How To Deal With Whining

     Since retirement, I play golf very early every morning. Today, at 6 am, in 50-degree, misting rain I asked myself why I was doing this. I realized that I hit about one good shot in every four swings. That is called intermittent reinforcement and it is very addictive to human beings. It is what causes people to keep coming back to casinos – you don’t win every time, but you win once in a while and that hooks you.

     Babies start life totally helpless and their only way of surviving is to cry and annoy the adults around them enough to take care of their needs. Crying when we perceive that we need something is our earliest and most basic form of communication with our parents. As infants get older, they learn to do more things by themselves, but they still whine and cry as the first response to the feelings of frustration or need.  Parents know that responding to this initial whining is enforcing it and will result in more whining in the future, but occasionally a parent will say, “He just wore me down. I know I shouldn’t have, but I just gave in”. However, when the whining meets with occasional success, that is intermittent reinforcement and it’s certain that the first thing the child will try next time is whining again. In fact, intermittent reinforcement can create a child who whines all the time and also continues to whine because the child knows that continued whining sometimes works. Children also know which adults it will work with and which ones don’t respond. If Grandma never gives into whining, the child will often immediately move to Plan B without even trying whining.

   Before a year of age, the appropriate parent response to whining is, “Don’t whine”. After a year, it is, “Don’t whine, show me what you want”. After two years of age, it is, “Don’t whine, tell me what you want”. After three years of age, it is, “Don’t whine”.

     It is frightening how much children watch us and mold their behavior in accordance with our responses. I always have to remind myself that a child learns something from every interaction he has with an adult and, when I ask myself, “What did I just teach him?” it is often not what I wanted to teach him.

     If you need me, I’ll be on the golf course.