Earlier this summer, Hoda Kotb and her 5-year-old daughter, Haley, were enjoying a lunch date when the meal took an unexpected turn.
Hoda told TODAY Parents she doesn’t recall what triggered Haley’s meltdown, but that it was “wild” and “totally out of control.”
“It was just the two of us and I was like, ‘What am I going to do?’” the TODAY co-anchor said. Then she noticed two moms sitting at a neighboring booth with their young kids. The women kept shooting her sympathetic glances.
“They were giving me a look like, ‘We know,’” Hoda shared. That’s when Hoda decided she and Haley would get up and join them.
“I go, ‘Pick up your food, we’re gonna go sit with these people over there,’” Hoda revealed. A confused Haley grabbed her plate and followed Hoda.
“We carried our hamburgers over to these strangers… it was really weird for sure,” she confessed. “But all of a sudden, the temperature went down.”
Hoda said a “distraction” is what Haley needed and she perked up instantly.
“When there’s a public meltdown, I don’t know what to do,” Hoda, who is also mother of 3-year-old Hope, said. “But know that every now and then, there’s somebody who kind of extends a hand.”
Fellow mom Savannah Guthrie said she looks at tantrums as weather systems.
“They move in and they move out and you adapt to them. You can’t tell the sky to stop raining. Get an umbrella,” Savannah told TODAY Parents during a joint interview with Hoda. “You’re not yelling at the rain, ‘Stop raining!’ You just need to withstand it.”
She said to ignore any disapproving glances.
"Your kid melting down is not a reflection of you," Savannah explained. "It's just an indication that they are a kid."
Related Video: