A straight answer
My child melts down every time we go to the store. What do I do?
Alexis Davis, LICSW. Parenting consultation, Medford MA and Greater Boston.
Halfway down the cereal aisle, it starts: the screaming, the flop to the floor, every head in the store turning to look. So you hand over the candy to make it stop. You're not failing, and your child isn't a monster. This is very fixable.
What the scene is doing
A store is full of things your child wants and has nothing for them to do. When a meltdown ends with the treat, your child learns that the bigger the scene, the better it works. With strangers staring, any parent reaches for whatever stops it fastest.
Decide before you go
The fix starts at home, not at the checkout. You decide calmly, ahead of time, what the trip looks like and what happens if it falls apart, so you aren't improvising in front of an audience. Whatever happens in the aisle, the scene doesn't pay off. We work out what that looks like for your family in our sessions.
Notice the good stretches
Most trips have calm minutes: riding in the cart, helping find the milk, waiting in line. Those minutes usually get none of your attention, and the meltdown gets all of it. Turn that around. I have two boys, and I know the feeling of every eye in the checkout line on you. You'll hold steady more easily when your week has room for you too: a walk with a friend, an hour alone.
Why I do it this way
None of this is my opinion. Each step comes from programs with decades of research behind them. Here is the research, in plain words, with the study under each one.
A Triple P program built for shopping trips
In a randomized trial with 46 parents of 2- to 6-year-olds who acted up while shopping, a brief Triple P group reduced problem behavior and raised parents' confidence; the gains held at six months.
Source: Joachim and colleagues, Child Psychiatry and Human Development, 2010
Why noticing the good works
In two experiments with nearly 300 children aged 3 to 9, teaching parents to praise what went right raised cooperation, and two weeks of praise cut disruptive behavior.
Source: Leijten and colleagues, Behaviour Research and Therapy, 2016
Most tantrums are normal; some are a doctor's question
In 1,490 preschoolers, over 8 in 10 had tantrums sometimes but only 8.6% had them daily; the tantrums that signaled a bigger problem were unpredictable, prolonged, or destructive.
Source: Wakschlag and colleagues, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 2012
When to call your pediatrician instead
Talk to your pediatrician if meltdowns come far more often or last far longer than other children's their age, come out of nowhere, or turn destructive; if every busy, noisy place overwhelms your child; if anyone gets hurt; if your child loses skills they had; or if you have questions about their development. Those are a doctor's questions. This page is parenting consultation, not therapy and not a diagnosis.