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Public Scrutiny
Disciplining Your Toddler Outside of the Home
By Lyn Mettler
Other inexpensive rewards can be activities that your child enjoys, such as stopping by the park on the way home or playing a favorite game.
The best solution for handling a tantrum is to pick your child up and take them out of the situation. "My choice would always be to remove the child from everyone and talk privately about what's happening," says Polland. She suggests taking them some place where you'll know they'll be safe and letting them thrash it out.
For example, you might put them in the car, in their car seat, and shut the door. She suggests telling the child to knock on the window when they're done, while you stand outside unbothered and acting as though you can't hear anything. According to Polland, children know they're more likely to get what they want because you don't want to be embarrassed.
One Christmas when Billingham's son was a toddler, he threw an all-out tantrum at a crowded store. Instead of getting upset, Billingham ignored him. When his son took a break, he began applauding him and told him he needed to kick the left leg harder to keep up with the right. "If you don't get embarrassed by the child's behavior, it loses all of its power," he says. His son ended up giggling, and they left the store.
The experts also caution against using physical punishment as a iscipline tool because, says Polland, you're telling your child it's OK to hit. "Are we treating children the way we hope they'll treat us and each other?" she asks. Douglas says that while it's never a great discipline method, when doing it in public, you're just asking for someone to call the police.
