Putting An End to Whining: Right Now!

As parents one of our hardest jobs is raising kids, but what some of us don’t realize is that we don’t have to go at it alone. There are plenty of resources available to parents to help aid them in raising their kids, such as grandparents or other extended family members. There are also plenty of resources available to give you advice and tips on how to handle certain situations that you encounter when raising kids. One thing that you will more than likely encounter a few times when raising children is whining. Every child at one point or another tends to whine; how long they whine and how often they whine depends on what you do as a parent to stop their whining.

Here are some tips for putting an end to whining.

Tip one:
Before you go to public places that can trigger whining, such as grocery stores, restaurants, amusement parks, etc., sit down, and talk to your child about what kind of behavior you expect out of them. Tell them what is going to happen if they decide to start whining. Basically what you want to do is to communicate with your child what you are going for, what the rules are going to be, and so on. This way the child will know what is expected of them and what the consequences are going to be if they don’t live up to their expectations.

Tip two:
Mark areas in your house as “no whine zones”. Basically, any room in your house that is not the child’s bedroom should be considered a No Whine Zone. If they start whining in the No Whine Zone you should simply remind them that this is a No Whine Zone, and if they want to continue the behavior they need to go into a room that is a whining area. When making “no whine zones” you should also include a whine area, usually the child’s bedroom, so that if the child continues to whine they have a safe and secure environment to do it in where you can’t hear them.

Tip three:
If you have older children, a great way to get them to stop whining is to start some type of whine fine. You can charge a dollar amount, or you can use coupons or something else that you think of. But basically the point to this exercise is to take a coupon or charge them a dollar every time that they whine. If you are doing the money thing you are going to have to give your child chances to earn the money such as an allowance or extra chores. The coupons are a great alternative to the money thing because they can earn coupons for doing good things and lose coupons for doing not so good things, such as whining. And the coupons also work to help praise your child for not whining, because when they earn so many coupons you need to reward them with a treat.

Tip four:
Another thing that you can try to stop the whining is to tell your child that you can’t understand them when they whine, and that it hurts your ears when they whine; they need to understand that if they are going to whine you are not going to listen because you can’t understand them. You can also tell them to come back and talk to you later when they are done whining so that you understand them.

Regardless of how you go about trying to get your child to stop whining, the key to doing it is to be consistent, which means that you always have to follow through. You can’t allow your child to whine one day and then punish them the next; that ends up sending mixed messages to your children.