Active Surveys
Share Secrets to Well-Behaved Kids
6/30/2009 2:09:51 PM
How have you handled situations when a child is having a temper tantrum or experiencing anger issues?
- Sarah said:
- Tammy said:
My youngest daugter LOved to through temper tantrums in the store. If you have the nerve here is a good trick to try. Next timeyour child throws their self on the floor screaming. Lay down beside them and do the same thing I did it. My daughter jumped up and said Mommy stop that you are embarrasing me. I replied now you know how i feel. That was the end of the temper tantrums and my house and in public.
WONDERFUL idea. Im going to have to try this one on my little girl.
- Tammy said:
I did that with my brother-in-law in Wal-Mart and he freaked out. He NEVER acted up again, for me.
- Sarah said:
- Tammy said:
My youngest daugter LOved to through temper tantrums in the store. If you have the nerve here is a good trick to try. Next timeyour child throws their self on the floor screaming. Lay down beside them and do the same thing I did it. My daughter jumped up and said Mommy stop that you are embarrasing me. I replied now you know how i feel. That was the end of the temper tantrums and my house and in public.
WONDERFUL idea. Im going to have to try this one on my little girl.
- Tammy said:
- Michelle said:
- Sarah said:
- Tammy said:
My youngest daugter LOved to through temper tantrums in the store. If you have the nerve here is a good trick to try. Next timeyour child throws their self on the floor screaming. Lay down beside them and do the same thing I did it. My daughter jumped up and said Mommy stop that you are embarrasing me. I replied now you know how i feel. That was the end of the temper tantrums and my house and in public.
WONDERFUL idea. Im going to have to try this one on my little girl.
- Tammy said:
I did that with my brother-in-law in Wal-Mart and he freaked out. He NEVER acted up again, for me.
- Sarah said:
If my daughter had a tantrum in the store or in the mall, my husband or I would just put down our shopping, pick her up and leave the store and go home. When she calmed down, we would tell her that the reason we left was because of her behavior and if she did it again, we would leave again. I think we actually had to do this three times and then she got the message that we were not going to tolerate tantrums. The first time she threw a tantrum she was 16 months, and the last time she was 18 months. We have never had a problem since and she is now 18 years! We also never talked down to her, we treated her just as a small person, we explained what we were doing whenever we did anything, she always help us around the house so she knew that she was part of the family and had shared responsibility in the family.
Treat your child as if they WERE what you want them to be.....and they will BECOME what you want them to be.
I always tell my kids how much I love them and respect them. When we go out, while still in the car, I tell them what we will be doing and the behavior I expect from them. People thought I was crazy telling me newborn and 15 mon old what great behavior they had in the store. But NOW at 2.5 and almost 17 mons when we pull up to the store My son will say" Be good, right?" "behave...I promise!' then Their reward it to HELP me put the groceries away...YEAH! ALWAYS tell them how much you love them and their behavior. When bad..."It hurts my heart when you yell like that or hit your sister". SO far it works. He doesn't really want to hurt me. ..I DID do the laying down on the ground thing with my oldest (now 15) and she jumped up right away and yelled "Mommy, get up off that floor or you will get a time out for sure!" So watch out what you do in public! The kids are smart and can Turn on you as well.Good Luck!Melissa
Our daughter was in day care and had seen a few tantrums so she decided to throw one in the middle of the kitchen floor just as we were fixing dinner, My hubby had his back to me and I was at the sink, I don't know how but when she threw herself on her back kicking her legs and screaming, we BOTH lay down and did the exact same thing she was doing........lay on our back kicking and screaming. WELL, she go up looked at both of us with distate and stormed out the room. We high fived and said either that worked or we just traumatized our baby..........She NEVER had another tantrum ever, I don't recommend it to everyone but it worked for us.
I think that if you treat children with love and respect they will almost always behave well. We all have occasional meltdowns. Treat your children how you would want to be treated if it were happening to you.
