Here's a thought: instead of writing boring, navel-gazing, agonizing essays for Slate (a la that incredibly obnoxious woman with the spoilt freeloading 19 year old) and coming up with a Strategic Action Plan:

You tell Simon, "Your snack is in your backpack. Look for it until you find it. Or be hungry.

P.S. Carry your own backpack."

Can't Slate find someone to write essays for the Family column that isn't one of these irritating coastal-city yuppie overbearing self-absorbed mothers? Seems like there's a SAHM with a blog on every heartland block and some of them are even pretty good. Wish Slate would find one of them, to at least use in rotation vs. Ms. Bazelon who represents a social position and type of parenting that, ahem, does not reflect many readers.

P.S. A tantrum is not a "panic attack."

I'm beginning to think that being an unfit parent is a prerequisite for writing in the Slate family column. You get more discussion (and more add revenue) if readers get outraged and post replies like I'm doing now.

P.S. A tantrum is not a "panic attack."

You know, I thought this was a bit harsh at first. Then I re-read the beginning of the essay and noticed this:

Sounds great, right? Except for the missing snacks. The food in question is typically veggie sticks or, if Simon comes to the supermarket, mini Chips Ahoy or Oreos.

I wonder if he also has "panic attacks" at the supermarket when his mother tries to deny him junk food.

I don't have kids, so I offer advice/criticism with the knowledge that eventually I'll be the person going nuts over my own child's behavior, while others roll their eyes and say I'm an idiot. That said, it's clear to everyone that the underlying issue is not a cognitive inability to find an object in a backpack; there's something psychological or emotional being expressed here. I'm all for having children persevere in the face of adversity, but this isn't going on in a vacuum. These weekly tantrums are going to make the boy seem weird, unpleasant, annoying, etc., both to other children and to the adults who have to deal with him. That's not a comment on anyone's parenting or on the child, it's just a reality.

So if it were my child I'd probably just say, "If you can't find your snack next week without getting sad and angry, then we'll have to take a break from the fun for a while." If that didn't cause him to magically solve his own problem, then I'd hire a babysitter for Friday afternoons who could sit with him at home and make sure that snacks found their way unobstructed from the fridge to his hands to his mouth.

If isolating him makes you feel bad remember that (assuming he's happy and pleasant to be around the rest of the time) you're doing him a favor by protecting his reputation. There's not much worse for a young child than being known as the kid who'll break down at the slightest provocation.

Also, keep in mind that you have obligations to the other children and adults in that group, not just to yourself and your child. If your child is a constant and intractable drag on everyone else's good time that's unfortunate, but it's also a problem easily solved simply by removing the child from the situation.

That 19-year old from the previous column wasn't a freeloader (status quo is to be completely dependent at lest until 22, but until 24 for most nowadays. Being independent sooner draws criticism such as "are you on good terms with your parents?" and "did you drop out of college?") but he was spoiled. Just a quick comment for the first post.