Hi, I'm Nicholeen Peck and I teach parenting and self-government, communication, self-control
and in this video I'm gonna be talking about how to get your child to stop whining.
In this video, we're gonna be discussing why it is that children whine and what we can
do to help them conquer that behavior which is obviously not making them happy, right?
And that's what we're all about as parents is helping our children find the principles
and the skills that they need to find happiness in their future relationships and in their
disappointments. So, why do children whine? Well, there's multiple different reasons but
the majority of the time, children choose to whine because they feel like they don't
know how to express themselves and solve their problem in any other way. They're literally
just attempting to solve their problem and sometimes their problem is they don't feel
understood so they whine or complain because they want someone to see how it is that they
truly are feeling on the inside. Now, other reasons children might whine are because the
child is manipulative and they know that if they pull a sad face and make things seem
awful then someone will give in and try to coddle them and make things seem better. Either
reason that your child is whining, whether it's from habit or whether it's because they
don't feel understood and they're trying to solve their problem or if they're trying to
manipulate you to change your mind or stop correcting them or whatever the case may be,
whining is a manipulation. It is an attempt to control another person. Even if it's being
used as a way to try to solve a problem. There are better ways to solve problems and we can
teach those ways to our children. I'm known for teaching self-government. Self-government
is being able to determine the cost and effect of any given situation and possessing a knowledge
of your own behaviors so that you can control them. So, what that means is that you analyze
yourself and you decide which course corrections or behavior modifications that you need to
make in order to find yourself going in a more desirable direction or to get better
outcomes. So, a child can learn self-government. It is true that their pre-frontal cortexes
are not fully developed when they are young and they're developing as they grow but even
so, they can learn cause and effect. In fact, learning cause and effect is one of the primary
things that teaches them self-government. To create an environment where a person learns
self-government, it requires a certain kind of a tone and a certain kind of a structure.
So, the tone should be a tone of calmness. Whining is not calmness. I teach children
skills. There are 4 basic skills that we teach children. We teach them to follow instructions,
accept "no" answers and criticism, accept consequences and disagree appropriately. Each
one of these 4 basic skills that any person needs for happiness and success has within
them a step that is a step for calmness. Every one of those skills on step number 2 says
keep a calm face, voice and body. Do your child know what calmness is and what it's
not? Do they know what their calm face is versus what their calm face is not? What about
their voice or their body? You can role play the differences between these things so that
children, even very young toddlers, can learn what a calm face is and what it is not. That
way you can say to your child, "Right now, you're not keeping a calm face. You need to
have a calm face," and then they can relax their face and get calm and start to communicate
in a way that does not look like they're just about to whine. Before I get to my next point
which goes into detail about how to stop the whining when it actually occurs in the minute,
I want you to consider something. Do you know somebody else who might have a problem with
a whining child or who maybe could use this video? Share this video with them. This could
be just what we need to create more happiness in family life. Share the video with a friend
that you think might need it now. So, what do you do when your child is whining? Maybe
you've pre-taught them that they aren't having a calm face, voice and body, maybe you've
taught them the skills that they need to communicate effectively such as disagreeing appropriately,
which would be one of the main skills that I would teach my children. There are 7 steps
to disagreeing appropriately and when a person learns that, that changes everything for them.
But let's say they're not using their skill, they're not keeping a calm face, voice and
body, what do you do then? So, you need to correct the child. If the child is whining,
they need correction. Of course, we do want to understand whatever message they want to
convey to us but that needs to be done in calmness. They will never be able to sort
out their own problem when they are in mid brain or back brain. They need to be in front
brain, in the pre-frontal cortex where they do all of their problem solving in order to
really come to a solution of their problem. And if they're just seeking attention or manipulating,
all the more reason we don't discuss with a person when they're in mid brain. Instead
we point them to front brain by bringing them to calmness. The way that we do this is that
we don't react to their whining, that is super important. If you emotionally react to their
whining, if you roll your eyes or take a deep breath or whatever it is that you do to show
frustration, then they will know that they are getting to you if they are attempting
to manipulate and if they are feeling like they just want you to understand them, that
will just increase their anxiety and make them more frustrated. You'll both end up engaging
in a power struggle that you didn't really need and is not going to help you in the end
anyway. So, what you do is you describe what they're doing and then be sure to tell them
what they should be doing. So, in the teaching self-government parenting course which you
can find on my website, teachingselfgovernment.com, on that website I talk about the steps to
correcting children. I call at an effective correction. So, what do you do to effectively
correct your children? You describe what happened, describe what should have happened, why it
wasn't a good idea, what negative consequence they earned and then you practice things the
right way and allow them the opportunity to accept that consequence. You also praise them
multiple times during that correction. Now, I know some of you are saying, "My child doesn't
accept a correction." Well then, we teach other ways to deal with intensive behaviors.
