Candyland Goes to Time Out Land

B R E A K I N G N E W S ! ! !

[Candyland, 2/12/2009] It looks like tonight that Mr. Mint and Gramma Nutt have finally been caught. What crime did they commit? Let’s just say they were in the wrong place when cops raided Gum Drop Mountain after an anonymous tip.

In parenting terms…I gave my children’s Candyland game a time-out.

Why you may ask?

Well because it was getting late in the evening and we were all playing a quiet game of Candyland. My wife usually “stacks the deck” in favor of our kids and lets them draw the cards with the candycane, gumdrop, gingerbread man, etc. Well for whatever reason — I drew a pretty sweet card and traveled the the front of the pack, at least 20 spaces in front of my 4 year old son. Well……….

Tip #337 of the Parenting Guide – Let you Kids Win

With the combo of being 10 minutes from bed time, me going halfway to the finish line (in front of my son), that just made my son just lose it. He said, “I don’t want to play anymore, I NEVER want to play again!” Of course, those words were just that — words. But he pushed all the pieces off the board and I just about had it and therefore took the game and stuck it on the top of our canopy bed frame. In a time-out!

“HAH!!! that’ll teach you,” I thought with a smug look on my face. Well did it work?

50/50 I would say. Of course, I actually felt like I got my point across to him. He was saying sorry about 100x at Formula 1 speeds – he does that when he knows he’s wrong and my wife and I are going to take something away or not allow him to do something as a form of punishment. He knew that he did something wrong, but he was just over tired and couldn’t think it through.

Sure, I was being a hard-ass Dad, but i just needed to do this. My son is NOT the type of kid that does well in time-out (himself) so i resorted to removing the game from the child. I read that somewhere a year or so ago, ‘stick the game or toy into timeout has good results’ (I’ll have to dig up that article again).

My son one that can be talked down from his rants and rages by my wife -God bless her! She is really good at talking to him and making him understand what happened, why he was in trouble, and in this case, why the game was in time out on top of our bed frame!

I guess my point is this: Parents, choose wisely on what you punish for and how you punish. Maybe I went a little overboard on this one…but I still think he learned from it.

We’ve yet to play Candyland again.

The Night of the Fake Crier – Does Your Child Whine Non-Stop

Wow, our family is gonna be famous!

I can’t confirm anything yet but I have a tingly feeling on the back of my neck that there is a movie production company out in our back yard secretly filming the next Summer Blockbuster, “The Night of the Fake Crier“, starring our son. I mean, MAN, does he have the part of lead actor down pat! Whining, pouting, whimpering, tears and whatever else his little mind can muster up. (read this post about Dry Crying and how Actors have to learn to cry)

I’m not sure if he’s reading from cue cards underneath the kitchen table (nope, just checked, nothing was there!) Maybe he’s learning something from The Backyardigans, Diego, or even Word World! Yep, probably Word World sense it’s been teaching him how to spell. Or maybe it’s because he sees Mommy and Daddy guzzling down bottle after bottle of wine and thinks that WINE and WHINE are the same! Sorry bud, they aren’t — not even close!

Anyway, I’m not chucking my son “under the bus”, I’m just trying to find humor in parenting and laugh a little more about things like this.

So not to digress any further, my wife has been catching our son snickering when she turns her head after he’s been having a whining fit. See!!? He is faking the whining. Even tonight at bedtime, which was after 9pm (totally bad!) he was so cranky and exhausted that when we made him go to bed (in our room since the t-storms were out there booming!) he went back to acting and gave us a good show of tears, pouts and whines. “I’m not ti-rrr–ed”, “I don’t neeeedddd to go to bed!” “blah blah blah”.

Both my wife and I can say, “Logan, stop with the fake cries and whines” and usually he does. Hopefully that IS A GOOD THING and we are progressing in the right way because I don’t think my wife and I can handle much more whining. I’m thinking a chalkboard and nails running up, down, sideway, back and forth would actually be soothing!! LOL

I did some research on the web to look for an image or video to use on this post but instead found this great info about whining.

Here is a kick-ass article on Daddy Dan about whining, originally posted on The Baby Shrink (which I think is no longer)! Did you know…

Whining, believe it or not, is a way your toddler has developed to avoid melting down into a total tantrum. This is good, right? What would you rather have: whining — or a kicking, screaming tantrum? It’s also a way your toddler is working on to establish some more power around this place.

read Daddy Dan’s full post on What To Do About a Whining Toddler

Tags: whining, preschooler, children, bedtime

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Reposting: Thing to Remember When Your Kids Are Driving You Frickin’ Insane

I found this article to be just what I wanted to say.  I have times where my kids drive me into a frenzy and they aren’t doing whatever it is that they are doing to INTENTIONALLY annoy me, they are doing things because that is they way they know how to do it.

