Can you ignore a child who is screaming because they aren't getting their way?

Yes. You CAN adjust to it. The problem is that the average kid learns quickly that you cannot tolerate it in a public place—like a restaurant or the mall.

At home I send them to their room, in public, I take them home.

It’s been many decades since I’ve had the privilege of overseeing a la Scala class production of “throw yourself face down on the floor, kick & scream”

Same @YARNLADY. Or at least take them out of the store until they’ve cooled down.

I’m not a parent.
I have never been around kids that scream for very long because I usually remove myself from the situation. I start having a panic attack when I’m around a screaming child, so even in restaurants I will leave as soon as I can get my check.

It’s sad that a parent would let it go on so long @chyna, that you had time to get your check. I’d have mine out the door before the first note died away.

I hope I never get inured to the sound of a screaming child.

Me, too, @janbb. I am also loath to judge exactly what causes it unless I know the whole story.

There are easy home remedies for screamy children.

It’s the only way to cure the behavior

Why loli, I’m actually surprised that you would even consider that so humane a remedy be applied to a loathsome human being. You turning soft on us?

@stanleybmanly S/he is really a cephalopod with a heart of gold.

Some of those things have 3 hearts and an auxiliary brain in each arm. I suppose that might justify those other differences.

Tantrums because they aren’t getting their way; my kids use to get me laughing and pointing at them like they were a clown act. That stopped because they weren’t getting their way.

@janbb that’s why I specified “screaming because they don’t get their way.” That’s different than screaming in pain or fear. I would hope no one could ignore that.

I’m not a parent, but usually yes, I can ignore a kid that is having a tantrum.

However, I see babies and toddlers in crappy situations that just need to be picked up, and they are not being brats, but being babies, and their circumstance is unreasonable for a baby, and it annoys me when parents don’t do something to comfort their child. You can tell by the cry and the situation what is a tantrum for power, and what is truly a physical need to be held by a baby.

I’m not annoyed by the noise, it would have to go on for a long time for me to get frustrated with a baby crying around me, it’s not the baby’s fault, and a 3 year old having a tantrum it is understandable too, they just get so frustrated. Lol. So cute.

No. I can’t ignore it, and should not have to. If I run across this in public, I usually just glare at the parent. It’s 100% of the parent’s responsibility. If a parent allows it in public, they should be deported…

I was at Goodwill and there were 2 <12 month babies just wailing. One was sick, the other tired and unhappy. I just could not understand why the Moms didn’t take some action. The babies just cried and cried and Moms just shopped and ignored them.
That was so sad to me.

When my daughter was little, my mom used to watch her a lot and so very rarely did I have to take her to stores. I see little kids in stores, tired, or they want stuff (which of course is not possible to buy kids everything they want), and so of course they’d scream and cry. I didn’t have to deal with that because I tried my best not to bring her to stores.

Kids need rest and they need food and they need a diaper changed and I think parents often push kids they way they push themselves and it doesn’t work.

I can ignore children but I do feel bad for them when they cry and scream, and I view it as something the parent needs to address.

What I see more often is kids wreaking havoc in stores, tearing around, touching a million things, acting like it’s their playground and the parents ignore them because they’re concentrating on their shopping. That annoys me to no end.

I don’t know if it’s worse today, but parents spend a lot of time ignoring things I don’t think they should.

^^I don’t know if it’s more today, but when I worked retail there was plenty of it. Most children were behaved, but plenty were playing on the escalator, hiding inside round racks, taking things off shelves and leaving them on the floor. As I said, it was only a small percentage of kids, but it definitely went on, and most parents in these situations didn’t care. When a kid left toys on the floor, I was annoyed with the parents who left the toys there. My mother would never do that. She would have me put everything away, and if I was obstinate for some reason she would have done it before leaving a mess like that for others to clean up. I don’t feel there is anything wrong with the parent doing it. It sets the example that you don’t leave a mess for other people. The kid might be a little bratty in the moment, but they still learn the lesson for later in life, or when with others.

Kids playing by the escalator, as an employee I would address the kid directly if the parent wasn’t right there to say something to. Sometimes the parent said, “listen to her, I told you you can’t play around the escalator.” Once in a while a parent said nothing just looked in my direction, or gave me a look that I took as why are you talking to my kid.

I also think if a child acts up in a restaurant, the parent or other caretaker should take the child out immediately. Even if it’s a family restaurant, people don’t want to hear too much.

It’s awful when parents let their children run around in restaurants. That’s a good way to get a tray of food spilled on the child, or have the child trip the wait staff accidentally. It’s a huge liability for the restaurant and the responsibility ultimately belongs to the parent(s).

@jca2 In Bloomingdale’s we were instructed to say something if the kids were doing something dangerous. Either to the parent, or directly to the child if we had to. It cost our store $15k every time an accident cost $100 or more. What that means is, if the person had to go to the hospital, or later made a claim for even something minor like a doctors appointment related to the accident, we paid $15k into the Bloomies insurance kitty. So, needless to say, management did want any accidents, not only because we don’t want anyone getting hurt, but also because something minor cost the store a lot of money.

@JLeslie: Yeah all those moms who are ignoring the kid while the kid is using the store as a playground. Mom’s goal is looking for shoes or resort wear or handbags, while she should be watching her brat.

Sure can! It’s hard at first but gets easier as time goes by and the child learns that their temper tantrums don’t work. If you’ve let it go a while, it will take longer to get the child to not blow a gasket because “it always worked before.”

My kids weren’t the tantrum type—thank God. It was while watching the 2 year old of another parent along with my own that I was confronted with a fit, and I was terrified at the delight in the eyes of my own little criminal. My panic was probably visible at the thought that my handful of a little girl might pick up the new habit. I never will forget how the immediate remedy to jump into my head was the necessity to threaten the screaming imp with stark naked terror. And THAT thought really frightened me. I snatched up my own kid and ran to the swings leaving the other little girl to her fate kicking and howling some 30 feet away.

My kids weren’t the temper tantrum kind either, but the oldest did give it a shot once, when she was just 2. Her dad and I and she were at the store. She wanted something, we said “No.” and she dropped to the ground like a scene in a movie and started hollering.
Her dad and I looked at each other startled and surprise, and without a word we both turned and walked around the corner out of sight. We watched her from behind the end cap.
After many seconds she opened her eyes and realized she was all alone. Not a single person was watching her. She stopped crying instantly and, I kid you not, stood up, brushed herself off and straightened her back. We came around the corner and we all acted like nothing ever happened and she never tried it again.
I’m just glad no other customer interfered. “Doing nothing,” like we did, is easily misunderstood.

@jca2 Right, they don’t watch, and then they sue.

Luckily, most children are well behaved in my experience. Most parents do care if their child is bothering others. I really don’t find it to be a huge issue.