Why do kids whine?

There’s nothing quite as lovely as the beautiful, musical sound of a child whining at you from across the room. I mean, what parent doesn’t love that heart-warming screech of “he took my toooooyyyyy”? It’s one of the best parts of being a parent. 🥰 Jk Sarcasm. I hope you know that was sarcasm. For many parents, there’s a very visceral reaction to whining. Like nails on a chalkboard. And young children don’t always read our expressions and think “geez, maybe I should stop. My whining seems to be stressing out the adults.” Once they start it can feel like they just keep going, their tone progressively getting more high pitched until you’re considering hot gluing noise cancellation headphones into your ears. But why exactly do kids whine? Contrary to popular belief, it’s not to drive us up the wall. Like many behaviours, there’s a reason behind it. And if you’ve been listening to the MudRoom for a while I’d bet you have an inkling of what the answer is. Did you guess, dysregulation? Because if you did– ding ding ding! You’re correct. In this episode I’m going to explain why children resort to whining, but more importantly for your sanity, I’m going to give you three ways to reduce it. I mean, honestly, there’s no way to completely erase the piercing complaints. Everyone gets into gumpy, petulant moods and even adults find themselves getting a little whiny when the self-check out is just as long as the regular lines. But there are certainly things we can do to help our children communicate in more effective, respectful (and less annoying) ways. Grab the Scripts to Manage the Top 10 Crazy-Making Behaviours: prnt.link/scripts Watch the video recording here: Join the Parenting Posse: prnt.link/group the Mudroom is recorded live every Wednesday at 1:30pm ET/ 12:30pm CT/ 10:30am PT on Facebook: facebook.com/arfamilyservices