Whine Time

The other day, my 8-year-old daughter came up to me and in a whining voice said, "Mommy, my sister hit me in the wrist!" So, after telling her sister our household mantra, "No hit, no kick!" and requesting that she apologize, I asked my older daughter if she really needed to continue to whine and whimper... Apparently, she did. She said (in a whiny voice), "Well, it makes me feel better!" So I thought, ok, what's the harm other than a little irritation on my part? Since she tends to whine and whimper at great length over small things (her little sister, on the other hand just bounces up and says, "I'm okay!") I thought, let's put a time limit on this. I suggested that she could whine all she wanted for 5 minutes and then we would move on with the day. This seemed to work for her and so I took note of the clock and she started, "Whine, whine, sniff, sniff, whine..." Every once in a while this would be interupted with, "How much time do I have left?" "Two more minutes" And then, "Ok! Whine, whine, whimper..." (I can't really type the sound of the whine -- kind of hmmm, hmmm, or something -- you get the point!)

This worked out great, because at the end of the 5 minutes she felt better and had gotten it out of her system, and I did not get irritated listening to it, because a) I knew when it would end, and b) it ended up being pretty amusing with her calling out for time checks! I highly recommend this -- I'm sure we'll have cause to use this tactic again!