How to deal with a child's behaviour in public?

Hi all, new to this but could do with some advice or statagies on how to deal with my daughters behaviour in public.

At home and Nursery she is well behaved and for the majority of the time she listens to what we ask of her and follows her routine without any major problems.

However when we are out in public she 'plays up' and wont listen, it's like she know's she can misbehave, for example i had to take her to physio, and she wouldnt follow the instructions of the therapist, simple instructions like 'sit here'....she just runs off, I try not to get angry and keep my cool, however she will just run 'riot' when in front of people, i have tried putting her in 'time out' but she just gets up and runs around. The therapist had to remove a toy from her as she wasnt listening, and wouldnt follow a simple instruction.

I tried sitting her on my knee, making a game out of it, being firm, getting down to her level and explaining...etc etc tried all sorts. But it's like when we are out in public she 'shows off' and misbehaves .

As soon as we came out of the room she went back to her happy, playful self and the 'good' behaviour returns..grrrr


Any advice wouldnt be appreciated...
Many Thanks

[Ashelen]

How old is she? it's not that uncommon for kids to act differently in public...mostly because the stimulation level is much higher outside of the home, so their senses are overwhelmed. But a lot of it depends on her age :-).

[margypops]

Yes could use her age as its relevant to her behavior.May Iask is she is a room with you and the therapist, when you say public is there an audience she may be playing up to ?

[twinkle75]

Hi thanks for your replies...she is 2years and 6 months (sorry forgot to put that) how do you stop them playing up to public though?

[Ashelen]

That's actually pretty normal. She's getting to the point where she's beginning to seek more social interaction, and at this stage she still equates attention to interaction. So the more attention she gets by more people, the more she feels that she is accomplishing socially.

Continue to do as you're doing with sternly telling her that it's inappropriate, time-outs or separating her from the issue if it becomes too large, but this is something she will mostly have to outgrow in my experience.

Eventually she will begin to crave more complex interactions than just "i did this and i got this reaction" and she will look for ways to actually interest the person she's interacting with. By that I mean if she's working with a therapist, she will begin to respond to what they ask of her in order to interact, rather than just looking for any old reaction she can get by misbehaving.  If she's with a group of people in public she will begin to ask questions or make comments instead of just acting up.

But this takes time and age, so try to be patient, and just continue to tell her when she's crossed the line.