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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Please tell me I'm not an evil Mother?!

169 replies

loopylucy789 · 29/03/2011 10:43

I've just got back from a very stressful trip to a soft play place with my 4 year old daughter. (I was also looking after my 2 year old nephew)
She played nicely for a bit and then kept climbing up the slide and trying to slide down the steps on her bottom, which I told her not to do as she would knock the other children over who were trying to come up the steps. After 3 warnings about this, I told her she was going to have to come and sit on my lap if she couldn't use the slide properly. Well, she continued to do it again so I went and picked her up and sat down with her on my lap
MAJOR meltdown. She screamed and cried until the point where she was red in the face, people were staring and pointing at us and she was actually hurting me trying to wriggle off my lap, kicking her legs and trying to puch my hands away. SHe was shouting "you're hurting me!" (which I wasn't) I was so embarrassed but thought 'I'm not going to let her get away with this behaviour, they can continue to stare at me but she's not going back to play until she has calmed down and stopped being so silly.'
Well, after a good 15 minutes of this behaviour I became so embarrassed that I put her in my nephew's pushchair and took them both home. All the way back to the car she was shouting to people walking past "help me, help me"
I was absolutely mortified and was in tears in the car on the way home.
Was I being unreasonable?

OP posts:

Hullygully · 29/03/2011 11:00

Another suggestion is that if she won't stop, you say something like, oh dear you have got the sillies, lift her off, swing her round, drop her in th eball pit and tickle her. Then do something else. Don't have stand-offs and confrontations. They never end well. And they don't work.

ShowOfHands · 29/03/2011 11:00

I think you create/escalate a situation without really knowing it.

It's better to equip them with the ability to change their behaviour, to encourage them, engage with them, guide them, teach them. They're brand new people navigating an enormous world. You can show them the way without regular episodes where one person wins and one loses.

I find it really hard to explain myself without sounding a sanctimonious tit. I acknowledge that.

AmazingBouncingFerret · 29/03/2011 11:01

My 4 year old DS is going through a phase of behaving like that. I find the distraction thing much better for my sanity and throat and there's the added benefit of still enjoying the day out.

lubberlich · 29/03/2011 11:02

Why did she act up? My DS went into uncharacteristic meltdown at playbarn last week - turned out he was on the way to developing chicken pox. Kids have funny ways of reacting when they feel ropey.
If she was just being a stroppy 4 year old pushing her luck then you did exactly the right thing.

Original poster

loopylucy789 · 29/03/2011 11:02

It may not have been a full 15 minutes that I stayed but it felt like it with everyone looking at us! I didn't want to leave because it wasn't fair on my nephew, but I couldn't take the embarrassment anymore

OP posts:

MmeLindt · 29/03/2011 11:02

You are not a terrible mother.

I do think that sitting down with her on your knee may not have been the best plan - a general time-out - sitting at the table might have done the trick. But then you know better than me whether she would have tried to run away.

Plus it meant that her cousin was pulled away early from a fun activity - I found that threatening to leave went out of the window when I had my second DC.

Sometimes we do things that create a very them-us situation which is difficult to back down from, for both sides.

Like Hully, I have found that trying to stop it getting to that extreme confrontational stage is better (it took me a very long time to realise this - particularly with DS).

Don't forget that most of the other parents there were likely admiring you for seeing your threat through.

Hullygully · 29/03/2011 11:03

I don't mind sounding a sanctimonious tit.

I think it's sad that so many people see parenting as a power struggle between them and their child.

ShowOfHands · 29/03/2011 11:05

I find time out weird tbh. I don't like 'telling' a child to make a choice/change their behaviour at such a distance, with a capped number of warnings and then an arbitrary removal. I guess I work with her not direct her and expect her to know how to do it because I've told her. I've shown dd how to interract appropriately, I as the adult make suggestions and engage her mind. And she is then equipped with the ability to do it. And we have a good time without the continual power struggles. Pretty quickly they learn what is the same end goal I presume (to enjoy and share the world and make good choices) but we've shared it as a journey not battled through it.

See, sanctimonious tit.

bemybebe · 29/03/2011 11:05

Hullygully doesn't your strategy rewards tantrums with games instead? I would adopt something like that only if my goal is to stop screaming at all cost. I maybe wrong of course.

Hullygully · 29/03/2011 11:09

bemy - no, the idea is to avoid the tantrum stage altogether! Distract, distract, distract. The added benefit is that they love being with you even more, because it's FUN and not a power struggle, so they slowly learn to behave better and better because they want to (a reward for them in the closer relationship), and they don't need to go berserk with frustration (a tantrum), and it's all much better for everyone!

