodwill isn't Nordstrom or Macys.

mother's in that situation if I can help (my partner tells me I will be arrested someday as a potential child abductor )... I have held children and talked to them to help the parent if they need it and let me...

I do not tolerate well children crying...

When mine were young, I would NEVER have stayed in a public place if a child of mine was crying (luckily they very seldom did... I remember it as never but it must have happened a time or two??)

If I had to cut my shopping short and leave without everything I needed, I did. What good was it doing my child to let him cry for 1/2 an hour or more, snot pouring out of his nose and past the point of consoling?

I never had it happen very often either, but the couple of times it did, I left. I cut my trip short and left. Not because I was worried about other shoppers but because I thought it was mean to do that to my son. I never let my kids cry and carry on for long periods of time at home so why is the store any different? I never was one who was big on tough love and letting them cry it out or try to self soothe or learn something from my ignoring their feelings or emotions. But that's me.

but I still did some ignoring when there were full blown tantrums. My kids were the type where when they were in a big tantrum the ONLY thing that helped was leaving them alone. When they were starting to calm down, then we would get into the validation of feelings. If I tried that when they were in a full blown tantrum, it made it worse. if I tried to buckle them into the car when they were in a full blown tantrum...well, have you ever tried to get a large piece of lumber to bend in half without breaking it? So sometimes, it was better to just finish what I was doing. I also thought it was important to teach my kids that, while I valued them as people and that I was sensitive to their feelings, it was necessary for them to realize that some things needed to get done, that there were other people in the world with needs other than them and that I couldn't rearrange my schedule every single time they threw a tantrum. I don't think ignoring a tantrum = not respecting feelings, but that's just me.

there are other people in the world with important things to do. How can they? They barely communicate. So I do believe, but that's just me, it is ignoring their emotions and feelings.

When mine were 2,3,4 I made it clear that if that happened in the store we left and went home for a nap. Anywhere was usually more desirable than a nap. That worked for my kids.

I guess since mine never had meltdowns often enough to exercise this cry it out thing, I can't say whether letting them do so really taught them anything.

I'm talking at least 2.5 yrs, probably more like 3 or 4.

I'll try to engage the child in a peek-a-boo game or show them some pointless gewgaw from my purse (a mirror, ring of keys) to get their attention so that the likely-beleaguered parent can get on with whatever they need to do.

Helps that I'm (I hope) a harmless-looking middle-aged lady.

When mine did the back-bendy tantrum thing (my all-time worst!), I would leave the full cart and remove the child from the store, no matter what. It only happened couple of times before she got the message.

can do it!

I vote for A. the kid was throwing a tantrum

B. the mother was ignoring the tantrum as the best way to stop it

and possibly C. the mother didn't have the option of coming back later.

life's too short to get upset about a screaming kid.

Some parents immediately remove their kids from public places when a tantrum occurs. Others don't. Interesting.

who has to deal with it...I don't cause it's not mine.
I had 4 pre-schoolers at one time. What I usually did, was IF I got to go shopping, my mother would come along with me if she could, and we'd get 2 strollers at a store in town (one store would let people check them out for the day) and buy some French fries. Those would keep them quiet for the most part.

out of sight of the mum, I try to get the baby's attention and make a very strange face / gesture - it's hilarious how often they abruptly stop mid-scream and stare at me wide-eyed.........often I can turn it into a smile and giggle and outright laughing.......it happens a lot

For some reason, kids love my mug...when they are upset, I always smile a BIG ear to ear grin at them and whisper, "Hi!" and they instantly become fascinated. I'm not very good at funny faces though, LOL. But babies love to stare at me. I'm pretty plain looking, so not sure what it is.

also, babies are very easily distracted

I see it a lot more frequently than when my kids were little 20 some years ago.

I was fortunate to be a stay at home mom with the resources to have college girls
I hired as regular babysitters--and paid them very well (because there were no aunties or grandmas available). When my boys were babies/toddlers I had the college girl two days a week for two afternoons and I would do all my errand running/shopping.
I rarely had to drag kids to the store. I would also use the time for the college girl to stay with one
and I'd take the other out--by himself--go to the park, the library, the museum, for a walk, to a kid
movie matinee--you name it, so I had time just with the one by himself.

