At the end of the day, parents sometimes wonder if they’ve provided the best possible experiences for their children. Here’s one simple guideline: If the words “Easter” and “bunny” and “hunt” stand alone, you likely are on the plus side of the ledger. If “mayhem” and “pepper spray’’ pop up with them, things have gone awry.

The head-scratching news that inspires this observation occurred Sunday in Proctor, Vt., and Orange, Conn., where parents behaving badly marred two large Easter egg hunts. In Proctor, according to The Associated Press, police received reports of “multiple irate parents” at a hunt that was apparently overbooked, with more than 1,000 on hand. Organizers said the event went downhill when people broke through the ropes before the start and started scooping up eggs. Economists who study game theory — “the study of mathematical models of conflict and cooperation between intelligent rational decision-makers” — might be able to explain such behavior, but we point to a misguided parenting principle that’s cropped up in recent years: No Child Left Disappointed. A bare or underfilled Easter basket would be unthinkable. But then again, who knows what goes on in the minds of parents in a moment like this? Perhaps they were all hopped up on competitive adrenaline.

Said one of the event organizers, “It’s hard to see the eggs on the ground and to be told to wait. And once a few start, they all start.” Thankfully, only one man was arrested when sheriffs and state police intervened, although pepper spray was deployed.

In Orange, Conn., where the candy company Pez has a visitor center, much the same story unfolded. Hundreds of people turned out Sunday for a hunt. Organizers placed 9,000 eggs on three fields, with intentions of having staggered starts for each age group — lest toddlers be bowled over by 8-year-olds, for instance. But “everyone just rushed the field and took everything,” Pez General Manager Shawn Peterson told reporters, observing that the crowd was “kind of like locusts.”

Last year, the same sort of  debacle occurred on an even larger scale in Sacramento, Calif., where organizers had placed more than 500,000 plastic eggs on the state capitol grounds. According to a Los Angeles Times account: “A massive Easter egg hunt was intended to set a world record but turned chaotic as combative parents stepped in to snatch eggs themselves, leaving crying children in their wake.”

Since human nature is not likely to change — and poor behavior in public is being exhibited at the highest levels these days — the wisest course might be to avoid egg hunts conducted on the scale of military maneuvers. Sheer numbers may turn a low-key family or neighborhood event into a test of the survival of the fittest. Here is a case where less truly is more.

For children, the hunt is about a wondrous bunny leaving treasure to be discovered, or, as they grow older, the enduring allure of jelly beans and chocolate. Adults are hard-pressed to leave such things small and simple — they have an awful lot of baggage in their baskets.