screaming kids

Recently I've noticed a lot of screaming children around me. Especially at places like Target and ball games and restaurants. I don't know what it is but always these screaming kids. I'm always troubled by it. I think I'm picking up on the kids' emotions that go with having a total meltdown and not enjoying it.

I was at Target tonight and this little girl was going absolutely nuts in the shopping cart and it hit me: If I ever have kids, this is how they will act because this is how I acted as a kid. So here I am, trying shop and listening to this kid scream through Target for a long time and throw things out of the cart (which is really kind of funny now that I think about it) and then out in the parking lot where the lady just let the kid sit in the cart and continue to freak out. Then something else occured to me: If I were a parent, I would have given that kid way more consequences that this lady was giving her. Seriously, when I was a kid if I was bad, like the very second I did something I heard, "no TV tonight" and if I kept it up, "no TV tomorrow" and the next night and so on. Eventually I had to stop myself.

It's totally sad that a six year old having a meltdown in Target made me feel better. This kid had no one to set boundaries for her, which obviously she couldn't do herself. No one to give her any cues that freaking out is not ok. This lady just sat there and let her. She may have cried herself out eventually (or perhaps they're still standing there) but there were no consequences for her behavior, nothing to make her think she shouldn't do it again other than it feels lousy and kids don't understand that. So this poor lady and her kid really made me feel better in a sick "I-could-totally-do-that-better" kind of way. (I take back the "I could do it better" comment because who needs to tempt fate by putting that out there?)