Even if you didn't have the resources to do that, young mothers would form playgroups and offer
to do that type of thing for each other, so the mom could get out by herself or with just one toddler.

My husband and I also traveled with our kids. We always had a diaper bag or tote full of age appropriate
snacks, drinks, toys, books, puzzles and would take turns sitting with each child and entertaining them
on airplanes. We were exhausted when we got off flights, but our kids never had a tantrum or crying
jag on an airplane.

Parenting is work. Hard work. Lots of people don't realize just how hard it is until it's too late. There's no
returning the kid to the store or shelter. It kills me to see parents not dealing with kids. Lots of kid tantrums
are just because the child is bored, hungry, tired and if you don't let the kid reach that trigger level, you don't
see the tantrum. Kids need attention--lots of it--and when they get it in appropriate ways, they will behave
when you are out with them.

Yes, I've done the distract the crying kid, thing, too. Kids seem to love when I make faces at them or otherwise
engage their attention.

The child was fine and its mother was nearby. MYOB.

I bought the thing I had found. I kept what distance I could from the shrieking kid, and did what I came there to do. It was annoying, but that's all. I'm not sure where you got the idea that I did anything else. I'm just curious about how people handle such situations as parents, so I posted a description of what happened and asked.

I almost always mind my own business, unless someone is in some sort of danger.

and taken my child outside until the episode was over, then returned to complete my transactions. I agree, tantrums are best ignored in the home, but in a store or restaurant, I would consider the other patrons rights.

Just an old granny's way.

and I know many parents who would do the same thing. If I had children, I'm positive that I would have removed the child from a public place if a tantrum occurred. Apparently, though, not everyone has the same process for handling them. I posted because I found it unusual, as did the other shoppers in that Goodwill store.

This thread has been interesting.

on the floor of a grocery store as I was nearly finished shopping. I found an employee and told him I was going to have to leave the cart to deal with my child. I picked up the kid and took him straight home and put him to bed. For the next month, he was not allowed to go with me to any stores -- that just about killed him because he loved to be out and about. I told him calmly that he would not be allowed to go for a while because he was a little too young -- screaming and tantruming in a store was not allowed, and he would have to grow up a bit before I took him again. I never had another moment's trouble with him.

What's funny is that when he was about 6, we were standing in line in the grocery store when an older child started whining and crying about wanting a candy bar. Mom and grandma were in attendance; mom gave in right away, grandma said, "Don't do that! You're just teaching him to whine!" After they left, my son looked and me and said, "What a brat!"

The sad thing is that once you correct a child like this a couple of times, he gets it. After that, all you have to do is give them the 'mom stink-eye' to warn them that they're about to get themselves in trouble. If only parents would nip it in the bud, the rest of their lives would be so much more pleasant.

Maybe more of that is needed.

beat the kid every time he stepped out of line -- something I never believed in. I kinda have a philosophy about applying philosophy to raising kids:

It has to work most or all of the time;

It can only use minimal to no physical force.

The really old-fashioned philosophy of switching or beating a child worked, after a fashion, but was inherently too cruel physically. The philosophy of the parents who just let their kids scream and act out doesn't work.

I suspect the parents who just let their kids scream fall into that philosophy because they have never been taught that they should moderate their behavior (and, by extension, their children's behavior) while in public, so they have no concept of enforcing that with themselves or their kids. They realize too late that their OWN lives will run much better if their kids learn such habits. I also think there are lots of people out there who are oblivious to anyone else's feelings other than their own, and these people probably make lousy parents and neighbors....

Do the modern baby books actually say you should just let a kid scream or act badly in public, and ignore a baby while it howls until it exhausts itself? Man. Glad I'm old.

I found a standalone AT&T Model 62A headset phone, new in its original box. I like that model, but my last one finally gave up the ghost. It sits on my desk and I use it as my work phone, so I can type while on a phone call. I talk to clients a lot from time to time and they're giving me information, so it's very helpful.

I don't like using a headset with regular phones. The headsets don't seem to have the same quality as the big, comfy one that comes with the AT&T headset phones. The model I like was made in the 1980s, I think.

But, I often find interesting vintage electronics at Goodwill. My best buy, by far, though, was a Fender guitar amp. $20. Worked great, once I replaced one volume control.