I have to agree that if you show your children love, caring and attention that typically they are well-rounded and well-behaved as they grow into young adults. You get what you give! :)
- Denise said:
I think that if you treat children with love and respect they will almost always behave well. We all have occasional meltdowns. Treat your children how you would want to be treated if it were happening to you.
Well said!
I have two grown children. as they were growing up, the first major thing is not to show favoratizem. give each child their own 1on1 time. be therre for them. don.t brush them off. Never make a threat that can not be followed through on. such as: "you touch that again I will cut your hand off" If a parent was love and control of a situasion you need to be honest regardless of the childs age,
I am lucky. My daughter never threw a temper tantrum in a store or at home. She is now 15 and still a pretty easy child. My son, now 8, had one and only one tantrum in a store. He was holding some trivial item in his hand while sitting in the cart seat and was reaching out and touching things in the store. I told him that that was not allowed he knew that you had to keep you hands to yourself in the store. I gave him one warning, then he was no longer allowed to hold the item. He started to howl. I looked him right in the face, right from his level, and told him that if he did not stop and behave the way he was taught, he would not like the results, and they would most certainly not be pleasant. He stopped. I think he stopped because his imagination led him to un-pleasant places that I would never have gone. Who knows what he thought of, but that was the only tantrum he has ever had. YET.
Instead of saying, "don't do that", instead, say what you want them to do. For example, if your child is acting up, instead of saying, "Quit acting like a brat!", say, "I would like to you act calm."
Accentuate the positive.This works with spouses, too! 
I am always complimented on how well behaved my children are by their teachers and all that meet them. I have often wondered what I did to get such great kids and I think I have the answer. The answer goes back to this... if I ask my kids to do something and they give me a hard time about doing it then guess what the answer is 10 minutes later when they want to do something? TREAT OTHERS AS YOU WANT TO BE TREATED. Children learn what strings they can pull to get what they want and they act up because they know you will give in to get them out of your hair or to get them to behave. NO I do not hardly ever have to spank my kids and I think for my 13 yr old it has been at least 2-3 yrs. I think it all comes down to Respect. LIsten to them when they speak and require that they listen to you, but YOU MUST LISTEN TO THEM
I totally agree with the fact that you HAVE to start early. You can't let your child run free for the first 5, 10 or more years and then all of a sudden try to reign him/her in. You have to start early and if you are good at laying down rules and letting them know that you KNOW they are a person with his/her own thoughts and ideas then things will go a lot more smoothly. Not perfect but better. Also, I try my best to make sure my kids aren't bored and know where we are going and what is expected from them. I understand that shopping isn't fun for kids and I try to make it more fun while still gettting in and out with as little fuss as possible.
Grocery Store Discipline:A couple of wise words shared with me by my fabulous Cousin Janell - Super Mom of 5 kids: One way to prevent whining in the checkout line is to never help it start. We have never allowed a checkout last minute purchase. If it is not on the list we do not buy it - period. They kids can have snack or candy sometimes, but it must be on the list. My kids have zero expectation of receiving anything asked for in the checkout line. This helps my pocketbook & my patience too. My kids are now 13 & 14 and this rules has worked well.Save money & reduce TV time in one swoop: We have a rule that we held fast to when the kids were 10 and under - we do not purchase anything we see on TV - anything! I explained to the kiddos after I took some marketing classes about how commercials are just a method of telling us what to buy or "bossing us around" The kids got that message loud and clear. No TV guy was going to boss us around. Of course, they held me to it also. I wanted to buy a name brand fabric softener and they protested that they saw that teddy bear on TV, so I complied and went with a store brand. It actually cut down on Saturday morning TV time and begging for toys. They would start to ask for what they saw and I would say, "Too bad we cannot buy that now." Amazing how little TV they watched on Saturday morning after that! Grocery Store Stories: My daughter was only 6 years old when she made an embarrassing LOUD (is there any other kind?) comment at the grocery store about another child being 'disciplined'. She said, "Mom that boy looks old enough to count, so why is his Mommy still teaching him his 1,2,3s?" Out of the mouths of babes! In our family, we do not use any sort of counting method to warn a child about pending discipline. To this day my daughter and I smile at each other when we see this occurrence.
