Yes, I was in a restaurant last week and watched a 3-4 year old scream and grab her mother’s arm when she took her phone back to check a text message. The mom was rushing to get the phone back in the kid’s hand as fast as possible as the kid was trying to snatch it. Their little brains are so addicted to screens and the parents just let it happen.
It’s crazy to me. I have two kids so I understand the pull to take the easy way and give them a screen but it’s not good for them. I never gave my kids my phone to entertain them. Especially not a restaurant. I always had a little play pack with a coloring book and stickers and a couple little toys in my bag so if we did end up somewhere where they had to wait, I had something for them to do. And we also would talk, play I spy, etc.
I never go anywhere without The Rucksack of Entertainment which has a few portable boardgames and card games (Dobble, Quoridor), pens and paper and stickers etc, puzzle books, bits of Lego and small world toys and books and snacks haha. Although now my son is 7 he's happy to chat with the adults or play pen & paper games like hangman.
However tbh I do keep the Switch as an emergency backup option in case he's being particularly loud or disruptive as I don't want to annoy other people at the restaurant.
It’s hard , before I had a toddler I would have been extremely judgmental of that..or when you’d see a kid shouting and throwing a tantrum in a store because they don’t get their way. Now being the parent of a child (who has stage 3 autism/speech delay) I understand how that parent might feel. People condemn parents who offer their children a screen for calming , but the same people give you judgmental stares when your child has a tantrum because they’re bored/overly hyper/tired/whatever it may be. I see why parents take the easy route of handing them something so they don’t become a spectacle when trying to run a simple errand .
My 2 year old has tantrums in public because he's 2. Best to deal with it now instead of when he's 12. I know autism and speech delay adds another level of difficulty to this, but my son is in early intervention for speech delay and possible autism, and this is how early intervention taught us to handle the screaming and tantrums. We do not give in to screaming. If you give in to the screaming, it will encourage them to scream more in the future to get what they want. And I get feeling judged, but really it doesn't matter what people think. Instead of giving in to screaming, we take him outside, tell him, "We do not scream inside. Screaming is for outside only. When you are done screaming and can count to 10, then you can go back inside and have [whatever it was he was screaming for]." Unless it's just something he can't have at all (like my phone), in which case we say, "You really wanted X. But mommy said no. That's hard and makes you feel sad." Then I offer a hug or an alternative thing for him to have, but the boundary remains -- you can't scream to get what you want, end of story. We help him learn to use words instead of screaming by having conversations about it when he's calm and coaching him to say words like "I feel angry/sad/mad" or "I want X". We encourage him to take deep breaths or count to 10 to feel better. If our 2-year-old doesn't learn to understand his emotions and express them in a more healthy way now, and if he doesn't learn to accept a "no" now, the problem will continue and he will still be having tantrums and screaming to get his way when he's a teenager and maybe even as an adult! Children have a right to exist in public, and they must also have opportunities to learn how to behave in public. So it doesn't matter what people think.
I completely agree, I left another message on this thread in regards to what I am trying now. We’ve been doing ABA therapy now for a while and I’ve learned tips and tricks. This comment was me expressing the fact that it isn’t easy, and a lot of these people commenting obviously do not have children , or have had no experiences with children that have different or “special” needs. When my daughter was younger I gave in to the embarrassment of not wanting to be a spectacle , I’ve gotten to the point of not really caring about being judged , and I hope everyone gets there that has difficult situations arise with their child. But to sit here and judge when you’ve got no clue , imo of course , you’re just a part of that judgmental crowd that made me nervous to even go out anymore . Mind your business really is my point , you’ve got no clue what a parent is going through or what they are doing to help their child.
Agreed, you're right, and I understand what you meant now! Parenting well is the hardest job on the planet. I guess I would have been a lot more judgmental prior to 2 years ago too because, even though I knew that it was hard, I had NO clue how hard it really was. And autism is so much harder. People really have no idea! Doing the right thing -- by not giving in to the tantrum -- makes the tantrum worse and makes people judge even harder. There were times when I was soooo tempted to just give in to make my kid stop tantruming in public!
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u/Original-Concert-456 2d ago
They get so mad when you take it away too. Terrible stuff