My daughter was two…

I took her to the mall and she was cranky. Cranky for a reason that only she could understand and sadly she wasn’t able to communicate her feelings to me in the way that I wanted her to.

While walking from one store to another, she decided to have a tantrum. I tried to quietly talk to her and pick her up, but she wasn’t having it. So I sat down on a bench that was right beside where she decided to have her meltdown (luckily for me). I sat and waited. I sat as she cried really loudly and freaked out. I don’t even remember what triggered it.

An older woman was sitting next to me and boy was she giving us stink eye. I smiled at her and kept waiting. I used all of my Supermommy powers to sit patiently while she let it out. I successfully ignored the people staring at us.

That same woman said to me disapprovingly, “Are you just going to leave her there?” I just smiled and said, “Yes.”

It was only a minute but it felt like a lifetime.

Sometimes Mommy needs to step away from the situation. If I had picked her up it would have been a struggle all the way to the car and we would have ended up at home. I would have been angry, frustrated and I may have yelled at her.

I gave her space and time to express herself. It was far from pleasant, but she finished her tantrum, walked over to me and if you can believe it we stayed at the mall quite happily for about an hour.

This wasn’t her only tantrum and I find that giving her space is what works. What bothers me is why complete strangers feel like they need to interfere. My daughter was not in danger and in my opinion unless you need to call 911 for me or offer up a lovely compliment you should stay out of it.

What ever happened to “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all”?

Has this happened to you? How did you deal with it?