My son is 2 1/2 years old, and we've been lucky enough to avoid public tantrums thus far mostly because I try anticipate his needs as much as possible. If we need to hit the grocery store, we don't go when he's looking tired or it's his usual nap time. Before we go out, I make sure we have snacks and beverages packed, so that he's not unduly hungry. We have toys in our diaper bag that stay in the bag (and a box of "car toys" in the backseat) so that we have an alternative to boredom. And if we start seeing the "warning signs" like excessive silliness or attention-getting behaviors, we cut short the errand we're on and head back to the car. Nothing new here, but these tried and true preventive steps work! I firmly believe that our "luck" so far has been in large part due to keeping realistic expectations of a toddler's abilities with regard to attention and stimulation. While he's expected to have appropriate behavior when we're out and we don't revolve our lives around our child, I think it's just practical to know your children's limits and supply him/her with tools to help them behave well.At home, when we have the occasional meltdown, I like to use the tips shown on TV's Supernanny for timeouts -- one minute per child's age, no yelling, firm voice, tell the child why they're in time out, keep placing them in the timeout spot if they get up, ask the child to recap after they've completed timeout, and above all use HUGS AND KISSES afterward!
- Tammy said:
My youngest daugter LOved to through temper tantrums in the store. If you have the nerve here is a good trick to try. Next timeyour child throws their self on the floor screaming. Lay down beside them and do the same thing I did it. My daughter jumped up and said Mommy stop that you are embarrasing me. I replied now you know how i feel. That was the end of the temper tantrums and my house and in public.
Love that idea!!! I can see how that would work.
I think someone already said it, LOVE lots and lots LOVE. I have 2 beautiful teenagers. We are a retired military family. Much of the time it was me and just me telling them and expressing our love. I will not say they were angels 100% of the time, but oh my gosh did they ever try to be. I never sent them to their room because that was their safe haven. We never argued at the dinner table because it was our time to share as a family. What we did do was remove ourselves from angry moments through writing letters, listening to music and escaping what we couldn't have (often the point of their anger). I had a jar that if the kids were angry enough to want to tell their father why he was on a mission (out of town), they wrote it down and he read them when he returned. And by then the kids thought or seen how funny their missed place anger really was. I swore as a young military wife I would not have those kids who ran up and down the aisle or had to have everything. I don't really know how I accomplished it but, I do know that my children knew and know that they are loved unconditionally.They know mistakes can be made but love will help them make the right choices.
- Kathleen said:
My son is 2 1/2 years old, and weve been lucky enough to avoid public tantrums thus far mostly because I try anticipate his needs as much as possible. If we need to hit the grocery store, we dont go when hes looking tired or its his usual nap time. Before we go out, I make sure we have snacks and beverages packed, so that hes not unduly hungry. We have toys in our diaper bag that stay in the bag (and a box of car toys in the backseat) so that we have an alternative to boredom. And if we start seeing the warning signs like excessive silliness or attention-getting behaviors, we cut short the errand were on and head back to the car. Nothing new here, but these tried and true preventive steps work! I firmly believe that our luck so far has been in large part due to keeping realistic expectations of a toddlers abilities with regard to attention and stimulation. While hes expected to have appropriate behavior when were out and we dont revolve our lives around our child, I think its just practical to know your childrens limits and supply him/her with tools to help them behave well.At home, when we have the occasional meltdown, I like to use the tips shown on TVs Supernanny for timeouts -- one minute per childs age, no yelling, firm voice, tell the child why theyre in time out, keep placing them in the timeout spot if they get up, ask the child to recap after theyve completed timeout, and above all use HUGS AND KISSES afterward!
Great foresight! I did the same thing but, never thought I was anticipating my children's needs just wanted to keep structure and order in their lives - set naptimes, bedtimes, snack times etc...
