to think that you probably shouldn't go to a toddler group if you are going to let your child scream hysterically the entire time?

[ikeaismylocal]

I regularly take my 13 month old ds to a toddler group, there is a child there who is around 18 months, she is a very affectionate child and she always wants to be sat on her mum's knee or carried by her mum. The mum has decided to go cold turkey with her daughter and refuse to pick her up or have her on her knee. Today the child screamed hysterically for 2.5 hours, she was hyperventilating and running after her mum, the mum would just walk away, when her mum walked away the child would throw herself on the floor and bang her head :(

It shocked me a bit to see this style of parenting, the mum made no effort to distract the child she didn't engage at all with her, not even speaking to the child.

Aibu to think that it is best to do such things at home (and put down rugs so the child doesn't hurt her head so much when she bagged it) so the child is in familiar surroundings.

Is this a normal thing to do? My ds is a little younger so we are yet to get to the tantruming stage.

[Rhubarbgarden]

I run a toddler group. Our aim is for it to be a safe and supportive place for mums to go. I would be appalled if anyone thought they couldn't come because their child was going through a phase of difficult behaviour - it may be it's the only place they feel they can go where their child won't be annoying anyone. They shouldn't feel they have to leave the room if their child is tantrumming! Blimey, they'd get tea and sympathy, not be judged for how they dealt with it. Maybe then they'd feel able to say "you know what, I'm not coping very well" and talk through any issues. Or just feel reassured that many other mums would be saying "oh yes. Been there".

The only thing I would take a dim view of would be other mums judging them.

[mrsjay]

18months a tantrummy time it is where it all starts op it might come to you soon this mum is trying to get her child off her perhaps the chat with the group workers was her saying god i cant get a minute I am sure her child was fine i work with toddlers they are always crying over something or other, they do no need to be lifted or laid every 5 minutes

[DeWe]

Mine weren't ever that clingy. But I know from other mums going through it that it is incredibly frustrating, to never have the space. Putting them down may be en expression of end of tether. I wouldn't have judged her at all.
However I judge the rest of you there. Because when I've seen parents with children like that, other parents have got down and tried to distract the upset one. It gives the mum a much needed break because someone else is interacting with their child, so they can have a normal cup of coffee and talk.
If she gets down and interacts with the child, child still has her. If someone else manages to interact with the child, it helps the child far more because they discover the rest of the people there aren't ogres.
Although maybe at your group they are

[QueenofKelsingra]

why didn't you go up to her and offer some support in what is clearly a very difficult period? I thought that was part of what mum and baby groups were about?

my DS1 was a screamer and the only respite I got was to get to group where some of the lovely mums (with more placid kids!) would take DS off me for a while, give me a hug and a cup of tea.

YABU and unsupportive.

[QueenofKelsingra]

x-post dewe

[bialystockandbloom]

Rhubarbgarden what a great post.

The hell of your toddler having a massive tantrum is a very particular kind of hell. What's worse? Having other mums sitting around watching and judging.

FWIW I ignore tantrums too if it's clear that their primary purpose is to gain attention. If not, all you're doing is teaching the child that a tantrum is an effective way of getting what they want.

[mrsjay]

I once knew a woman with screaming twins poor woman used to have them following her about in stereo screeching UP UP all the poor woman needed was a seat and a cup of tea, other parents used to help her which was lovely but god could those toddlers screech

[QueenofKelsingra]

x-post with rhubarb too - very well put.

[PleaseJustLeaveYourBrotherAlon]

I think OP, it's very easy the younger your children are to realise how everyone else is doing it wrong. i regularly see thread on teenagers and think "yeah, you're being rubbish".

I suspect I'll be taught a very harsh lesson in about 10 years time.

[HowlingTrap]

She's probably desperate to get out of the house and worn down by a clingy phase, and knackered poor thing don't be so judgemental.

[HowlingTrap]

not seeing to see if its okay suggests at best quite severe PND.

