Just wondering how you discipline your toddler when you are at the supermarket, park, soft play etc?
Yesterday in supermarket, my nearly 2 1/2 year old son didn't get a sweet that he wanted to he started a wee tantrum, legs went all floppy,lay on ground and started crying. At home we give him a warning then he goes on the naughty step which works well. Not sure what to do when we are out?
Thanks x

Its difficult isnt it? Because if there is no naughty step and thats what your used to doing, what do you do? I usually just give kent a warning and divert his attention. Usually works. But the other day we were in primark and he was yelling, so i bend down and got close to him to explain why he should, and he hit my iphone out my hand and sent it sailing across the floor. I was so mad, i couldnt even talk. He knew it too coz he hid his head and looked away lol.

if willow goes into melt down i usually, pick her up or strap her in he pram if i have it and leave, get out of the area where she through a tantrum.


the other day we were in mothercare and i said to her, come on, lts go look at the toys, sh went into complete meltdown and screamed and rolled on the floor etc
i held her hand and jst watched her in silence. she stopped, looked at me, so i asked " have you finished?" shall we go look at the toys?
she nodded and looking a bit humble got up and walked with me nicely over to the toys!

strange child lol

Give him a warning then a time out. Same rules apply both in and out of the house here. Earl's had naughty spots all over the place (including on a boat in the middle of a river once! lol).

My LO is still quite young,but i went on a family links course and they said to use a wall instead of a step as there are walls practically everywhere. Sorry i'm not much help.

I tend to just get up a bit closer to him and ask him in a calm voice to please not shout/scream and to calm down a bit

I'll use hitting as an example but we use the same technique for everything.

LO hits me I explain to him why we don't do that- 'that's not nice, we don't hit people, we need to be gentle'

If he does it again I make him say sorry (he signs it as he can't say the word) and tell him if he does it again he will need to sit down.

If he then does it again I sit him down wherever it is safe to do so and explain why I have sat him down and that he needs to sit there until I tell him he can go (as he is only little I don't keep him there more than a minute) and at this point he seems to realise he has pushed it too far and he sits there signing sorry over and over and when he isn't instantly allowed to get up and go he sometimes cries but stops quickly when he realises that doesn't get him anywhere either.

If I waited until we got home the moment would have passed and I'd feel he had got away with whatever he was doing when we were out or he would be confused about why he was being punished when the thing he had done was ages ago.

If he is having a tantrum about not being allowed something like a toy then I usually let him have a look at the toy but say 'ok one minute until bye bye toy' then do a ten second countdown and we say 'bye bye' and before he has a chance to protest I say 'yay good boy putting the toy back' and he is distracted enough by the praise that 9 times out of 10 he doesn't have a tantrum. If he does tantrum then I try to distract him by asking him to help me do something.

I used to get embarrased by people looking if my son did anything in public but then I figured that i would much rather someone looked at me and saw me doing something about poor behaviour/tantrums rather than they were judging me for doing nothing at all.