Tasha Goes Blue: Would You Like Some Cheese With That Whine?
It’s like nails on a chalk board. No, it’s worse. It’s the most annoying sound ever. EVER! It’s the incessant whining that is inevitable if you have a child. I’m hearing it even now as I type this. I can barely keep my fingers from jumping off the keypad, across the room and over the Whiner’s mouth. Is that harsh? If you said yes, you have never had a true whiner and I don’t want to talk to you anymore, so there.
“Mooooommmmm!! He toooooouched me!”
“But I’m starrrrrrrrving!”
“Do I haaaaaave tooooo?”
These are the ones I hear most often. But I have found a way to combat it. Oh yes, I have. (Applause is completely appropriate at this point.) It’s not the end-all/cure-all to whining, but it helps. And so I will tell you what I do when the whining is just too much to handle and how to keep that little whiner at bay.
First off…I love to ignore my kids. No, I’m not that mean. Don’t read out of context! When the whining starts, my listening ears are turned OFF! And I tell my boys that straight away. “Sorry, I can’t hear you through all the whining so I’m not going to listen until you change your tone.” And then I happily go about my business. This will usually bring about some sort of “Listen to me!” screaming tantrum, but again, I reiterate, “I caaaaan’t hearrrr youuuuu!” They will get the point. And when they do decide to change their tone, I immediately drop everything, look them straight in the eye and listen very closely. I also thank them for changing their tone. Ignore the bad behavior, reward the good…they’ll get it. Kids are smart that way.
Tactic #2…Big Boy Voices = Big Boy Privileges…I am a believer in privileges for children. My kids have to earn their keep around here! Do my kids play video and computer games? Yup. Do I make it easy for them? Nope. My boys have to do chores to earn video game time. One chore = 15 minutes of play. I get a lot of house work done this way. (Did you know that five-year-olds are great at washing down baseboards? They totally are!) This is considered Big Boy status. Doing chores, playing video games, getting on the computer, playing with legos…all things only big boys are allowed to do. If the whining starts, the Big Boy privileges go OUT the window! So in the instance above where I try to ignore the whining and wait for them to decide to change their tone and then it totally back fires and they go completely tamper tantrum on me…I pull the Big Boy card. “You have one more chance to change your tone or your Big Boy Privileges will be taken away for the day…and I’ll start with computer time.” It usually stops there…usually. If it doesn’t, “OK, no more computer time for you since you are still whining. Now you have one more chance to change your tone or I’ll take away video game time for the day.” If they haven’t stopped by now, it’s probably full fledged tantrum time…and I have to deal with that another way. (Post on tantrums coming soon to a over-stressed Mommy blog near you.) I’ll give them three chances to change their whiney tone. I have stubborn children, so I give them time. I know I don’t instantly come out of my whining fits so I don’t readily expect them to either.
I hope this has helped you….may the only thing you have with your cheese be the WINE that pours smoothly into a glass.
