Preschool

It's Tuesday, 5:15 pm. Tina Goldsack has just walked in the front door. Sixteen-month-old Naomi is waiting anxiously, oblivious to the pressure her mom feels to get her coat off and put away her briefcase, unpack the groceries, get the evening meal on the table. After a quick but heartfelt mother-daughter cuddle, Goldsack moves to turn on the stove. But Naomi isn't satisfied. So what does she do? She uses one of the few tools a 1 1/2-year-old has at her disposal - she starts to whine.

That pleading, grating voice. That tortured expression. Goldsack sums it up when she says, "It's like a million little nails on a chalkboard." No doubt about it, whining drives parents nuts. Still, kids have a variety of not-always-charming habits. So why is this one so hard to take?

Sarah Landy, head of the Infant and Preschool Program at Toronto's Hincks Centre for Children's Mental Health, says that whining is particularly irritating because it makes our children sound weak. Further, she adds, "whining is often about a type of sadness, and that's a tough one for parents. It brings back our own childhood sadness." Landy points out that although sadness is a normal, healthy emotion, many parent don't like to experience it, particularly through their kids.

Yet it's not always possible to listen to whining with sympathetic ears. "Sometimes, after a very long day, I'm at my wit's end," says Goldsack, a full-time student. "Today, for example, I left the house very early, I had an exam, and I have a presentation tomorrow. Even though I wanted to be there for Naomi, I needed to get supper ready the minute I walked in."

Goldsack knows that one approach might be to disregard Naomi and her whining altogether. In fact, the Sudbury, Ontario mom acknowledges that friends and family have often advised her to do just that. "Everyone says that if you ignore the whining, the child will get the point. So I tried that, and I found that when Naomi whines, often it's to get my attention. In that case, ignoring usually compounds the problem and leads to a tantrum."

Janice MacAulay, education co-ordinator for the Parent Preschool Resource Centre in Ottawa, isn't surprised. "The idea of ignoring the child - of saying 'I don't hear you' - is a little bit like saying 'When you're unacceptable, I don't hear you.' " MacAulay points out that this might not be the reassuring message a young child - whining or not - is looking for.

Further, Goldsack feels her daughter is entitled to the attention she's seeking. It's just that Naomi's whining tends to surface when Goldsack feels frazzled herself, so she can't always meet Naomi's needs upon immediate demand. "It's been really bad right now with me so busy and doing lots of assignments. If I spend a chunk of time with Naomi one day she's fine, and then if I don't spend that same amount of time with her the next day, I get into trouble."

So what can a busy parent like Goldsack do? She tries to compromise. "When I know I can't deal with her, I'd rather take a little time out for myself and pop her down with a video - one of the only things that work - than end up yelling at her, saying that I don't have time for her." A little later, when Goldsack feels calmer, she frees herself up for Naomi so that her daughter gets her chance to refuel and reconnect. "After supper it's bath time and our time together."

According to Landy, Goldsack is on the right track. "You need to look at the big picture. That doesn't mean you give in to the demands of the whining. But you take it as a signal." In a larger family, explains Landy, that might even mean scheduling weekly one-on-one time with each sibling.

For little ones like Naomi, whining is often a natural step between crying and talking. Yet older kids whine too. MacAulay says that preschoolers - or even young school-agers - who are quite capable of expressing themselves verbally often revert back to this behaviour when they're feeling needy. "Sometimes a child whines when he wants to be babied." Kids also tend to whine when they're feeling sick, so it doesn't hurt to rule out illness as a first step. Or perhaps the whining is a response to having a new baby at home, starting a new daycare, or struggling with peers at preschool. "The child might be looking to connect with you and be nurtured the way he was when he was younger, so you may follow up by giving him some of that kind of nurturing."

Of course not all whining has such deep emotional underpinnings. How, then, should parents handle garden-variety grumbling - the kind that's focussed on getting something like an extra cookie, a later bedtime or a day off from school?

"Don't reward the whining with too much negative response - don't plead," says MacAulay. "Just matter-of-factly remind the child that his message is clearer when he uses his real voice.' " MacAulay stresses that the language you use is important. "Don't tell your child she sounds like a baby - don't put her down. Use positive statements instead." And, she says, make sure that you're modelling straightforward, powerful communication yourself. That means no whining to your spouse about the terrible day you had, at least not when the kids are within earshot.