I've never found one but I have picked up a Crate, Laney, and Kustom.
Best score was a Moog Opus 3.
Also various Shure mixers, white noise generators, shortwave radios, etc.
Damn, now our secret is out!

It did well. Too bad it was a solid-state amp, though.

I find something good from time to time. I don't go in often enough, though, to get most good finds. I'm just not dedicated enough. Anyhow, the local Goodwill store prices things by type. All radios are one price. All guitar amps are one price. It's a matter of finding the good stuff.

Sometimes really oddball electronics show up, too, that nobody recognizes. Test equipment and stuff like that. I plug it in. If it's functional, I buy it. Other things are sometimes there, too. I found a old calculator with a nixie tube display that was like brand new. It worked perfectly. All calculators are $3 at our Goodwill.

You just have to know what's odd and what it's worth. If I had more time, I'd stop in daily. I don't, though, so others get most of the goodies.

I currently work in retail and every freaking day there's whiny little kids running around, whining and screaming. Why can't the parents get a baby sitter or something instead of bringing their 3 or 4 misbehaved kids into the store?

Nobody hires a sitter just to go to the store. Most kids behave OK in stores, more or less.

No. Most kids do NOT behave in stores.

I don't work in retail, but I'm in stores, like everyone else. Situations like this are not common, in my experience, at least not as long-lasting.

If it were not out of the ordinary, I wouldn't have mentioned it.

Next time you're in a Big Box retailer, look around you. You'll see and hear whiny kids everywhere.

And I always pay attention to my surroundings. What is "obvious" to you has nothing to do with me.

you would know that this is pretty common.

once upon a time, in my primordial days, I worked retail and was employed as such that I was behind a counter 8 hours dealing with the public first hand.

screaming kids was just part of it.

After a while, it just sort of fades into the background noise.

one encounter I will never forget that changed my perspective on kids screaming. I used to get really irritated, but then one day, I noticed this one kid was just a non-stop scream-athon.

being prone to sarcasm, which has gotten me in trouble a few times, I sort of off handedly said to the mom of said screaming child, "Future Opera Star?" and without missing a beat she tiredly replied, "He starts at the Met next week". I nodded, smiled and had a whole new appreciation for parents having to deal with screaming kids.

From that point forward, I never got irritated and, frankly, got a kick out of screaming kids.

Anytime time a parent, from that point forward, tried to apologize to me about their screaming kids, I would just shrug it off, laugh a bit and just say, "they are being kids, I wish I could scream like that".

if you worked in retail.

I chose the former. LOL

That said, my then-3-year-old son acted like that once. He was warned, chose to continue, and got to sit in the car with me for the rest of the movie while his cousins and the other adults watched the whole thing.

After the movie, his cousins proceeded to tell him how awesome the show was, yadayada, and he never threw a tantrum in public again.

YMMV, of course. All kids are unique.

that long-lasting tantrum. I just found it unusual and wondered what other parents did in such situations. Your story sounds very appropriate for a parent to do.

inanimate objects to be toted around and ignored while doing ones shopping etc.

The mothers who impress me most?

The ones who carry on a conversation with their babies/toddlers. Even if they're too young to understand the conversation, they know they're being talked to.

And asking a toddler if they want alphabet or dinosaur pasta can be a big deal to them.

Being dragged around like an inanimate object, getting no attention from parent is boring.

Maybe, just maybe, many babies/toddlers would throw less tantrums if the parents actually paid some attention to them and treated them as actual little people and part of the process.

They might not prevent all tantrums, but they'd go a long way, I think.

To me this sounds like a classic parent/child power struggle. The kid wanted something, and he was going to scream until he got it.

Maybe he wanted a toy, and his mom said no.

Maybe he wanted to be out of the cart to run around, and his mom said no.

Maybe he wanted to leave the store and go home to watch cartoons, and his mom said no.

My own kids, now adults, weren't this bad, but my niece was. The trouble is, once you give in on a power struggle, whether because you are too tired to deal with it, or too embarassed, or just too soft-hearted, the child knows what it takes to get his/her own way every time. He/she has the upper hand, and knows it.

