Dealing with Defiant Children in Public Places

This last month while working at the Farmer’s Market I have witnessed several incidents where parents had no idea of how to deal with their child’s defiance effectively. The result was that all those close by had to endure the shrieking, shouting and physical abuse (biting and kicking) the misbehaving children directed at their parents and others.

For years I have suffered from the lack of sales that takes place every time defiant children throw a fit in front of my market sales booth. This is why 5 years ago I decided to take a zero tolerance position when it comes to putting up with an immediate drop in sales when these incidents occur. Since then I have insisted that the parent(s) remove the child from my sales area immediately.

Not surprisingly, given the trend towards “permissive parenting” I have found myself being yelled at by the parents, who were also yelling at each other, while the child is likewise carrying on. However, I have remained firm in my stance and the majority of vendors have likewise taken the same position so now when these incidents occur our security staff are on their toes. If we signal them indicating that we need their help to effect removal they are johnny-on-the-spot.

Objective adults witnessing such scenes have no difficulty when it comes to characterizing what they are. They are power struggles. Nor do we have any doubt that dealing swiftly with a child’s misbehavior — and doing so firmly and consistently — matters more than the details of the response.

I set out to locate background information and effective parenting techniques and I found them on the internet.

Science Daily Reports — New results suggest that defiance toward their mothers when children are very young, may reflect confidence and early autonomy. Researchers worked with 119 mothers and their 14- to 27-month-old children using play time interactions as a means of study. Although high levels of defiance at slightly older ages may be problematic, the research shows that at this age, defiance is part of healthy development. This defiance may in fact reflect children’s emerging autonomy and a confidence that they can control events that are important to them.

Children were most likely to be defiant and least likely to ignore requests when their mothers were sensitive and had few symptoms of depression, and when children were positively interested in their mothers during the interaction. Children of sensitive mothers also tended to be highly cooperative.

Children with mothers who had symptoms of depression were more likely to ignore requests and less likely to respond with defiance. One reason that some children of mothers with such symptoms develop poorly, the researchers suggested, may be that these children do not develop confident assertion with their mothers, learning instead to be overly passive in the face of obstacles.

Those are the findings of a new study conducted by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Michigan. The study is published in the July/August 2007 issue of the journal Child Development, Vol. 78, Issue 4, Autonomy and Children’s Reactions to Being Controlled: Evidence That Both Compliance and Defiance May Be Positive Markers in Early Development by Dix, T, Stewart, AD (University of Texas at Austin), Gershoff, ET (University of Michigan), and Day, WH (University of Texas at Austin).

Parenting.com article – Dealing With Defiance

Dealing with outright disobedience is the parenting job we dread most. In part because most of us have no idea how to handle it, but also because decades of advice from parenting experts have both confused us and left us scared that we’ll somehow compromise our darlings’ burgeoning self-esteem if we react in the wrong way.

As a one-size-doesn’t-fit-all guide to solving defiance, there are eight proven and overlapping ways to deal with high-test naughtiness presented in the article. I have simply listed the headings here with my brief comments following them but, I do encourage readers to click through to the article and read the explanations.

1. Removal – This is the gold standard of defiance busting. When the going gets out of control, simply swoop in and physically leave the store, take him or her out of the sandbox, end the playdate, and head home. In order for this to work, there must be no hesitation on your part.
2. Create consequences – Remove the child first and define consequences privately.
3. Expand the consequences - Remove the child first and define further consequences privately.
4. Empathize – Remove the child first and empathize privately.
5. Count down – Remove the child first and count down privately.
6. Laugh it off – This is not an option in a public place.
7. Make a deal – I disagree with the use of bribery.
8. Do nothing – This is not an option in a public place.

Lastly, do not take your child to a public place if they are feeling hungry, tired or obstreperous.