Ignoring kids who throw fits in public

[RecoveringKinkoid]

I don't have kids, I don't want kids, and I don't work in an environment where I'm around kids, but I can still tell when the kids outside are crying for attention versus crying because they need something. Some kids might get good enough that their want cry sounds closer to their need cry, just like actors can fake emotions, but at the start the want cry sounds staged. I have no idea how to describe it other than that. *shrug*

....

^-.-^

The point I'm trying to make is that you, and anyone else who thinks this, have no way of knowing if you're right or wrong when making this judgment call. You don't know the kid, and you don't know the situation. When you make a call on it, you don't usually get to find out if that call was right or wrong.

So judging an unknown parent's actions with an unknown kid during an unknown situation and thinking you know better than the parent what's the right or wrong thing to do is just plain arrogant.

The fact is that when it's not our kids, yeah, the noise is annoying. (and when it's our own kid, it's even more annoying. In fact, it's excruciating. The "looking daggers" at the parents helps, I'm sure. Keep doing that. Eventually it will start working.) However making a judgement call that because we're annoyed then that means the parent is in the wrong is a pretty self involved view towards the whole thing.

It's not practical nor is it desirable to leave kids at home all the time so we can engage in the day to day business of running a household. In a perfect world, we'd all have Alice the Maid living at our houses. It's not a perfect world.

I notice the only people I ever have to explain this to are childless people. That's not a coincidence.

[Andara Bledin]

You know what? The kid crying so hard that he's losing his voice? I know he's fucking hurt and someone should check on him. While the kid who pauses every couple of seconds to check if someone is paying attention doesn't need it. I've seen parents ignore the first and fuss over the second, so I don't think parenthood instills some magic filter that tells a person which one is which and a lack of children doesn't make one ignorant of the same.

^-.-^

[Boozy]

I've seen parents ignore the first and fuss over the second, so I don't think parenthood instills some magic filter that tells a person which one is which and a lack of children doesn't make one ignorant of the same.

That's not what RK is saying. She's saying that experienced parents often can't immediately tell the difference between "temper tantrum" crying and "I'm hurt" crying - in their own children.

And yet yourself and others seem perfectly able to tell the difference in the children of complete strangers. What a remarkable ability.

[Boozy]

I notice the only people I ever have to explain this to are childless people. That's not a coincidence.

It's not.

Which that said, I don't have kids. But that means that the proper socialization of other people's children is even more important to me. I will be relying on these grown-up children one day to give me my meds and serve my meals at my nursing home. I'd like them to turn out to be nice people.

[DrFaroohk]

I don't have kids, I don't want kids, and I don't work in an environment where I'm around kids, but I can still tell when the kids outside are crying for attention versus crying because they need something. Some kids might get good enough that their want cry sounds closer to their need cry, just like actors can fake emotions, but at the start the want cry sounds staged. I have no idea how to describe it other than that. *shrug*

I get this too a lot, not only with kids but with just about anyone. I can tell when someone's motives are pure (such as an honest criticism) or there's a malicious intent behind them (such as "I'm having a pissy day and am going to bitch at others to make myself feel better"). And I have no way of proving it, and I'm not a bona fide psychic and I'm not around 10 minutes later to find out if I was right, but sometimes your intuition can just know what's up. Same with the kids.

I would venture that it might be easier to tell if another kid is just playing you or not, because you can be more objective than if its your own kid.

More on topic - I've never understood the point of family shopping excursions. If one has really young kids, and more than one responsible person available to take care of them, why would you troop the entire tribe to the store rather than have only one that can drive, be trusted with money, and follow a list go while the little ones, who are likely to fuss at the trip anyway, stay home where they are less likely to do so?

This is aimed more at the families of 5-10 I see clogging up the store nearby, although even with just the couples with tiny kids, I just don't get it; it seems like a losing situation all around.

^-.-^

I've just got the two kids, and most of the time I don't like taking them out either because it's a pain in the ass. But I also have learned along the way that A) if I want my stepson to learn how to behave like a non-ass in public, then I'd better take him out in public and teach him how to behave and B) my little girl is the cutest thing and I love showing her off and C) once the kids get a little bit older than can actually help with the shopping.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

And yet yourself and others seem perfectly able to tell the difference in the children of complete strangers. What a remarkable ability.

I should probably note that before I had my own kid, I "had this ability" also.

[anakhouri]

I'm going with the majority. Khan at least has two different kinds of howling: howling in pain or fear, and howling for the hell of it (they sound different). In other people's kids? No clue. I have no experience except for Khan. If we are at home and he wants to fuss and wail out of temper, I let him and ignore him. In public, I remove him. No one else needs to be exposed to my disciplining my kid.

And yes to everything DrFarookh said. Khan needs to go out so he can see how people act and what sort of things they do. He is cute as fuck and I want all the old ladies to fall over themselves and compliment his curls. And sometimes, even though he isn't even 2, he can retrieve items or put up things I've knocked down.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Yeah, it was just last week I heard the most God awful, hysterical screaming coming from my kid. It sounded like she was being eaten by fire ants. She was in the bathroom. I ran in there and she was hysterical, soaked, and red faced. She managed to choke out a "I fell!" and I thought she'd fallen off her stepstool and hit her head on the toilet or something.

Husband had left the seat up and she had fallen ass first into the toilet. She wasn't hurt at all.

And this was my own kid. Her "I'm really embarassed and angry" cry sounds pretty much exactly like her "My frigging leg's been chopped off" cry.