My sister gave in far too often, and by the time her daughter was in middle school she was out of control. No one was ever going to tell her what to do. She went to school if and when she wanted to, has been arrested at least a couple of times, and has been in various other scrapes. She chooses total losers for the men in her life, then can't figure out why they hurt her. She is now an adult trying to pull her life together, but has at least a couple of strikes against her.

Give the mom credit in this situation. It probably wasn't the first time she has had to go through this, but if she stays strong, it may be the last. And her child will be better off for it in the long run.

I was thinking teething until you said 3 or 4. At that age maybe he didn't want to be in the store and she was ignoring his outburst. I personally would avoid shopping when my kids were that age but I was also fortunate to have some child care options so I was able to make arrangements to go out by myself. This woman may not be as fortunate and was doing her best in a bad situation.

After having 2 kids myself I am much less judgmental about other folks' parenting strategies than I was before having kids. I still have my own opinions about things but I give people a lot of leeway in choosing what they think makes sense in their own families. It is a hard job.

...we have days that we call "screamer days" - days when most of the kids turn up the volume to max. Parents respond in a variety of ways. My expectations of kids' behavior and cooperation varies, of course, with the age of the patient. I once stepped out of an exam room when a 5 year old tried to bite me, and told the mom I would return when he was able to get it together. A 2 yr old trying to bite - no big deal. A 5 yr old, not so much. I draw the line at being injured in the line of duty.

Once, when attempting to obtain a rapid strep sample on an 8 yr old who really, really, really dislikes throat swabs, I had to step back as he flailed about and say, "John (not his real name), don't you dare kick me." His throat swab was positive for strep so was necessary to accurately diagnose and treat him. As the family was checking out at the front desk, I heard his mom saying, "I'm so sorry they had to do that to you." I thought that his mom should have been asking him to apologize for kicking me. That is certainly what my mother would have demanded of me had I behaved so.

One of my most memorable screamer visits was a 2 and a half yr old little boy who does NOT like cming to the peds office one little bit. We can hear him shrieking from the parking lot before he even get in the builiding. One a very busy afternoon, he was in the exam room about 20 minutes before I got in there, screaming the whole time. As I picked up the chart to go in the room, I was expecting to find that the reason for the visit was a terrible earache, or some other painful situation. Imagine my consternation when the reason for the appointment was that one of his eyes had been watering. After the parking lot prelude and the 20 minute session in the exam room, both eyes were watering copiously - I couldn't diagnose a thing.

They came out of foster care and had some pretty huge emotional issues. A lot of these have gotten much better, but major tantrums anywhere are still quite common.

The approach we generally take is if we think the crying is based on something real (an injury, emotional pain, etc), we comfort and support. If the crying is just to get attention, we do not acknowledge it.

Now, I would not have stayed in the store that long, because that's not fair to other people.

Generally, one of us takes the kid that is throwing the tantrum to the car and let them scream in the backseat while we stand guard outside. We'll open the door every few minutes to say, "We can go back in the restaurant when you are done....." but that's about all the interaction we give.

At least, I think the common notion of tantrums as something that children use to manipulate parents or as deliberate misbehavior that parents need to ignore so as not to reward the behavior - that is what I think is mostly a myth. I think it comes from the same school of thought that told mothers in the fifties not to "reward" a crying child by feeding it on demand and tells parents today that the best way to get a child to sleep through the night is to let them "cry it out."

I think most "tantrums" are better called meltdowns. I think they're caused by the child being bored, hot, hungry, tired, over-stimulated, etc. I don't think a child in the middle of a meltdown can stop if he or she wants to. Most kids don't love shopping to begin with, for reasons cited upthread. Trying to keep the child engaged helps but isn't foolproof. I will attest that there are times when children are so overstimulated that anything you try to do to comfort them just seems to make things worse, and on those occasions it really is for the best to just leave the child alone and wait for meltdown to run its course. And this can also be true of colicky babies. And maybe autistic children would rather be left alone too, I don't know. But in general I think comforting and paying attention are usually good bets. Pick up a crying baby and engage with a fussy child.

I also think that parents have some responsibility to try not to disturb others and to remove a wailing child from a public place when possible. But it's not always a realistic option. If a mother is shopping at goodwill and maybe had to take public transportation to get there, maybe had to juggle things around to have time to run errands... I could cut her some slack if she wanted to hurry up and finish buying what she needed. Children, after all, are not just accessories that "real" people tote around. Children are members of society too, and have a right to be places and to behave like children (within reasonable expectations of "good" behavior for their ages) rather than like adults.

