How to Keep Cool During a Public Toddler Tantrum

Keeping cool during a public toddler tantrum takes a thick skin, a sense of humor and some long-term perspective. Consider these steps before getting caught up in the moment and losing your cool during your toddler’s next noisy tantrum in the grocery line or grade school parking lot.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Patience
• Time

1. As your adorable offspring melts down into a pool of raging, tearful recriminations on the polished linoleum, take a deep breath and notice his tiny ribcage swelling, his tight little fists and the frustrated, unspoken emotions crossing his flushed face.
2. Abandon any pretense of perfect parenthood, ignore the staring shoppers, disregard the judgmental comments from cart-wheeling critics and do what is best for your child.
3. If damage is being done to property or the location is unsafe, physically contain your child with your arms, otherwise allow her to flail uncontrollably, getting the tantrum out in the open and done.
4. When the tantrum is slightly abated, attempt to soothe, without giving in on the issue that initiated the tantrum; if your child was refused candy, don’t give it to her, but offer kind words encouraging her to get up, dust herself off and continue shopping.
5. If kind words and a calm demeanor have no effect on the toddler or tantrum, scoop up the child in a humane manner and firmly leave the store. Abandon the cart full of groceries, sundries or socket wrenches where it is; underpaid teenagers will re-shelve them later, and can do it more efficiently, and with less noise, than you can at that moment.
6. Take the child to another location, offering a moment of peace and quiet for an opportunity to regroup and begin again. Some toddlers can manage this, some can’t; most will vary from day to day.
7. Repeat as necessary. Toddler tantrums are unpredictable but inevitable. Keeping cool will prevent escalation and being firm will eventually teach your toddler that a tantrum gets him nothing.

Tips & Warnings

• Keeping cool during a tantrum sounds easy, but takes skill when it is the twentieth tantrum that day. Being the water wearing away stone on the face of your child’s behavior can be wearying, but is worthwhile.
• Attempt to discern during the tantrum whether it is a result of bad behavior or bad judgment on your part; is your child too hungry, too tired, too young or too old for the activity involved, or in the initial stages of the flu? Do a double-check before going off the deep end into parental disgust--too often a parent will overreact to a tirade only to discover the toddler has a temperature of 102.
• Defend your child’s honor if passers-by openly criticize in a hurtful manner. If an elderly gentleman snaps, “Aren’t we the spoiled little brat!” as he walks by the car wreck of emotions in the cereal aisle, feel free to respond, “Aren’t we forgetful about the challenges of being two!” or tell your child, “Ignore the judgmental man, honey, let’s get it together and go on.” Telling the man to “shut his pie-hole” is going too far.
• Whether you tell your toddler why you are abandoning the trip or not comes down to the temperament of the child. Some toddlers are adequately rational to take in explanations; others are beyond reasoning and will hear nothing but noises in a disapproving tone.
• One strategy widely circulated, but rarely attempted, is to imitate the child at his or her worst, rolling around on the floor kicking, screaming and using the same words as your toddler. While your toddler may be sufficiently startled to stop screaming, sit up and stare, this method is more effective on children old enough to feel embarrassment, and most effective on socially-conscious teens willing to do anything to get you up off the floor and acting like a reasonable adult.
• While it can be ever so tempting to deny all knowledge of your child when he is lustily crying, “I want the truck!” fifty times in a row at full volume, it’s not a good strategy, though preferable to returning fire with humiliating remarks which will do him harm, will do the situation no good, and will ruin your reputation, as inevitably--during our worst parenting moments--the school principal, PTA president or neighborhood gossip walks by.