[ikeaismylocal]

I attempted to talk to the child but it seemed to make the situation worse. The mum was happily wondering around, she didn't look stressed or upset about the situation.

I don't have experience of relentless tantrums, ds does have strips but at the moment he is easily distracted. I don't think I could ignore my child if he was in that much distress or physically harming himself, I do hope I manage to find a solution when it is our turn for tantrums.

I just had no idea that it was something you were supposed to do ( just let them scream for hours).

I live in a country where most parents would be called gentle parents/attachment parent but here it is just called parenting so I think that made it all the more unusual to see.

[Mycatistoosexy]

This makes me a bit sad. I wouldn't ignore DS screaming for two hours (though he has the capacity to scream for that long) but there's so much judging going on.

It's my main fear/paranoia that other mums are judging me at toddler groups while DS (18m) is screaming, flailing mid tantrum or walking around shouting "No!" and hitting other kids. 18 months is a terrible time for some kids. It's like a switch went off in DS and he has really started to push boundaries.

You need people's help and support when going through stuff like this. I bet that poor woman feels really alone sometimes

[Mycatistoosexy]

Also I would say that I practise a large proportion of "Attachment Parenting" and that still hasn't stopped DS having huge tantrums. I learnt the hard way that trying to talk to him only exacerbated the problem. I must look like a complete heartless cow, just waiting for him to calm down.

[LurcioLovesFrankie]

I was lucky in that DS was a delightfully easy toddler. But I had a nightmare first few months with him. He had colic so badly that even when he was contentedly asleep in his sling, I'd suddenly feel his stomach spasm, then he'd wake up with the most almighty and inhuman-sounding scream, then cry the place down. Because he was in pain. And there was nothing I could do other than cuddle him, walk round in circles (I wore a trench in our local pavements doing it late at night) and hope that I didn't go mad. And I will never forget the day some cow had a go at me in Sainsburys because apparently it was all my fault for having him in a sling because that was such an unnatural way to carry a child. I told her it was colic and she harumphed and said "doesn't sound like colic to me". Typical esprit d'escalier, I didn't think till later that I should have asked her what her qualifications in paediatric medicine were.

Anyway, the upshot of this is I know better than to criticise another parent - because all children are different. You may have had the good fortune to have a toddler who didn't throw tantrums, or whose tantrums could be easily contained - but that's because you were bloody lucky, not because you're super-parent. (On the "it all evens out in the end" theory, I'm dreading his teens - a rational toddler must mean I'm in for the stroppy Kevin-the-teenager for hell in 10 years time).

[ikeaismylocal]

I didn't say anything judgemental to the mum, I didn't show any signs of my opinion so she has no idea what I thought.

I don't think it is bad to ask if it is normal to leave a child crying, I had never seen that sort of reaction to distressed child. If I lived next door to a family who's child cried so hysterically for such a long time I would be really concerned about that child, I was wondering if it was neglectful or normal, it seems that it is normal.

I do understand the logic of not interacting during a tantrum especially if the thing the child was not allowedto do is dangerous but the child wanted her mum, her mum pushed her away repeatedly, the mum played with her phone, drank coffee, chatted to friends, she was showing the child that those things were more important than the child's desire to be close to her mum. I would have understood if the mum had shut the child out of the bathroom so the mum could go to the toilet or put the child down so the mum could make lunch.

[TheRaniOfYawn]

One of my children went through a phase of tantrumming where the onky thing that would help her calm down would be to completely ignore her. At home she would generally take herself of to somewhere private until she calmed down but outside the house this wasn't usually possible. Sometimes other people would try to help and would try and cheer up up. Each attempt would at around 15 minutes to the time it would take her to calm down.

She never managed 2 1/2 hours though. Poor mother and Child. It sounds as though they both had a horrible time.

[PenelopePipPop]

Lurcio some 30mumble years ago someone had a go at my Mum for carrying me in a sling because it made the baby too dependent (I was about 4-5m at the time - obviously without the sling I'd have been making my own way in the world). Mum was a child psychotherapist and concluded the man in question had been deprived of maternal affection in early childhood and was projecting his resentment on to the world, so the sight of a child being effectively nurtured made him angry!

