An example of excellent parenting.

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A friend and I took a trip to the county fair a while back, and while standing amongst the crowd waiting for a race to begin, I spotted a woman calmly grasping an angry, teary eyed girl of the age of about 7 or 8 by the wrists. It appeared that this woman was the girl's mother. The girl was carrying on and whining, and struggling to break free, yet despite this, the mother remained completely still and calm. She never once yelled or attempted to reason with the girl. She simply said in a calm, quiet voice, about three or so times "Calm down." She didn't appear angry in the least bit.

After about three minutes of this, the girl stopped struggling. The mother said something, the girl smiled, the mother let go, and the girl happily bounded over to the fence to watch the race as if nothing had ever happened.

I imagine the girl might have been on the spectrum, but I think the mother handled her daughter's meltdown wonderfully. She recognized it as a very temporary moment and she did not let it upset her or ruin her or her daughter's day.

I was quite impressed.

That is impressive. It is hard to maintain that level of equanimity at home with no one watching but I find it takes even more effort to stay calm and focused in a crowd of strangers. Thanks for sharing that positive note!

It is impressive. I imagine she has to switch off, to all passersby, as she should.

But, it's difficult when you get nosey parkers butting in and telling you that they know just what that child needs. My parents witnessed such an incident a couple of weeks ago. The mother was doing fine, under the circumstances and this busy body said in a very loud voice, 'That child just needs a good skelp', (that's spank or slap in Scots). My Mum, having experienced similar with my daughter, was completely sympathetic to what the mother and child were going through and told her to mind her own business.

I'm not the type of person who can just deal with my daughter and forget what everyone else might be thinking. I'm getting better at it, just as my daughter is getting easier to deal with anyway and doesn't have meltdowns in the street these days. Typical!

That good you found that great parenting but I know some other people would look at it and think of her as a bad parent for allowing her child to act that way and ignoring it. You really can't win with parenting. No matter what you do as a parent, someone will always be judging you for your choices or actions. So all you can do is not care what people think of you as a parent.

And I have recently learned that if you don't care what others think of you, oh no it;s a bad thing too. Another Murphy's Law. Your kid is f****d they say and they also think good parents would be concerned about what is being said to them. But really, what if they were just wrong and they are just nothing but judgements and lack of understanding of the situation? People can still judge you for letting your kids go to public school so should that mean the parent should care and pull all her kids out and do private school or home school? You can be homeschooling and someone will still judge you for that so should that mean you should put you kid in private school now? But then someone may still judge you for sending your kid to that kind of private school so should you pull your kid out and keep putting them in another private school when someone is critical about it? That is why I say parents shouldn't care what others thinks. You have to draw the line somewhere.