The Kid Whisperer Asks Parents: What Are You Doing When Your Child Melts Down?

The columnist who writes as the Kid Whisperer says he spends a lot of time at Chicago O'Hare International Airport, and he does not mean to catch a flight. He calls it a Variable Stressor Family Interaction Lab, a place where he can watch parents deal with their children under different levels of strain. His day job is traveling the country to teach adults strategies and procedures for working with kids. The column he wrote from those observations, published in the Chicago Tribune on March 30, 2026, is an opinion piece, and it makes a pointed argument about what parents do when a child falls apart.

His puzzle is this. When a child, whether 4 or 14, throws a fit or acts badly, he sees parents speaking soothingly about feelings and emotions and going to a happy place. He says he always wants to ask them, "What do you think you are doing?" He insists the question would be sincere, not rhetorical. He assumes they are trying to accomplish something and says he simply isn't sure what.

He offers his credentials before going further. Before having his own child later in life, he worked with thousands of kids as a teacher and principal. He says he created the strategies and procedures behind what became the world's first behavior management manual for PK-12 teachers. He also admits that his first two years of teaching, with first- and fifth-graders, were spent screaming and yelling. He says he lists all this so readers won't mistake him for a judgmental parent signaling superiority, though he adds that he has worked with children for a quarter century and most readers probably haven't.

To answer his question, he turned to internet research and found the idea of "validating the feelings of a child." He concludes this is likely what the airport parents think they are doing. He grants that validation has merit. A few small studies, he says, suggest that children solving a problem show more resilience and feel better when told their frustration is okay. He has used the technique for 23 years. His example: a child says a math problem is really frustrating, and he answers that it's totally okay to feel frustrated, and to keep going. In his view, that teaches kids that all feelings are okay and that adults believe they are capable and resilient. He may add some help solving the problem a different way, but the validation and the gentle push toward resilience are the core.

That, he argues, is not what happens at gate G11. He distinguishes between the two lessons. What he teaches is that feelings are never wrong. What he believes the airport parents teach is that actions are never wrong, because attention given to negative behavior reinforces it, making it more likely to be repeated, explored and heightened. He says his approach makes children emotionally healthier and theirs is turning kids into monsters.

He then widens the frame. Teachers today, he says, would describe a Behavioral Apocalypse. Children arrive for their first day of school having been accidentally trained by their parents that causing problems for others is the best way to get attention and a sense of control. If parents don't stop, he predicts, schools will eventually stop working entirely, as he says some already have, and the country will follow.

The column rests on his own experience, airport observation and a handful of small studies he mentions without naming. It is an argument, not a survey of evidence. Its lasting contribution is the distinction it draws between accepting a feeling and excusing what a child does with it.