Janet Sulik is a mother of two boys and co-ordinator of an ECE program at Keewatin Community College in The Pas, Manitoba. Her five-year-old son whines, so she has come to know these frustrations first-hand. "With my son, I tell him to say what he wants in a big voice. It took him a long time to understand that he had a voice that sounded different from his whiny voice. Once he understood that, I found it easier to say, Use your big voice and tell me.' "

Sulik also tries to remind herself to step back and realize that her son isn't whining just to annoy her. "I don't think young children stop and think about how they're going to say what they have to say the way adults do. Preschoolers' emotions are very strong. The way they speak reflects how they feel. So sometimes it takes a minute for me to think, 'Oh, he's upset' or 'He's tired.' That's why he said it that way. The tone he's using has nothing to do with me."

Whether you see your child's whining as a plea for attention, a request for a bit of babying or an expression of his mood, most experts agree that the whining itself should not be rewarded. That doesn't mean you can't go ahead and give an extra long bedtime snuggle when your child seems to need it, but that you should avoid succumbing and handing over "the goods" no matter how fine the whine. This can be trickier than it seems. Imagine, for example, that your child starts whining for a cookie right before dinner. "I want a cookie! I waaant a cookie!" Clever parent that you are, you say, "Can you ask me in a normal voice?" So your equally intelligent child changes tacks and politely comes back with, "May I please have a cookie?" Before you know it, you're wrist-deep in the cookie jar, eager to let your quick study know that you appreciate his efforts. The no-treats-before-dinner rule has been left behind with the cookie crumbs.

Halifax psychologist Fred Griffin has this dynamic in mind when he talks to groups of parents about whining and other behavioural issues. "If your child says, 'Please may I have a drink of water,' the child is almost guaranteed the drink as long as she says 'please.' The parent is actually encouraging the child to use 'please' as a manipulation. Whining works the same way. The child whines, the parent says, 'Ask nicely,' so the whining ends up increasing the probability of the child getting a positive response when she asks properly."

Griffin's solution to this dilemma is meant to have parents separate the two different issues involved: "The appropriate-way-of-asking factor and the probability of outcome." Here's how it works: "The child gets a verbal zap' for whining 100 percent of the time ('You're whining and it's really not appreciated'), and a verbal compliment for asking appropriately 100 percent of the time ('You're talking nicely, good for you'). But the child's chance of getting what she's asking for is always 50/50."

This system is intended to help children learn that asking properly has its own virtue but that it doesn't guarantee results. And while it would certainly keep kids guessing and stamp out any hint of manipulation, it doesn't really take their emotional and developmental needs, nor the specifics of each situation, into account. As MacAulay explains, "If parents view persistent whining as simple misbehaviour where they would apply discipline techniques, they may be effective in stopping the whining but they might not have actually dealt with the reasons behind it."

Toronto father of two Irwin Ozier prefers to go by his gut instincts. "When I hear whining, I try to stop and think about what category of whining it is before I react. Then I decide if the situation calls for firm consistency, polite disinterest or compassion and caring attention." There are definitely times, says Ozier, when his two sons, Jeremy, nine, and Daniel, seven, have used whining as a tactic. "Just the other day, Daniel came into our room early in the morning, whining that he didn't feel well and that he couldn't go to school." Although Ozier usually pays serious attention to "the sick whine," he knew right away that this was a false alarm. "I could hear that his whining was more focused on the not-going-to-school part than the feeling-sick part, so I knew that the best response was a firm, consistent 'You're going to school.' Sure enough, the whole thing blew over within a few minutes."

You have to be a good listener, says Ozier. "When my kids whine and say that something hurts and there's no other focus, I take it very seriously." He also tries to concentrate on making initial decisions he feels he can stick to. "Before you react that first time, you have to weigh your answer. I'm a great believer in picking your battles. That means I try not to say no just because it's easy. If I do, what happens is that the kids start whining and I end up having to change my mind because the whining is so annoying and there was no reason to say no in the first place."

So is it true that children whine simply because it works? Sometimes. But it's also true that most parents wrestle with whining right around arsenic hour, when kids are exhausted from a whole day of holding themselves together for the outside world. They might return to their parents grumpy and depleted, letting some of their not-so-nice habits bubble to the surface. "I don't worry about it too much," says Ozier. "After all, if they can't be whiny at home, where can they be?"

September 1998