Like yesterday when picking up L and K from daycare, my 22 month old daughter K now insists on climbing into the SUV and into her car seat. She has been doing this for a few weeks after watching her big brother do it.  If I try to boost her up she says, "NO I DO! I DO!", after 15 minutes of getting her into her seat I was pretty annoyed and just wanted her to sit down. It was 5:30pm after a long day of work and I just wanted to get everyone home for dinner and to play outside.

But afterward thinking back on what happened I now see that she is just trying to figure things out and do them herself.  Sure it’s frustrating, but if I didn’t let her climb into her seat alone it might take longer for her to learn how to do it and then I would have to keep buckling her in, etc.  Our 3 1/2 year old son, L, already climbs in and buckles himself in which is such a big help! Thanks Buddy!

So here is the article that I enjoyed reading. It’s over on the Cranking Widgets Blog .

Things to Remember when your kids are driving you frickin’ insane

Like I say, I realize there are times when my son gets in a bad mood and gets pissed off and wants to get the old man riled up. But if you were to take all of the times I have gotten riled up v. the number of times he was trying to get me that way, you’d notice a grave disparity between the two figures. This is something that makes me sad to think back on, but does well to motivate me in dealing with him now, or when I’m at my worst.

The Weekday Morning Rush Hour — Steps to Deal with Whining, Meltdowns and Other Delays

Which do you think is worse? Sitting in a traffic jam on the way to school or having your preschooler meltdown right before you are on your way out the door to dropoff at daycare? Ok, neither is the best situation, but the meltdown or delay in actually leaving can raise stress levels rather quickly, especially if both parents need to leave to get to work on time.

I am wondering how most families deal with this morning “rush hour” with their kids (leave us comments below). My wife and I have had about 3 good mornings so far this year with getting both kids up, dressed, fed, and out the door without TV, whining or meltdowns. That is 3 days in 3 months — great! Nine more perfect days this year!! There needs to be a better method to our morning madness. Read the rest of this entry »

What Do You Do When Your Kid Throws a Whiny Fit?

How many parents have the beginnings of gray hairs due to a whining toddler or preschooler? What causes your child to whine? Why does the sound of whining drive parents crazy? Why do I feel like I’d rather hear someone run their finger nails down a chalkboard right now!?

Battling with a child that constantly whines is no fun — for both the parent and the child. Trying to stop the whining using threats or time outs probably won’t work either, and most likely end up in a screaming match of “BUT I WANT TO!“  And I’m not sure which side (in our house) wins.  Sometimes I have to give in to my 3 1/2 year old son because I just can’t take the constant whining. I know…this only leads to future whining. And I know it does. We just battled it out today with Boo because he wanted to ride his electric 4-wheeler but the battery was dead from the previous day’s riding (and Mommy and Daddy forgot to recharge the battery overnight). Read the rest of this entry »

Can the Non-Stop Whining Be Stopped?

Oh boy do I hope so! My wife and I are going crazy some nights. Our 3 1/2 year old son ONLY wants Mommy to put him to bed. (no Dad’s don’t think that is awesome…I then hear it from my wife, don’t I honey!?) Anyway, my wife and I have been making progress at bedtime with Boo the past few weeks and then, just as the tides ebb and flow, this week our son was back to whining about everything.

Why does this happen? I have no clue. I can’t even speculate, sorry! But the advice I have to offer is, dude, you aren’t the only other Dad reading this that this same thing is happening too! I Googled “3yr old whines too much” and found that I wasn’t alone either! Whew. My wife and I can regain our sanity and now work to find a solution.

Some suggestions I located online:

“I always told my kids that I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I persisted until they talked normal.”

“Perhaps you haven’t listened to them unless they were whining, so that’s why they have gotten into the habit…I have done the same thing, its easy to be too busy to listen to their every word.”

“Show them that they need to get your attention first, eye to eye contact, then talk normally to get what they need. If they yell from across the room, tell them they need to be closer and that you can’t hear them.”

“If you give them what they want when they speak normally, then that will reinforce the normal behavior”

All of the above advice require a ton of patience. We’ve been trying to get Boo to look at us when we talk to him and I also was just thinking about having him come closer when he talks to us. I think we’ll give those to a good attempt as that will definitely reduce my stress levels.

Technorati Tags: preschooler, whining

Read the rest of this entry »