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My Preschooler's Whining Is Making Me Crazy!
Filed under: Opinions, Expert Advice: Toddlers & Preschoolers
Dear AdviceMama,
I have a 4-year-old son. What do you recommend when he whines? It drives me crazy, but when I try to get him to stop, he just does it more!
Signed,
Driven Crazy Mom
Dear Driven Crazy Mom,
I feel for you. While parents find many behaviors annoying -- such as hitting or talking back- - there's something about whining that gets under our skin like nothing else can. A child's plaintive, repetitive whimpers can make even the most easy-going parents lose their patience. Here's my advice:
I have a section in my book -- "If Whining is the Answer, What is the Question?" -- where I explore this issue the way you might on "Jeopardy." To put an end to whining, you have to figure out how it is serving the child, and address that need -- or "question" -- in a healthier way.
I recently worked with Lydia*, whose 5-year old, Daisy*, was a chronic whiner. When I watched the two interacting in my office, I saw right away how their dynamic made whining a logical behavior choice for this little girl.
As Lydia and I spoke, Daisy told her mother she was bored. Mom responded by saying she had warned her we'd be talking for a while, and had suggested her daughter bring a few of her favorite toys, which Daisy had refused to do.
Daisy -- a shy little girl -- didn't know what to do with herself, and didn't yet feel comfortable asking to play with the many toys in my office. The easiest "fix" was her mother's attention, and she knew from experience how to get it. She whimpered, flopped on the floor and repeatedly invoked her mommy's name with a desperate moan.
Lydia found it impossible to resist. She scolded Daisy, threatened to withdraw her offer of a trip to the park, and told the little girl her whining was "driving me crazy!"
In other words, Daisy's whining got her the thing she needed: her mother's undivided, focused attention.
Now, the truth is, that isn't exactly what Daisy wanted. What she really wanted was something interesting to do, and she felt too timid to explore the fun things in my office (as she would eventually do with great enthusiasm.) The whining gave Daisy a bit of temporary relief from her feelings of restlessness.
I asked Mom to look for the root of her daughter's behavior so she could understand why it made perfect sense that Daisy had gotten into the habit of whining to get her needs met. I also encouraged her to make sure she didn't reward her daughter by giving her attention -- even negative attention -- when Daisy persisted in demanding it.
I invited Lydia to give me specific reasons that would explain or justify Daisy's whining. She admitted that Daisy tended to whine when she was unstimulated. With nothing to engage her curious mind and a temperament that made her uncomfortable exploring new environments on her own, she whined to find relief from her boredom.
While I don't think parents should establish themselves as their child's source of non-stop fun, Daisy was going to be in a new place (my office) where her mom would be distracted by conversation with a strange lady, leaving the girl to wiggle and squirm. It was a foreseeable problem Mom could have prevented by better planning. I suggested Lydia be more pro-active, bringing along toys in novel situations so her daughter would have something to do until she felt brave enough to explore a new environment her own.
When I asked Lydia to think about any patterns to her daughter's whining-time of day, circumstance or setting, she said one predictable time was about a half an hour before dinner, when Daisy claimed she was "starving." I suggested Lydia give her daughter a protein snack to tide her over, rather than rigidly ignoring her hunger by making her wait till Daddy got home. I also encouraged her to involve her daughter in dinner-making to give her a healthier way to engage with Mommy.
Rather than looking for ways to punish your children for whining, uncover for the payoff they get and address it before they resort to misbehavior to get their needs met. Be the captain of the ship who steers clear of rough waters, rather than scrambles to cope with problems once his ship is in the middle of the storm.
If whining is the answer, look for the question or the child's need, address it in advance and things will undoubtedly improve.
Yours in parenting support,
AdviceMama
* Not their real names
AdviceMama, Susan Stiffelman, is a licensed and practicing psychotherapist and marriage and family therapist. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in developmental psychology and a Master of Arts in clinical psychology. Her book, Parenting Without Power Struggles, is available on Amazon. Sign up to get Susan's free parenting newsletter.
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ReaderComments (Page 3 of 3)
5-29-2011 @ 2:24AM
nikki said...Good Lord ... if an adult's voice could be described as whining, Stiffelman's takes the cake. "Tone" she says? Why the heck doesn't she view her video. There's an adult whining right into the camera.
Whining is such an unsurmountable problem that you have to go through a rigamarole of empathy and enticements to coddle him into not whinning.
My Mom had the classic and simple solution to whining ... or "sulking" ... we were told to go to our rooms until we "felt better". We had to have a reason ... for whining or sulkinjg. If we couldn't produce a reaason, we were put in our rooms.
Worked like a charm, We never whined.
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6-01-2011 @ 12:44AM
petpetdonna said...Kids WHINE because their parents allow them to. The kids whine they want a new toy and the parents buy it for them, The kids whine they want ice cream and the parents buy it for them. PARENTS, do you see a pattern here? You are raising a bunch of snot nosed little whining brats. They know if they whine they will get whatever they want. Next time your kid whines give him/her what they really need, a smack on the behind and yold to shit up. The parents need to grow some nads and get their little precious kids in shape before they go out into the real world and get a job. I can see it now, the boass says to Billy do this or that the Billy says, I don't want to. The boss would then reply YOU'RE FIRED.
