oh, the whining!

[blue butterfly]

dd is 5 1/2 and "whines" about EVERYTHING! it is so hard to not get completely irritated with her. i love her so much and would really like some advice on how to deal with the whining as well how to help her express herself in a different way.

[jennert]

my mom and i used to have conversations about tone of voice even when i was that young.
also, when i got super whiney, she'd turn into "Opera Mom." Opera Mom couldn't understand you unless you sang. it's hard (but not impossible) to whine while singing. Opera Mom still occasionally shows up when my mom is visiting us. i didn't realize that everyone's mom didn't have Opera Mom capabilities

[blue butterfly]

that's a very fun idea! i'm sure i'll have a chance to try it out tonight!

[esmejoy]

I feel like a broken record these days on this, but once again I'm going to recommend Larry Cohen's "Playful Parenting." He would LOVE Opera Mom, I'm sure! He doesn't actually spend a lot of time talking about whining, but -- what he said really hit home for me. He says, of whining:

"...it is neither hot nor cold, neither fish nor fowl. It isn't the healing release of painful emotion, and it isn't carefree happiness. Because we have inhibited children's straightforward emotional expressions, most of them can't freely express raw emotions like deep grief or pure terror or intense rage. But they can't hold it all in, either. So it comes trickling out -- in whining, in jealousy, in boredom and loneliness, in destructive behaviour, in stomachaches and other physical symptoms. Our job as parents is to help our children let these feelings out more directly, especially through playfulness and our close relationship with them."

I don't post this to make you feel bad about your parenting -- really, not my intent at all -- BUT -- the above paragraph really rang so true for me, for my OWN childhood whining (my family STILL talks about what a whiny brat I was as a kid). So I offer it up as something to at least consider in your daughter's case.

Good luck -- I'm eager to see more replies to this (I HATE!!! whining -- even if I used to be a champion at it myself!)

-esme

[JuniperMama]

Originally Posted by esmejoy

"...it is neither hot nor cold, neither fish nor fowl. It isn't the healing release of painful emotion, and it isn't carefree happiness. Because we have inhibited children's straightforward emotional expressions, most of them can't freely express raw emotions like deep grief or pure terror or intense rage. But they can't hold it all in, either. So it comes trickling out -- in whining, in jealousy, in boredom and loneliness, in destructive behaviour, in stomachaches and other physical symptoms. Our job as parents is to help our children let these feelings out more directly, especially through playfulness and our close relationship with them."

Interesting. How do you do this though? I feel like I do encourage my son to express his feelings and yet he still whines.

[blue butterfly]

thank you all so much for your responses! Opera Mom ( and Dad! ) have been a hit, we've probably had 3 or 4 chances to use it and every time she starts laughing about it and the whining stops!

i also purchased a used copy of "playful parenting" on ebay and it should be here in a couple of days! can't wait to read as i have heard so many wonderful things about it!

:

[BohoMama]

Whining, frustration, and boundaries

I'm struggling with this too, with my almost-3-yo daughter. In many cases, I do not think the whining is caused by repressed strong emotions, but by everyday frustration. She wants something (often sweets) that is not available at that time; she wants to go pick up her brother at preschool (NOW!) and not in several hours; she wants me to slow down and hold her hand when I am staggering under a heavy load of something in my arms - which could drop on her if I did slow down or take her hand. If she wakes up in our (family) bed in the morning when I have gotten up to go to the toilet, she howls for me to come back to bed and cuddle with her, and does not want to get up and come see me in the loo. She wants to see another film, though the daily limit is one. These types of boredom and frustrated desires are necessary parts of life. You could counter that there are always strong repressed desires under the surface of everyone's psyche but I don't think that argument really gets you anywhere. OK, so we're all human and we all desire things we can't have, or at least not at that moment. How can we channel our desires and energies into something else? How are we going to live together? How are we going to raise our children to get along in society? I don't think parents can - or should try to - eliminate all the trivial frustrations that help us recognize the boundaries of self and others.

Unlike most people who visit this forum, I did not like Playful Parenting (almost couldn't get through the whole book), but the opera mom sounds like a funny way to handle whining. I will definitely give it a try tomorrow. My constant reminders to use her "nice voice" are somewhat effective, but to the extent that they are nagging they will not be an incentive to think differently and change her behavior.

For the record, I was also a whiny kid at home. For whatever reason, I enjoyed having my mom react to my dissatisfaction, which I now recognize only prolonged my own lousy mood and probably caused her to share in it unnecessarily. When we visited my paternal grandmother, however, she let me know that she wasn't going to have it. (No violence or threats, just with firm words.) I would get boiling mad at her for a moment, then forget about it and become absorbed in something else entirely. Although this grandmother had been raised on a Depression-age farmstead and was not "playful" in the way Cohen advocates, we had a very close relationship and I still miss her.

[jennert]

Opera Mom strikes again! how delightful!

[Surfacing]

Originally Posted by BohoMama

For the record, I was also a whiny kid at home. For whatever reason, I enjoyed having my mom react to my dissatisfaction, which I now recognize only prolonged my own lousy mood and probably caused her to share in it unnecessarily. When we visited my paternal grandmother, however, she let me know that she wasn't going to have it. (No violence or threats, just with firm words.) I would get boiling mad at her for a moment, then forget about it and become absorbed in something else entirely. Although this grandmother had been raised on a Depression-age farmstead and was not "playful" in the way Cohen advocates, we had a very close relationship and I still miss her.

My mother reacts similarly, just matter-of-fact, calm but taking none of it. I don't think it hurts dd. :

[punkrawkmama27]

Originally Posted by jennert

my mom and i used to have conversations about tone of voice even when i was that young.
also, when i got super whiney, she'd turn into "Opera Mom." Opera Mom couldn't understand you unless you sang. it's hard (but not impossible) to whine while singing. Opera Mom still occasionally shows up when my mom is visiting us. i didn't realize that everyone's mom didn't have Opera Mom capabilities

I love that! I am going to try that today! My almost 7 yo dd still whines so much. She doesnt just ask for something, she whines for it. I usually say "I wont listen to you if you are going to whine at me, you need to use your big girl voice" Some days it works, some days it upsets her more. I really love the opera mom idea!