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.

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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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.

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.

Ok this is. I am spending a Saturday morning alone at home and can now finally read the articles my wife sent me regarding morning routines, dealing with whining and other such valuable information. The first article deals with some tips to help create a “No-Yelling Morning Routine” (from Parents.com). This is great information for our household, as both Mommy and Daddy work and the kids attend a daycare school, The Malvern School.

Some of the best tips from the list include:

Pack your child’s lunch the night before and leave it in the fridge. Yes this is definitely a good thing to do but there are times when we just don’t have the energy to pack the night before, of course this then leads to a hectic morning. Check out my next blog post about A Hack on How to Pack your Preschooler’s Lunch.

Pack backpack and leave it-and anything else that needs to go to school-by the front door. This is simple to do and definitely keeps the morning routine less chaotic. Our children (3 1/2yr and 20 mo) pick up on the fast urgent frantic pace in the morning and this leads them to feeling rushed and stressed. Pack the bag and even stick it in the car the night before. This is definitely important if you need to take an extra pack of diapers or wipes to school.

Get up 15 minutes earlier so you’re not rushed. Huh? Why would anyone want to do this? Of course that is not me, Jeff,talking that is the voice in my head of my wife. She loves to sleep and those 15 minutes of sleep in the morning really make her day. But shhhh, she doesn’t know that I’ve set the clocks in our bedroom 20 minutes a head. It’s better to see the clock say 6:10am when it is actually 5:50am! Those extra minutes sure come in handy and have made our mornings a little less rushed.

Give your child a to-do list. Even if your kids cannot read yet sit down with them and go over the morning routine (wake up, get dressed, eat breakfast, brush teeth, go to school). You can also draw your list which gives your child visual clues as what is next. But if any of you have a 3-4 year old you probably already know that they can remember things, like the smallest thing, or something that you told them 3 weeks ago. So give them a little reminder from time to time and say, “I know you can remember things, here is our morning routine,” and review that each morning for a week. The next week you may have to nudge them a bit but soon they’ll remember.
Keep the TV off. Seems like a simple thing to do. Not in our household, but we’re getting better at it. We haven’t had the TV on (in the morning) for maybe 10 days. Even if your child says “Only one show” you have to know that by giving in that “one show” will become “one more, pleeeeze” and once you say “No it’s time to go” the meltdown happens and your morning routine is out the window. We struggled with no morning TV for a few days but then things got easier and now no weekday morning TV unless it’s the weather report so we can dress the kids appropriately. I now allow Boo, who’s 3 1/2 years old, to watch 2 Diego or Dora episodes on the weekend mornings before Mommy and K-Bop wake up. It is a way for him to know that the weekends are TV time for him and weekdays are parent time.

So give some of the above tips a chance and I hope it leads to less chaotic mornings for everyone!

Please leave a comment if you have a good tip to share with us and other readers.

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).

Boo was adamant on riding the 4-wheeler and didn’t listen to us when we were explaining that the battery didn’t have any “juice” left. I tried to tell him it’s like “when you eat lunch, you get energy…the battery needs to get it’s energy. You can ride later today”.

Well that just didn’t cut it for him, he needed to ride it then and there and this led to a whining meltdown and power struggle.  What finally worked was Mommy taking him inside to “cool down” and then once he was calm, and able to actually hear her, she talked things out with him.  Boo is a child that seems to do best when mommy or I talk about things to him and explain the situation. Of course, during a meltdown nothing you say will ever be heard!

So finally after 30 minutes my wife was able to talk him down and make him understand. From that point on the day was perfect. He even laid down on the couch and took a nap. Something he hasn’t done for months on the weekends.

Parent’s Magazine has some other great ways to deal with your child’s whining or demands.

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

Some other ways we’ve figured out how to deal with Boo’s whining is to give him a lot of treats and do exactly what he says! (Sorry about that, Boo just told me to type that!)

No actually, that is the worst thing to do, never just “give in” to your child because we can’t take it. Of course, when you are in the middle of a 20 minute meltdown, just giving a little something to bring him down to a focused level so I can communicate with him seems to work. Then discussing things with Boo like “Mommy and Daddy can’t understand when you whine, when you use your words we can understand and get you what you want.”

Also make sure to ask your child if they are “missing” something. Like this week, Boo’s daycare teacher is away for a family emergency. Boo is a child of strict routine, and what 3 1/2 year old isn’t, but having her gone is throwing a kink in his daily routine. My wife asked him if he misses her and his response was “Yes”. I also asked him tonight at bed time.

So make sure you interact and show your children you love them when they are being good. I find that I am getting more and more used to good behavior praise and using it to my advantage. Good behavior praise works better in the he long run than punishment or timeouts. I can recall from my college psychology class that punishing (timeout or spanking) is a short term solution to the problem. Sure! It will stop the problem dead in their tracks but only for the moment the punishment lasts. If you give positive feedback, the preschooler with eat it up and want more and more. Hopefully this behavior will start to push out the bad meltdown behavior!

Good luck, please leave comments with your questions or solutions!!