Whining: a sense of powerlessness

People whine all the time; kids especially so. As a child grows older, the whining either wanes or not – depending on the child and the history of how you’ve dealt with it in the past. There are innumerable articles on the internet telling parents how to deal with whining kids. The advice ranges from ignoring their rantings to bargaining with them. I’m not a fan of either extreme approach because these ‘coping’ strategies are designed for the parent and do nothing to address why the child is whining in the first place.

The primary reason why kids whine is because they are trying to tell you that they either want something or don’t want something and they lack the emotional maturity and thought process to clearly articulate it. Yank your kid out of a play date before they are ready to go and you’ll instantly see their level of dissatisfaction expressed in varying degrees of unwillingness and uncooperativeness (you are denying them something they want). Force your kid to swallow cod liver oil because you think this is the only way to give them omega-3 fatty acids and you’ll illicit a similar response (you are making them do something they don’t want).

If you’re sure that your child’s whining isn’t based out of hungry, tiredness, injury or generally seeking attention, then the best approach to stop their whining is to empower them: give them a choice.

Remember that kids have distorted sense of time and permanence. When they feel powerless, they live in that moment. If they are hungry or tired, their powerlessness is amplified many-fold. Advice telling parents to ignore a child’s whining is not helpful and can be detrimental to both of you. Whining is their low level way of telling you they can’t cope. Why would any parent ignore this? The other extreme is praising the child for good behavior up until the moment of meltdown and bargaining for a better alternative if they stop whining. Praising and negotiating deals with the child’s behavior before and after the moment of powerlessness. It still doesn’t address the issue that brought them to that moment. Even worse, cave in to their demands hoping for a quick and quiet resolution, and you’ll do this well into your child’s teenage years as they learn to manipulate you.

If you’re sure that your child’s whining isn’t based out of hungry, tiredness, injury or generally seeking attention, then the best approach to stop their whining is to empower them.

• Listen. Your child’s actions are physicalized statements of their raw emotions. Their interests may not be the same as yours. And their timing is certainly different from yours, too.
• Give them a choice. Nothing reverses powerlessness faster than giving someone a choice. It instantly reloads their confidence.
• You gave them a choice. Let them make one and don’t put conditions on it.
• Follow through and deliver. I can’t tell you how many times I see parents waffle over the most inconsequential decision or put off making any decisions. Worse still are parents who say something and do another or not at all thinking that the child had forgotten. It is wrong to think that the situation is over when the whining stopped. If you do this, children will not believe you in the future. Lost trust is extremely difficult to rebuild.

Help your child understand that sometimes, they don’t get their way, and even if they get their way, it’s not always immediate. If your child learns these two lessons, then you have taken a giant step toward helping them work through their emotions for themselves.