Maybe the person you saw was angry because either she'd not been loved enough as a child or hadn't been responsive enough when her own babies had been distressed. Otherwise that kind of provocative judginess is pretty hard to justify (whatever any of us might think few of us would say anything so nasty to a parent of a newborn).

Back to the point Ikea it was nice of you to try and distract the child. You could have tried talking to the mother too. But RhubarbGarden is right - toddler groups are for parents with tantrumming children. It would defeat the logic of the exercise if you had to take them out very time they kicked off. It's like suggesting babies with colic should not attend baby groups in case they wake up the other babies. The parents of the children going through the grumpy phases need the groups more than the others not less.

[emblosion]

My toddler isnt too bad currently (19 months) but as a baby he was a nightmare - a screamy bomb waiting to go off at any time. He had the loudest most piercing screech I have ever heard a child make and frequently sounded as if he was being murdered when, in fact, he was feeling a bit cross/tired or slightly peckish.

if I hadn't been able to get out to baby groups I would have gone stark raving mad. I'm sure the mum wasn't oblivious to screeching child, some kids get more wound up the more attention they get plus giving in to tantrum just teaches the child that screeching gets them what they want.

after 2.5 hours I'd probably be banging my own head on the floor. I actually detest the terms 'gentle/attachment parenting' IA probably BU about that though.

[MiscellaneousAssortment]

esprit d'escalier - a phrase I have to remember, I didn't know there was an official phrase for the thing I have all the time!

[Journey]

I think it was selfish of the mother letting her dc scream hysterically for 2.5 hours. Why should the rest of the group put up with it for the entire duration of the session? It's a toddler group not a parenting workshop.

[Jess03]

At 18 months I remember dd face down in a leisure centre screaming having been taken out of softplay for hitting other children. Talking to her made it worse, nothing helped. It was an awful phase. I still remember other parents staring which was really upsetting. Felt like saying 'step right up if you can help without offering her biscuits etc'. Some people look calm even when desperate.

[Owllady]

This thread has reminded me why I never took my younger groups to toddler groups
The judging
Urgh
I had so much flack with my eldest when I took her off people who thought they knew better. Then between eighteen months and two she was dx with special needs, by three she was in a special school. At fourteen she's classed as severely disabled.
Try not to judge, you have absolutely no idea what is going on

[LurcioLovesFrankie]

The point, Journey, is that for a parent with an easy toddler, a toddler group is just one more nice thing to do among many. For a parent with a tantrumming toddler it may be one of the one or two interactions with other adults per week which stops them going completely insane. And it's not like toddler groups are going to be quiet places anyway.

And there's things you can do. I did judge (quietly and to myself) when a small child (about 2.5) was left unsupervised on the mat in the public library, pushing my son out of the way and hitting him to get to toys (he was about 1.5 at the time). I couldn't see his parent anywhere. So I engaged with the child, tried to model sharing ("one for you, one for my little boy, how about you have that truck, he can have this one", that sort of thing). Eventually the mother reappeared, talking loudly to a bloke about how difficult and badly behaved her son was. Given that he seemed to be doing fine with me by this time, I really couldn't help it crossing my mind that maybe if she spent a bit more time supervising and playing with him, and a bit less time ignoring him while she complained about his behaviour, maybe the behaviour would improve.

But, on the other hand, maybe she'd had the shit morning from hell, just needed to let off steam, and this wasn't representative of her parenting as a whole - who can tell from a snapshot. I know there have undoubtedly been times (usually when I'm ill, sleep deprived and on the brink of collapsing with exhaustion) where I must look like the world's worst parent (yelling like a banshee at DS for running round the Co-op would be a case in point - a very nice little old lady very gently suggested that perhaps I was expecting behaviour that was beyond him given his age).

[ikeaismylocal]

She does have an easy child, all she has to do is sit and cuddle her.