We call that intensive teaching and I'm not gonna be getting into that right now but I
know that sometimes when a child is whining, that does mean they are going completely out
of control and you might need to find that solutions for that intensive type situation
by utilizing some of the intensive teaching skills that I actually offer there on my website.
But for now, just a regular correction to whining would look like this. I would say,
"Porter, right now you're not keeping a calm face, voice and body and you're not disagreeing
appropriately. What you're doing is you're whining. When you choose to whine, that means
you're choosing not to be happy because you don't feel happy right now, right?" And then
he might go, "Uhuh." And then I would say, "What you should do, Porter, is you should
keep a calm face, voice and body and you should say, "Mom, may I disagree appropriately?"
and then use your disagree appropriately skill or if you don't feel like you need to disagree
appropriately and you're just gonna accept a "no" answer or follow the instruction, however
the interaction began, then you can just say, okay and drop the subject, okay?" Next, I
would say, "Since you choose not to disagree appropriately and you didn't choose to keep
a calm face, voice and body, then you have chosen to earn..." fill in the blank your
negative consequence. In our family we always tell them that they earn an extra chore because
work is the antidote for a sick character. When a child is whining and complaining and
they can't follow instructions or accept "no" answers from their parents then they are showing
you that their character is sick. Then I would say, "Since you should not to disagree appropriately,
then you have chosen to earn an extra chore. For your extra chore, you will be doing whatever
is it," and that doesn't have to be something hard to teach them cause and effect. After
that, we would go through a process of practicing doing things the right way and analyzing how
things went wrong. But all the way through this, the response gets poured back at me
and him accepting correction and doing his extra chore are all doing to lead to learning
cause and effect as well because I'm going to be praising the things when they go right
and then he'll be seeing, "Oh, when I'm calm, I get good attention, positive attention."
Many parents don't realize it but oftentimes their children are seeking attention through
whining; they're seeking negative attention because the child doesn't get enough positive
attention. So, praise is vital for the success of the child and to help curb some of those
whining tendencies. Now, it is true that some children just whine when they hit certain
ages but, that does not need to be the status quo. In fact, it can be solved very quickly
especially if the parent is super consistent in handling it. The worst thing that you can
do is to tolerate the whining, to allow it to happen, to talk back to it. When a child
is whining to you, don't talk back to that. Say, "Oh, it looks like we need to talk about
this. We need to choose to calm first then we can talk about it." Just now this is what
you're doing and go straight into a correction so that they see this is not the type of communication
that is going to work to help me get my way. I need to get calm communicated in a good
effective way by using a skill such as the disagree appropriately skill that I often
teach people and that will help me get my way better than this whining thing. I know
that having a child that whines seems like it's gonna be forever to conquer but you might
be surprised that as soon as you start teaching yourself and your child self-government skills,
then that whining will disappear pretty quickly. They will see that there are better ways to
get understood, get their way, get attention, all those things they're looking for when
they do that whining. In order to start you off on this self-government journey, I have
a free gift for you. The free gift is my "Calm Parenting Toolkit." So, I would like to give
it to you completely free. In the description below this video, there is a link to the Calm
Parenting Toolkit. If you click on that link now, it will take you to the toolkit and you
will not have to pay for it. In this toolkit you will learn key strategies and get tools
for handling out of control behaviors and getting the family to a place of calmness
so that you can communicate more effectively and bond in a united way. Click on the link
now and we'll see you there.