Billy storms off to his parents and whines that the boss fired him and the parents buy him ice cream.
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5-29-2011 @ 4:03AM
Jaguar8450 said...What to do about a whing child...Whine right back at them...Re-act the same way to them as they are acting to you...Do the same...Whine, whine, whine...Nno matter how long it takes too becauseevidently they will get it sooner or later.
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5-29-2011 @ 4:16PM
Roro said...I am 74. When I was 25 my mother told me that there is no reason for children to WHINE. Mother said, As soon as your child says, MOMMY, MOMMY, stop what you are doing and say " WHAT do you want"? My children never ever whined.
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5-29-2011 @ 4:25AM
hope said...I had no problem with whining because when my kids did it, I told them I could not hear whining and they would have to talk in a normal voice if they wanted me to hear them. When we had friends over who whined, my kids told them that we don't whine at our house, and that worked too. Those of you who suggest HITTING a child who whines are ridiculous. Are you so lazy that violence is the only tactic you can think of? Good job of modeling the worst possible behavior.
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5-29-2011 @ 5:24AM
Joe said...A lot can be said for simply ignoring the behavior. The kid will figure it out. People should try being adults.
5-29-2011 @ 4:55AM
ettreeseedco said...Feed your children will and keep them away from pharmapheudicals promoted by the crowns to 'hook' your kids young. They are monsters, your child is innocent. Hypogloxemia creates an uneasy condition that requires attention 18 times a day in some children. Provide fruit and vegetable trays at regular intevals to keep their stamina up and see the whining disappear. Create fruit trays together and get gourmet. Have a favorite cupboard chair they can use to help. Get smart Mothers.
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5-29-2011 @ 5:21AM
Joe said...Ignore the whining. Ignore it. Don't respond to it. It will be annoying for a while, but eventually, the child will learn that you do not respond to whining and will stop. If you punish the child, then you acknowledged the behavior. Even if the consequence is negative the child will know that whining gets your attention and he/she will do so again. Suck it up, be an adult, and ignore it. This lesson will stay with the child well into adulthood. What? You thought parenting was supposed to be comfortable and easy?
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5-29-2011 @ 5:34AM
Koz said...A good swift wack on the butt will take care of the problem.
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5-29-2011 @ 6:11AM
Ruth said...I can only remember what would have happened if my brother or myself had whined...'I'm borrrrrred...'. The response would've been well, I'll give you something to unbore you...and later on the response would heve been an assignment to labor around the house, etc. This is just another of the legion of overindulgent mostly single moms who just can't seem to manage to ever tell their children 'no' and follow up with meaningful disipline to enforce it. Yes, these kids grow into whining teens and young 'adults' all too soon. Stop it early and decisivly. A wood kitchen spoon on a little kid's butt never hurt anything, but could save us all from the torture of yet another indulged whining brat kid!
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5-29-2011 @ 6:37AM
Loren said...The problem is not the child, it is the parent. There are to many now now parents. To much babing and not enough disiplan. Why does the report just talk about girls boys are even worse. Parents today are turning boys into whimps. You don't have to spank you have to establish guidelines and then when all else fails, woop the ass.
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5-29-2011 @ 6:44AM
sunny said...Puhleeze. THis didn't happen overnight.
SLAP him.
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5-29-2011 @ 7:22AM
Over Easy said...As the mother of three, grandmother of four and an early childhood educator, I have my own simple, never-fail (well, almost never fail) way of dealing with whining: After a simple explanation of "good" voice and "bad" voice (heaven help me, I dare use the words good and bad which some say can damage a child's psyche) I tell the whining child "sorry, I can't hear you when you use that bad voice. I'll be happy to listen when you use your good voice again." AND THEN I STICK TO WHAT I SAY, responding only when the whining stops. Try it, it doe work. And, oh yes, my offspring and young students appear to have come thru with psyches intact.
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5-29-2011 @ 7:26AM
Kathy said...I am having this problem with my 2 year old grandson now. But make sure they know what whining is, this is extremely important. I listened to my daughter say stop whining 100 times a day and then it hit me. The poor child doesn't even know what that word meant. So I agree with one of the previous comments and that is to demonstrate to them what you are talking about.It has made a tremendous difference!!
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5-29-2011 @ 7:27AM
Fred Lowery said...Be a parent for once, tell that whinny kid to shutup that whinning or you'll give him/her to whine about....Whip Their ass
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5-29-2011 @ 7:32AM
JOHN said...kick her butt--it will stop
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5-29-2011 @ 7:36AM
Scott said...Why does the author assume that the reader's child is a female? She keeps saying, she, her, your daughter. This is not correct grammar. The appropriate indenfinte personal pronoun is he, him, his. And, rather than saying "your daughter," she should say, "your child."
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5-29-2011 @ 7:38AM
Cath said...It's very simple. I told my kids, "You will never get anything that you whine for." And I held to it. That pretty much stopped it.
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5-29-2011 @ 7:40AM
Glenn Posner said...Occasionally severe beatings can do the trick or you could put the kid up for immediate adoption...
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