The whole secret to well behaved children is preparation (if it is at all possible). When you are going to a store, the child must be prepared that you are just going to purchase groceries and that they may have choices on only certain items, ie. cereal, fruit, (something that makes them feel helpful). You must choose the other items because you have to help your family eat healthy so that they can grow up strong. "Are they going to whine to choose certain items?" you ask, before you enter the store. "NO, M'am." "How about asking for certain cookies?" "No, M'am." and so on with the bad behavior that you want them NOT to do while you're in the store. Tell them that you don't let children help them that behave poorly in the store, so remember to be on their best behavior, or wherever you're going. You might even go so far as to practice HOW to behave when they see things they want and how NOT to behave. They will remember or if they don't, you can remind them that you practiced this behavior at home. Prepare! Prepare! Prepare! And, PLEASE! Don't yell at your child in public! YOU often look ridiculous and much more childish than your child does. Speak calmly, with patience how you expect your child to behave and what they are doing that displeases you. Even calmly wrap your arms around them while they are having a tantrum and carry them out of the store quietly to "discuss" calmly the situation outside. Don't beat (spank) them in front of others because YOU are the one who appears out of control and these days, you just might get Social Services called on you. Raising children really doesn't have to be that hard. They really don't want to be bad. They just need boundaries. Once they know where they are, they may test them a little bit. Hold strong, be consistent with your patient discipline and you'll be amazed what wonderful adults they can become!
- Candice said:
- Tammy said:
My youngest daugter LOved to through temper tantrums in the store. If you have the nerve here is a good trick to try. Next timeyour child throws their self on the floor screaming. Lay down beside them and do the same thing I did it. My daughter jumped up and said Mommy stop that you are embarrasing me. I replied now you know how i feel. That was the end of the temper tantrums and my house and in public.
how old was your daughter when she did that?? My daughter is only 14 months old
- Tammy said:
This works on children of almost any age. I did this when my girls were 2 and 3 and they stopped looked at me and said mom everyone is looking at us stop. It was the greatest reaction ever. They have since stopped doing that but are now hitting the preteen age so it's now the she's bugging me stage.
- Tammy said:
My youngest daugter LOved to through temper tantrums in the store. If you have the nerve here is a good trick to try. Next timeyour child throws their self on the floor screaming. Lay down beside them and do the same thing I did it. My daughter jumped up and said Mommy stop that you are embarrasing me. I replied now you know how i feel. That was the end of the temper tantrums and my house and in public.
I love that one!!
One thing that is very helpful is to design hand signals with your children. This way you can give them a warning without having to say a word, and then if they continue to push the limits, they know they had been warned and have a better acceptance of the consequence. I also make sure to reward compliance (candy bar, quarter, popcicle, always with a good comment about their obedience). From a homeschool mom. .Teri
My sons did not have tantrums and they both were very polite out in public. They both knew if I had said their full names that I was mad. They were well behaved being I was really the only parent raising them by myselfr. Their Dad was not present most of the times or they were told "Go and ask your Mom." I did not have to punish them too much, b/c I taught them in their age that you are to behave in public.
I have been blessed with a good little boy, but he sometimes can have his moments. I do not let him get away with behaving badly if he knows it is wrong or if he has already been corrected for the behavior. He HATES to sit in time out, but it is very effective for us! Also, time out consists of sitting with his face to the wall so he has no distractions and this makes it much more boring. Now all it takes is one warning as a reminder that he is behaving unfavorably and he stops. We are a very loving family, lots of hugs, kisses and praise so my son is always eager to please by showing us how good he can be!!!
What I Know
Available October 13 wherever books are sold
Want to learn more?
Join Now
Not a member? Join today for free and receive:
- Surprising product information
- Great coupons/samples
- Cool things to share with friends
Latest Try & Tells
Please login to learn about all the exciting products and services showcased in Vocalpoint.
Not a member? Sign up for free today!
We're Listening
Did you know that every program Vocalpoint creates starts with your input and ideas?
Complete Your Profile
Get more things that are tailored to you by completing your profile!
Be sure to:
- Keep your address up to date
- Add a picture/icon to your profile
Social Media 101
Checkout Vocalpoint's Social Media 101 to learn how to use these sites to find and share cool things.
Vocalpoint is brought to you by Tremor, a division of 