FaultyGoods · 29/03/2011 11:09

But Hully, she had told her DD 3 times not to do it. Presumably, the first would have been a gentle reminder to slide the other way, the second a slightly firmer, and then the third a firm reminder not to do it. I don't see it as a power struggle, her DD needs to understand rules and follow them, for her own safety and others (that's life). Ultimately, as parents, you are responsible for them and that confers some authority.

MmeLindt · 29/03/2011 11:11

Yes, agree that tantrums are often out of frustration. If you can defuse the situation before the frustration can arise - no tantrum.

Doesn't always work, but with DS it has been a life-saver.

Hullygully · 29/03/2011 11:11

The key test, Faulty, of any parenting strategy is surely whether or not it works. I'd have to say that this one clearly didn't. Therefore, try something different. Work WITH your child, don't set yourself up in opposition.

Journey · 29/03/2011 11:12

Hullygullly do you have kids? Your views seem to lack experience. Playing hide and seek is one of your suggestions. Well that is really effective when your child is screaming. Amazingly at the mention of a game the child stops screaming and all is calm again! Gee if it was that simple parenting would be easy.

Well done looplucy789 for sticking to what you said. It's just an unfortunate situation to have to deal with in public.

Original poster

loopylucy789 · 29/03/2011 11:12

Hullygully - I had tried distraction, she wasn't having any of it. She wanted to play on the slide (the wrong way) and nothing was going to change her mind.

OP posts:

ShowOfHands · 29/03/2011 11:13

No bemybebe because a child is not tantrumming. It's about not letting a situation get to that point in the first place. Recognising that a certain situation isn't working out for the best and changing it. You still ask the child to stop doing what it's doing but by pointing them in a different direction. They still choose a better path.

For example:

A child is having a jolly old time, they're young, they're literal. It's a play place. They're playing. In their head they're pirates or sea captains, it's fun, it's adventurous. They're running up the slide boom chasing a rogue pirate. Mum just said I'm warning you. That's not a direct order, a suggestion, a distraction and sea captains is still fun, my mind's still on that, she's over there not here, oh wow look a seagull, avast ye pigeon, run up the slide and capture it- sorry what was that, if I don't do what, what- but hang on the seagull's getting away and the sea's getting choppy and, sorry what why am I being dragged away, eh what? No that's not fair.

Or...

Oh hello Mum I'm a sea captain. What, oh right not on here. Yes, over there probably is better? Can I get there faster than you? Bet I can. Yes, come on let's play.

Original poster

loopylucy789 · 29/03/2011 11:14

Thanks to everyone on here that have said I did the right thing though, you've made me feel better about it!

OP posts:

Hullygully · 29/03/2011 11:14

Journey - you offer games BEFORE the tantrum stage (as already said). The minute they are behaving undesirably, eg climbing the slide, you scream, oh look, quick, over here, there's a huge blue elephant! (or similar), to get them away. When they come over, say, Oh dear you missed it, hey, let's do X...

And yes, I have two dc (14 and 12), so I do speak from hard experience.

MmeLindt · 29/03/2011 11:14

I have learnt to chose my battles carefully - there is no leniency on matters of safety, such as crossing roads, seatbelts etc, or education but situations like the OP was in this morning might have been avoidable.

Not saying that it was wrong to follow through, once you have made the threat then you have to follow it through. But once you make the threat you are bloody well stuck with it, there is no going back.

I have gone home early from too many outings when DS was younger, then been mad as hell at myself cause I wanted to stay.

ShowOfHands · 29/03/2011 11:15

Journey. Hully's saying you don't let the tantrum happen in the first place. She's not offering sweets to a stamping toddler.

Hullygully · 29/03/2011 11:15

Do you think you did the right thing, loopy?

Will you do that next time?

FaultyGoods · 29/03/2011 11:15

Hully, I agree about parenting strategy. But, next time, it will (hopefully)work because the OP's DD now knows the consequences, and the next softplay day will be more enjoyable as a result.

Hullygully · 29/03/2011 11:17

Faulty, Well, let's hope so...!

FaultyGoods · 29/03/2011 11:18

Original poster

loopylucy789 · 29/03/2011 11:19

I don't know hully, that why I'm asking what everyone else would do? I'd tried to distract her to play something else. I'd told her gently several times that she might hurt the other children if she continued to carry on with her game, I'd warned her to stop or she would have time out, so I followed through with the time out, and I honestly don't know what else I could have done. She wasn't moving from that slide so I couldn't have distracted her.
And can you imagine the reaction from the other parents if I hadn't removed her from the slide and she'd hurt one of their children

OP posts:

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