Watch out parents, I’m all over you like white on rice once again!

Do you have a blind spot a mile wide when it comes to how your child behaves in public?  Would you rather continue your ever so important cell-phone conversation than stop your precious darling from running around the restaurant, leaving a trail of crackers as they go?  Have you become completely oblivious to the glares directed your way as once again, your child cuts in line at the play park?

Then you my friend, are the proud recipient of the Lazy Parenting Award^TM!  You are running neck-and-neck for the lead in an unpopularity contest with Donald Trump. 

Seriously, we are not simply planets who have the misfortune to revolve around the sun you perceive your offspring to be.

In public, discipline should be swift, stealthy, and meaningful.  If they don’t think you mean it, they aren’t going to stop the behavior.  Weak pleas of “Darby Dayton the Third, stop it or you are in trouble” mean nothing if not backed up with a plan of action.

That means if they are in the grocery cart and grabbing things off the shelf even though you have instructed them calmly to stop, and any further instruction results in screeching at the top of their lungs, then you just as calmly have to get them out of the cart and take them out to the car for a time out.

I urge you, go at lesat that extra half-mile!  The people around you will thank you.  I promise.