Anyone who has ever spent time with children knows that temper tantrums are unavoidable. It's not uncommon for kids to throw tantrums in public and sometimes it can feel like it reflects poorly on our parenting skills. Well, it does not and we should never feel embarrassed when it happens.
There's really no tried and true method to prevent a child from throwing a fit while you're browsing the aisles at the grocery store, but one dad has found a way of handling his daughter's tantrums and it is fantastic.
Instead of letting his three-year-old daughter, Ari, scream and kick her way through a Walmart store, Ohio native Terrel Rico Relz Crawford took the toddler out to the parking lot and proceeded to apply his method to successfully calm her down.
Crawford filmed the entire incident on Facebook Live and it has since gone viral. Parents everywhere have been praising the young dad for the way he handled the situation and you will be too when you see the video.
Ari began to throw a tantrum after Crawford confiscated her mother's cellphone from her while the family was out on a shopping trip at Walmart.
Crawford, 29, remained zen the entire time and instead of publicly yelling at his daughter to stop, he sat her down on the hood of their car and calmly reasoned with her.
"When we go back into the store, are you going to listen?" he asks. "Because everyone sees you acting a fool."
The doting dad gave his daughter a perfectly reasonable explanation as to why they don't have to go back into the store if she kept crying.
"We don't have to walk around the store with your mom, that's a privilege," he tells Ari.
"I'm OK with the kid screaming in Walmart, what I'm not OK with is them not stopping when I tell them to," Crawford explains to the camera. "So we can be out here in this lovely old parking lot until Miss Ari wants to stop screaming her head off."
He also admits that he does spoil his daughter, but that doesn't justify her actions that day.
"When you spoil the hell out of your kids, this is what happens," Crawford says in the video. "I don't care if you was grew up with a silver spoon in your mouth. Don't put one in your child's mouth, because this is what happens."
Crawford then proceeded to tell his daughter to "wipe the stress" off her face and made sure she was doing alright before they went back into the store. By that point, Ari already managed to have a smile on her face.
You can watch the entire exchange in the video below:
"I don't want her to think less of me because we're taking something away from her," Crawford said in an interview with the News Journal. "But she has to know that even everything we give her, they have to really deserve it."
The video has since gotten over 21 million views since it was posted and Crawford is happy that his philosophy is inspiring other parents.
"It did something that I didn't really expect it to do," he said. "I guess I'm just overwhelmed with the blessing of all the positive energy."
What do you think of Crawford's temper tantrum calming skills? Let us know in the comments!