Your kid is unruly,what would you do

Depends. If it's a situation where my husband and I are both out together with the kids, one of us picks up the unruly one and carries her out to the car to sit and wait until the other's done shopping. If I'm by myself, the worst I typically have to deal with is the kids bickering with each other. Separating them by putting one in the basket and one in the seat of the cart or making my 6-year-old walk next to me is normally all it takes to get them to settle. Of course, taking them out when they're unruly has kind of backfired on us recently, because I've caught the 6-year-old deliberately grabbing everything in site in an effort to get me to take her out of the store because she was bored.

I agree with you in that I try to make things interesting, for example when shopping involve the child with helping tick items off the shopping list, put groceries in bags etc.; agree that they will do something with me (for example shopping) and afterwards I will do something with them (for example go to the park) - and of course check there isn't some other reason such as they are hungry... but then things are not always that simple. Some parent may have an autistic child and they can't leave them alone at home but still have to do the same chores as everyone else, and the kid may have a meltdown just because someone put the cheese next to the chocolate or something like that which no-one else understands. And they are probably at the end of their tether and would not take kindly to someone telling them off about their child's behaviour. I have learned to be less judgemental as I realise how complicated life is!

Well I sure wouldn't hit children like some people do.

Their attention spans are very short when they're younger so you've supplied good advice. Bring something for them to enjoy. That will probably keep them occupied until the shopping is complete.

Pick up screaming child, walk out of store. Sit in car until child is quiet, ie - time out. Then try it again.

That is a good idea to have something for the child to do. Perhaps if they behave the mother could stop off at a park for a few minutes on the way home.

Believe it or not, my own children have never really kicked up a fuss while out. My youngest would cry at the sound of a hand dryer. I just stopped the dryer and made sure I used paper towels next time! As I've not had the problem, I don't know what I would do but I would like to think that I would remove the child from the situation (if that's possible) and either try again when they're not with me or take something to keep them entertained. While I've not had a problem with my own children, I have been out and about with other children who have been a pain. One of them, a friend of my youngest, doesn't seem to have any concept of appropriate behaviour. Now, she's not naughty as such but she genuinely didn't seem to know that a museum was not somewhere she could run around and make a lot of noise. All I could do was sit her down and explain how to behave (I can only assume that she'd never been taken to such a place before). Then another child, who was with me once while shopping, would have a tantrum at the smallest thing. What I did then was say something, quite loudly, which let everyone around know that the child wasn't mine! Then I took him out of the shop.

A sort of diversion sometimes really works