Don't give in to your child's screaming fit at the store
Posted
Jun 10 2008, 06:50 PM
by
Karen Datko
Rating:
The worst commotion we've ever heard in a retail setting (other than the toddler who got his foot caught in a shopping cart) was a kid who started screaming "apple" in the produce section, and then continued for 10 minutes and was readily audible from every area of the store. (It was so bad, we almost bought the little man an apple.)
Parental units, don't give in, says Ashley of Wide Open Wallet in a post called "Saying no to your kids." She has overindulged her little boy, and now she's trying to correct the problem.
Now he expects that she'll buy him things and, on a recent trip to the store, even selected items he thought he should have. Her final "no," about some candy in the checkout line, didn't go over well.
"We had quite the scene," Ashley writes. "I was glad we were near the door."
What's a parent to do? Set limits before you go in the store, don't lose your resolve during a fit, and do both things consistently, Ashley says. "Think about where this fit throwing is headed," she writes. "Right now they are screaming over a pack of Pokémon cards; in 10 years it's going to be over a car."
Also, she says, take inspiration from Emily over at Remodeling This Life, who wrote another excellent post about the problems you can create when you always give in to your children. Emily's mother-in-law can't say no, and continues to indulge her grown daughters when they insist on cars, houses and European vacations.
Emily writes, "I don't want a daughter who says nobody loves her if she doesn't get enough presents under the Christmas tree when she is 21 years old."