And sometimes, kids are just little shitheads.

After two years with mine, I can generally tell when a meltdown is coming and can either avert it or get us to someplace where it won't impact anyone. But then you sometimes need toilet paper and have to go in a store.

They are human and create stress hormones just like adults. They initially get upset and if left to continue crying and screaming, cortisol and adrenaline amp up and then there is no way they can calm themselves down. They don't have that ability. After 1/2 an hour or more, they probably don't even know why they are still screaming, they just are and can't stop without someone helping them.

I was in Target, regular Target not super so the store was smaller, and heard a young child screaming and crying. I was in the store for at least 45 minutes and this went on non-stop. I finally crossed paths with the woman and child. There in the cart was a 12-15mo old girl, red faced, sweaty, snotty and exhausted looking. The mother? Pursuing women's clothes seemingly without a care in the world.

Those are the situations that bother me. It seems cruel to the child to let them be in such distress for so long.

They usually last 5 seconds.

I agree a child cannot stop in the middle of a meltdown. But they can be taught the ability to work toward ending the meltdown as quickly as possible. Getting to those "good feelings" are what is important.

I was at the park today and we were watching people fly kites, after a few minutes I wanted to get out of the hot sun so I walked back to our picnic area. He was on my shoulders and the entire time he was upset we were going back to sit down. When I put him down he lost it, played "dead weight," dropped to the ground, wailed. For 15 seconds.

Then, I'd create a little timeout space near a tree and have her stand there until the tantrum is over. If she doesn't calm down relatively quick, then head to the car and leave.

(I would never deliberately ignore my child for more than a minute when s/he was trying to communicate something to me).

Then, if I felt that I had discerned the actual reason why the boy was crying, I would take whatever positive and constructive steps necessary to comfort the child. If I felt that the situation could not quickly and easily be remedied inside the store, I would abandon the cart and then leave the store in consideration of the other customers, and bring the boy to a quieter place with as few external distractions as possible.

I would then try to remedy the situation with some positive action based on the cause of boy's distress. (I can't say what those actions would entail unless I had a good feel for the situation and the cause of the boy's distress).

If the problem then resolved fairly quickly and constructively, and I felt that the boy could return to the store without further distress, and I had the time, I would return to the store. If I felt that a return to the store would trigger more distress, I would take the boy somewhere else, and hope that the car ride would "make everything right with the world again" for the boy.

There's no parenting manual with specific directions on how to be an effective parent. Every child is different and needs to be approached as the individual they are. There are some basic effective parenting tenets I learned, such as do everything out of love and kindness, keep calm and carry on, and do no harm, to the greatest extent of which you are capable. There's always a balance that's dependent on the individual child, your emotional state, and the needs of the situation. Knowing/feeling what the exact right thing to do in every situation is impossible.

Sincerely always wanting to do, and trying to do, the best thing for a child's development in every situation is a cornerstone effective parenting, in my experience.

Just my 2 cents worth, the only thing I know about parenting is that, no matter how much I studied so called "effective parenting techniques" *snort*, I still had to wing it a lot of the time, and any success I had in parenting was probably due to blind luck more than anything else.

Being an effective grandparent, OTOH, is a piece of cake, and there are easily understood, specific directions for being a grandparent. You simply spoil your grandchildren rotten when you are with them, and then leave until your next opportunity to spoil them comes around.

I've never understood how a parent could be so rude as not to take a screaming kid out of a dining establishment.

The CEO makes too much money and I think there was a vote, so it's official. Goodwill is on the boycott list.

Screaming kid? I don't know. Let me ponder it for a few years and I'll get back to you.

and I tried all the strategies mentioned here. Take them outside, don't go out when tired, etc. One day after reading some new parenting books, I just let the tantrum continue in the store and did my best to continue shopping and ignore it. She cried for a long time. I think she wanted to leave and it worked before. We left after she quit crying and I was done. She never had another tantrum like that.

I think the mother you described may be doing her best.

the mom still has to get stuff done. Perhaps she's a bad mother.

There could be many reasons.