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Aug 24, 2004 Dear Brooke, My daughter is eight years old and still whines. I don't understand how I "trained" her to do this. And I have less understanding about getting her to stop. I am a single mom. My daughter's father sees her regularly but does not take any part in the discipline department. I have tried to be consistent in regards to stopping the whining. Since she began whining at about 3 years of age, I refuse to do what she wants when she whines and I wait until she speaks with a pleasant tone of voice. This is extremely difficult as it takes a lot of time and patience. Her kindergarten teacher told me that in the 38 years she taught, my daughter was the most willful she had ever come across. In the 3 years that have passed, she seems to have gotten worse! Olivia is very intelligent which makes it more difficult for me to understand why she doesn't get the connection between her whining and my decreasing patience. Please help! Thank you. Pauline I suggest reading the article I wrote called
Troubles with Children. That one in particular is
geared towards younger children, but the basic
concepts apply to any age, including adults. I do have
some additional advice, though. Many parents want to know how to stop a child from
doing an incorrect behavior. So I searched and
searched until I found what works for us. Just recently,
my oldest son, Skylar, who is now nearly three, started
hitting, pushing and kicking his younger brother Drew. I
got some great advice from a friend, used it, observed it
and found that he went from doing this behavior dozens
of times a day to rarely, if ever. Take your daughter aside from all distractions, and
let her know you want to talk. Ask her what's right about
whining, or whatever behavior you want to her change.
Allow her to answer with no interruptions and no
discussion. Just acknowledge her answer by saying
thank you. Ask her again. Is there anything else that's
right about it? Again, allow her to answer and give her
a simple acknowledgment. Ask over and over until she
has explained everything there is to say about it. It doesn't really matter what responses she gives
you, and you don't even have to understand her
justification for it. At some point, she will have a
cognition that there really is nothing right about doing
something wrong. This works for all people of all ages. It's the best
way I know to get a lazy hubby to help you out, a friend
to be on time and even a child to behave properly. It
just works. But you’ll never know that it’s true for you
until you have observed results for yourself. If you try it and observe that it doesn’t help, try it
again. Sometimes it works right away, but for my son, it
took three times and questioning him over and over
and over. He finally got it. Let me know how it goes, I’d love to hear from you!
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