The Tantrums of a small child

As a teacher of small children, I believe we also have a lot to learn from them. The mind of a child has not yet undergone the conditioning of society, institution, religious doctrine or even peer pressure enough to inhibit their nature. Very young children are human beings in the purest form.  They are only evolving to survive.

So when I heard the incessant raging screams of a small child somewhere in the vastness of a huge superstore the other day only making out one or two strangled words like, I want, I will I promise etc. I wondered at first what could possibly be happening to this child. Other shoppers went about their business seemingly unable to hear it at all until the sound gradually got closer to my vicinity and only then their comments went something like, “I wish they’d buy that kid a toy and shut him up” or “Let’s get away from here it’s too noisy”. Indeed the sound of a frustrated angry child was irritating but I wanted to take a closer look, I was betting this child was getting his toy.  I followed the noise and sure enough, I found him down the toy aisle with a young girl who seemed likely to be an older sibling. He was clutching a toy and she was trying to pacify him. The momentum of the screaming tantrum wasn’t easing off any time soon because this still wasn’t enough. Was it that he was unable to give up the attention being directly on him and his needs so he was creating more conflict in his dissatisfaction with the toy? More than likely he was just so worked up that he just didn’t know how to stop.

Still sobbing and squealing as loudly as ever I watched him disappear off into the distance clutching his prize with the young girl.  By his height I would have guessed him to be about aged three to four but his behaviour suggested a taller than average two year old. I will never know for sure. The girl looked pre-teen probably not yet in senior school but taking on the role of responsibility and showing endless patience. May-be she was actually a visiting older cousin or stepsister because surely  a resident full time  sibling would have been tempted to shove a sock in his mouth.  My place was not to cast judgement on this but to step back and ask myself, why?  The child has learnt how to get what he wants. He doesn’t care what I or anyone else in the building thinks. This is the lesson he has learnt from a very young age.

What I am trying to understand is how we as a species got into this material striving world and how it is evolving for us.  Imagine being in the wild, having predators  and how  the noise of a child in full blown tantrum would have impacted a tribe.  Surviving is no longer what  we humans are all about.  The supermarket giants have a lot to answer for as does the media and advertising industry. Supermarkets strategically place toys and sweets and all kinds of things in the child’s view so that  parents cannot do the shopping in peace. Then to make matters worse they dangle fashion accessories and pretty things in our view as we find ourselves browsing the clothing aisle when we’d popped out to buy groceries. In adulthood we are already practicing shopaholics, we just don’t need to scream the place down anymore. The irony is, that  just like that small child worn ragged from his mighty tantrum, we don’t really actually need or want the item purchased nor do we feel any gratification from parting with the cash.

It’s time we stood up for ourselves by not going to the superstore and buying fruit and vegetables from the local greengrocers. Or is it  too late, because they’ve lost the space in the high street to the big guys.