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Whining Battles
Winning the War on Whining
By Valerie Kasrich O'Berry
"But, I waaant a cooookieeee" whines your child.
There is scarcely anything more annoying than a whining child. Some parents say it is equivalent to the sound fingernails make when scraped across a chalkboard. Others say it's simply a grating sound that makes them want to jump out the nearest window. Fortunately, there are better ways to deal with a whining child.
"It's a natural part of development for children who are learning to put their feelings into words," says Meri Wallace, MSW, CSW, a child and family therapist and author of several books including Birth Order Blues and Keys to Parenting Your Four-Year-Old.
When your child whines, what he is really doing is combining crying (which he has used since birth to communicate his needs) and his newfound verbal skills (which are not yet perfected). When he has a hard time communicating his feelings, it naturally comes out whiney as he combines talking and crying. For some children, whining is also a form of emotional release, since it involves a type of crying.
Whining starts in most children at age 2 and peaks at around age 4 (if you're lucky). "Some kids whine way beyond that age," Wallace says. If you're not willing to listen to whining for several years, there are several winning whining strategies that you can begin to implement now and hopefully create a whine-free household.