Our Daughter Is “That Child” – Your Child’s Behavior In Public

In public, our sweet first grade daughter becomes “THAT” child, the one that everyone stares at.  She yells—loud—she runs, she jumps, she cries, she whines.  You can’t miss her!  And then we are “THOSE” parents, the ones everyone looks at, wondering why we don’t do something.  Help!  We don’t know what to do.

The fact that your daughter’s behavior is different in public than it is at home probably gives us some clues.  There are a couple of different possibilities that come to mind.

It could be that when she is in places where there is a lot going on, there is too much sensory stimulation for her to process.  Children have different levels of sensitivity to sensory stimuli.  Some of that is developmental, but some children have inherent difficulty in processing or integrating sensory messages.  If your child is attending school, her teacher may have some helpful input on this topic.  You may want to take some steps to manage the sensory messages your daughter is receiving (for example, avoiding especially loud and busy places) and see if that helps.  You may even want to talk to your pediatrician about it.

A second possibility is that her public behavior is just a bid to get and hold onto your attention. I don’t mean that she is doing this with any evil intent!  It is a natural desire, and some children tend to need more attention than others.  Be certain that you are giving her individual attention at appropriate times.  However, every child thinks they are the center of the universe, and it is part of our job as parents to teach them they are not.  In a time of non-confrontation, talk to your daughter about showing respect for other people by behaving appropriately in public.  Set the standard, including consequences for not meeting the standard.  Then stick to it!  When (if) her behavior becomes inappropriate, remove her from the setting and enforce the consequence.  There may be some embarrassment and inconvenience, but it is important for you to be consistent and follow through.  It is a hard truth, but the task of teaching our children may sometimes cause some humiliation.  I hope those times are very few for you!