Paper Parents Pop Quiz #5 (PPPQ5)

This one happened yesterday. Not pleasant.

Daughter #1 is a great girl but when she's off....? Be someplace else. She gets moody and the next thing you know she's impossible to please. Like a hormonal woman of 33, only she's 3. It's actually a great test of your parenting ability in a way. If you aren't strong you'll spend four hours being driven from pillar to post by a miserable child.

Today you were all at the mall and you could see her slip into one of those moods. The first "tell" was how quiet she got and how often she wanted to be picked up. Next she clutches you in a death-grip when you try to leave her with your dad and use the bathroom at the mall...

Then at the playground she starts off happy for five minutes but things go downhill. Fast. Slide, see-saw, monkey-bars....Nothing makes her happy and you quiz and probe for five minutes but if she knows what's wrong she sure isn't telling. There are some tears but mostly just sad melancholy. The kind where you want to smack her on the ass (if not the mouth) and tell her to snap out of it. Nothing stems the tide. Back in the car she melts down again and when you try to help fasten her seat belt she starts balling. What do you do? Keep in mind she's had a cold for the last three days so there are extenuating circumstances...

A) Bite your tongue and keep an even keel. You really want to tell her to "Shut the F*** up!" but she's still under the weather and you'll stay calm and give her a very, very big benefit of the doubt...

B) Let her have it. It's all well and good to be supportive and not jump off the deep end but that has its limits and she just passed them. At this point she's going to get a finger in the face and you'll get right in her grill. Hopefully this will help her -- you know it'll help you.

C) Take her out of the car, give her a timeout in the park. Basically an extension of B taken to the next level. Unbuckle the seat belt, finger in her face, get in her grill and give her some verbiage at high volume.

D) Ignore it. Tell grandpa to drive on, knowing that at some point the meltdown will end. You really don't know why she's melting but you've tried your level-headed best to stop it with no result. At this point let it play out on its own...

And the answer is...?

A

B and C were the heavy favorites but I successfully managed to stay silent when I had the urge to tell her to "Shut the F*** up!" As usual it was a gut call and there was no right or wrong. Tomorrow if the same thing happened I might have gone with B because she was really acting foul and I thought there was no excuse for it -- well almost no excuse. She was still a bit sick and that might have helped me hang on and answer A...