Society's Judgmental Views of Disciplining Your Children in Public

Society becomes judgmental, with regards to disciplining your children in public, because they are often given a front row seat to irresponsible discipline methods.

There's nothing like walking through the grocery store and seeing a mother or father scream at a small child, maybe aged 3-5, for touching items on the shelf. The small child stands there as their parent towers over them screaming into their little face about how they have told them a million times not to touch anything in the store. When will these types of parents learn that their approach to discipline is misguided and even ineffective? Scaring and threatening your child into behaving does not work. Do these parents ever stop to realize that their child is acting age appropriately? Kids are curious by nature. Sure, we want them to behave in the store and follow the rules, but yelling at them in public is not the way to handle it. Take them aside, kneel down to their eye-level, try actually explaining why they should not touch the merchandise in the store, and then come to a compromise like asking them to help you pick out the items you are shopping for and allow them to put it in the cart. There is no need to scream at your child in public.

How about the parent that thinks it is okay to humiliate their 3-6 year old by spanking them in public or smacking them on the hand? Sometimes we innocent bystanders are treated to a viewing of unfair discipline. Punishment should fit the crime and generally the crimes committed by that age group are not so terrible that a bit of smart reasoning, by a parent, cannot resolve the situation or behavior without the dramatic display of physical punishment. Generally, when a parent feels the need to resolve a bad behavior incident with a spanking or smack, they are reacting out of the moment and out of a want to immediately stop the behavior. Unfortunately, if you feel you need to use spanking as a method of discipline all the experts on spanking say you should not spank in the heat of the moment because you are more easily able to slip over the thin line between spanking and just plain violent abuse. So in other words, those often harsh and spankings and smacks we society members see in public are often heat of the moment irrational discipline, giving us on-lookers the right to have a judgmental view.

Parents must step back and think about why their child is acting up and acting out in public. Most often, a child is doing so because they are simply bored. They are being dragged around with you as you are doing chores and errands. Ask yourself how much fun you are having? Then ask yourself how much fun your child must be having? This is why it is important to engage them and make them feel helpful and even part of carrying out your daily routine of errands. Children always want to get their hands into everything, and it is a good way to let them interact and learn about different subjects. If you find genuine ways to let them help you, they will not be bored, and chances are you will no longer need to discipline them in public, because you are giving them positive attention which is what they were seeking to begin with.

Basically, if you are a parent of a small child, you should try disciplining your child in private and not display it for everyone else. When you choose a public forum as your discipline grounds for your children, you give society the right to pass judgment on your parent skills and discipline methods. Try talking to you children and help them to rationalize the behaviors they display in public. Teach them from an early age what is appropriate behavior in a public place and what your expectations are in those situations. If you start teaching them this from an early age, you will find that you will have fewer incidents that will require you to have to discipline them in public, and then if you do have to discipline them, you should try to dissolve the situation in a more private setting.