I have had the enormous honor to raise three young girls for about a decade.  All of them are now elementary school age, but my memories of preschool and toddler years are not far away in my mind.  I cannot and never do profess to be anywhere near a perfect parent.  I do my best, but I’ve made my share of mistakes.  That said, I’d like to go ahead and share what I feel is a pretty solid recipe for disaster as a parent.  The retail store child-meltdown.

Unfortunately, sometimes we parents are partly to mostly at fault for it.  We know better, but just try to keep our fingers crossed because we have to get X, Y, or Z done right then.  Parents maybe hope for and mean the best, but get frustrated because they neglect the truth about young kids.  They can only handle so much at a time, and it is often less than you would wish for.  There’s no getting around that.

The reason I’m writing this post is because I saw something the other day that really stood out to me.  I witnessed a mom doing each of the things I am about to list.  She may have been thinking it would all work out OK, but I can’t really guess.  All I know is that everyone got to see and hear everything.

Here’s my recipe for a good old fashion store meltdown for your young kids:

1.  Take your young preschool age kids out shortly after lunch, right around nap time.  Here’s the truth – they are usually very tired.  I rarely had success when I tried taking my preschool-aged children out at that time without a nap.  Unless you have some kind of emergency, and I don’t mean a shopping emergency, just stay home or get a sitter at that time of the day!

2.  Be sure your voice is louder than your child’s, and right in their face.  What’s a preschooler supposed to take from that?  They aren’t listening to the words you say, I mean shout.  Not really.  They are mostly responding to the emotional intensity.  As I said, a better alternative is to use the proximity to deliver your directions in clearly spoken words with much less volume.

3.  After you have loudly scolded your children many times for being restless, noisy, and disobedient, continue to shop at a leisurely pace.  At some point, I don’t care what you are buying.  It is probably not quite as important as your kid being completely miserable, tired, and bored out of their mind.  That’s not the time to do half your Christmas list, shop for lots of little scrapbooking materials, or get a week’s worth of groceries.  When it starts to look bad, enact your exit strategy.  Decide you have come to the end of your shopping and start trying to find the quickest way out.  Or, do those shopping errands without your child.

Trust me, I know these mistakes because I have done them.  Those experiences made me pretty uncomfortable and I do my best to avoid those situations with my accumulation of parental wisdom.  Sometimes I push it too far or I can’t avoid difficult circumstances, but my main approach is to avoid potentially bad situations.  Problem is the mom I witnessed a few days ago looked like this was old hat for her.  She did not seem bothered that this situation kept on going, other than being quite angry for a few moments.  She just shopped and shopped, and yelled and yelled, over and over.  That was sad.

Hopefully, all you parents out there reading this can take a moment to reflect on this perspective.  Just be a little more aware of how your kids tick at various times of the day, no matter how old they are.  Maybe this tidbit of extra awareness can help you prevent a meltdown in your home today.

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From Psych Central's website:
PsychCentral (November 9, 2009)

DrDavidBallard (November 9, 2009)

    Last reviewed: 9 Nov 2009