Picture this: you’ve had a busy day at work and your child has been in childcare or school. You’ve now successfully herded them home and are about to embark on cooking dinner.
But alas, your little one isn’t happy about it.
No parent is safe from the occasional whine – some kids will do it more than others. It’s an incredibly effective form of communication from children that tends to peak between the ages of two and four.
In fact, research has confirmed that a child’s whining is one of the most distracting sounds on the planet. So it makes sense that parents would want to learn how to reduce the auditory bombardment as much as possible.
If your child tends to whine a lot after periods of separation, psychotherapist Hayley Rice recommends it’s time to stop whatever you’re doing and connect with them – even if it’s just for a minute.
“Whining is often a bid for connection from a child who doesn’t know how to ask for it or doesn’t even know that they really want it,” she explains in a TikTok video.
“Try to get some moments – even if it’s 30 seconds of connection – first,” she advises.
Some ideas you might want to try, according to Rice, include:
- Play thumb wars,
- Ask open-ended questions about their day or what they might want to do later,
- Sing together in the car on the way home and laugh your heads off,
- Hop or skip to the house,
- Give big hugs and pretend you’re stuck like glue and can’t let go of them.
“Now tell them: ‘I’m going to be cooking and I can’t wait to play later, but right now I won’t be doing those things’,” advises Rice.
Doing all of this before you start cooking, or cleaning, or whatever task you need to accomplish, helps them feel more connected to you – so they’re more likely to accept when you tell them you need to cook dinner and can’t play with them.
Lots of parents thanked the therapist for her advice in the comments section, but some stay-at-home parents noted their children still whine after a lot of connection throughout the day.
One mum wrote: “What if there’s no separation? Only child, work from home mom, full attention. Whines all day.”
When Rice asked if they had connection time, she replied: “Lots of connection time, we read books, helps with chores, lots of hugs, silly time, one on one play time, walks, lots of talking and explaining.”
If you can relate, your child might be trying to tell you they need something other than connection.
In a piece for HuffPost, Dr Jessica Michaelson says one of the main reasons children whine is because they are exhausted and need your help. They’re telling you: “I can’t act big anymore, please take care of me like I was a baby.”
In this case, Dr Michaelson advises reflecting back the subtitles of the whining, so basically verbalising to them why they’re whining.
And sometimes kids whine because the last time they did it, they got their own way. In which case, stand firm, don’t cave, take a big breath and remember: you’re doing great.