In an off topic aside here, the husband was not in there comforting her because he'd seen the whole thing go down and thought his pee-his-pants, doubled over, weeping with silent laughter would compound her outrage. Before I was able to suss out what had happened, I was pretty incensed at him and called him an "insensitive bastard." Which of course only served to make him have to hide in the back room laughing even longer.

[telecom_goddess]

My kids have fallen into the toilet before...but not with the seat up. They were just too small

[Evandril]

And this was my own kid. Her "I'm really embarassed and angry" cry sounds pretty much exactly like her "My frigging leg's been chopped off" cry.

Both cries were the same..."Something is wrong!" People are saying, that after being exposed to LOTS of kids, and hearing their cries, they can tell the difference between 'Something is wrong!' and 'I want attention!'....Which tends to be a FAR more noticeable of a difference.

They do not know your kids nearly as well as you do...but they've seen enough kids to have seen similarities, so saying 'You don't have a kid, there's no way you can tell the difference' (Not your wording, but the impression I got from the posts) is not something you can take as a given, IMO. Are there going to be execptions? Of course, we're talking human behavior...But on the whole, if you've seen enough people, you have an idea how most will react.

Edit to add: I've got two sons, and worked in retail most of my life, before joining the Air Force, fyi

[RecoveringKinkoid]

What I'm saying is that if you make a judgment call on a kid that you see for five minutes or less, and who goes home and you never see again right after you make that judgment call, how do you get the sort of feedback that would eventually teach you that you've made the correct judgment call?

Unless the mom calls you or emails you and lets you know your instincts were right, you cannot say "I'm good at figuring out what they are saying." Because you have no idea if you are good at it or if you suck at it.

If people who think "well sometimes it's obvious" heard my kid in the loo after the Big Splash, they would have concluded what I did...that she was pretty much on fire at that point. And that my husband, hiding in the back room, was the shittiest sort of father imaginable.

[Lace Neil Singer]

I never saw the clip and of course I don't know these people, but as a fellow shopper I would be thinking evil hate-daggers in this woman's direction. While ignoring the tantrum may be good thing, the child still has an audience and, in my opinion, the surrounding activity makes it harder for an upset child to calm down. During my time cashiering, I could tell the difference between a child's "I'm hungry/tired" cry versus the "I'm upset/not getting my way/hate you!" cry. Guess which one really grated the nerves?

Agreed, oh so much. The child doesn't give two shits whether or not Mum is ignoring him/her; all their little, immature mind cares about is getting attention from someone, even just from all the people glaring at them, or even muttering profanities. So ignoring the child is kind of counter productive, cuz they are still getting attention which is the whole point of their tantrum.

There is also the fact that while you are sharing breathing space with other people, it would be considerate to not inflict your screaming child on them. So the poster who mentioned the "scoop up child, take outside til screaming fit is over, go back in" method is dead on the money. This way, you're not giving in to the child or letting the child have attention; also, neither are you forcing other people to endure his/her screech-a-thon.

[Evandril]

What I'm saying is that if you make a judgment call on a kid that you see for five minutes or less, and who goes home and you never see again right after you make that judgment call, how do you get the sort of feedback that would eventually teach you that you've made the correct judgment call?

Unless the mom calls you or emails you and lets you know your instincts were right, you cannot say "I'm good at figuring out what they are saying." Because you have no idea if you are good at it or if you suck at it.

If people who think "well sometimes it's obvious" heard my kid in the loo after the Big Splash, they would have concluded what I did...that she was pretty much on fire at that point. And that my husband, hiding in the back room, was the shittiest sort of father imaginable.

First off, where is the five minutes coming from? I didn't work the register all the time, quite often I was actively talking with the family, trying to sell them something...So I got to see the 'look, cry, look' vs 'startledCRY!'

Second...I never said we could tell if something *IS* wrong, just if the KID thinks something is wrong...so, yes, we'd have thought the same as you, and that'd fall under the 'startledCRY!' catagory. IE, something happened, and the kid reacts to it.

One side effect of working retail...I've noticed that certain things are more obvious to me than people who didn't have that flood of people to watch, and in my experience, most others I know who worked retail are the same way. The one benefit of working a job that gives you no other real skills

[Peppergirl]

IMore on topic - I've never understood the point of family shopping excursions. If one has really young kids, and more than one responsible person available to take care of them, why would you troop the entire tribe to the store rather than have only one that can drive, be trusted with money, and follow a list go while the little ones, who are likely to fuss at the trip anyway, stay home where they are less likely to do so?

This is aimed more at the families of 5-10 I see clogging up the store nearby, although even with just the couples with tiny kids, I just don't get it; it seems like a losing situation all around.

^-.-^

My kids are grown, but to this day, I *still* don't understand this phenomenon.

Hauling the kids AND my ex-husband on errands was just torture for everyone involved. Me, the kids, him - and others around us who were subjected to our crankiness.

I can probably count on one hand the number of times the entire family went out to run errands when my kids were little.

My ex sister in law was weird this way though. Her husband was an over-the-road truck driver. Gone for weeks at a time. He'd come back in town and be exhausted, yet he'd have to haul ALL of them to the store and various errands the minute he got back. She had a car and a good support system of family and babysitters, so it wasn't like she was trapped in the house when he was gone.

*shrug* Maybe I just don't get it. There's got to be some logical reason people would submit themselves to such torture.

[Lace Neil Singer]

Masochism? O_o My mum used to send my dad to the supermarket with a list when we four kids were little; it was less agony all round than dragging four small children to the store would have been. I too find it impossible to understand why people want to willingly put themselves thru such misery when it's avoidable.