But, man, was I ever glad to hear her son whining yesterday. No seriously. See, Brianna has hit this age where I rarely ever get spoken to in a normal tone of voice. It’s all whine. About everything. Even socks, for pete’s sake! Drives me batty. And the tantrums? Oy. I was starting to think that I was doing some really awful parenting and ruining my child.
Thank God I heard Jennifer’s son (who’s only slightly older than Brianna) whining yesterday. Not just once but several times. I know Jennifer and I know for a fact she’s not doing any awful parenting (and she was amazingly patient with the whining. Did I mention I was happy to hear the whining?) so that makes me realize–it must be the age! They whine. It’s what they do.
And if you somehow happen to have a 3 to 4 year old who doesn’t whine, keep it to yourself, k? Nobody wants to hear it (okay, at least *I* don’t want to hear it. No bursting of my bubble, dammit!)
Um. Thanks, Jennifer. I “heart” you 
Giggling at the memories of my older to at that age.. all whining all the time was the norm!My step daughter @ 11 still whines. No that you wanted to hear that either, but you didn’t say it was taboo! (hee hee)Here’s hoping your whining soon comes to an end!
My 3.5 year old, she whines. It is enough to make me crazy. But fortunately, it’s not all she does. She also bounces and chatters in this happy little voice and makes up amazing stories (usually featuring ladybugs for some obscure reason understandable only to other three year olds). I try to focus on the happy chatter and not the whine.
Oh, also, have noticed she whines more when tired/hungry/thirsty and so I’ve taken to pre-emptively pushing snacks and drinks on her. “Here, have some applesauce! Have some milk! Have some cheese!” It helps. She’s growing really fast and I think it’s just easy for those little engines to run down.
My 4-year-old niece definitely falls into the whining category. Of course, she then flashes her dimples and her smile thinking that she’ll get her way anyway. It doesn’t stop the whining though.
My nieces whine. I would bribe them NOT to whine if I could afford it. ”Aunt Annmarieeeeeeeee. I want to ride your bicycle buuuut it’s toooooo taaaaaaaaall. Aunt Annmarieeeeeeeee. Aunt Annmarieeeeeeeee. Aunt Annmarieeeee, Uncle Staaaaaaan won’t let meeeeeeeeeee have anooooother cooooooooooookie.”I want to beat my head against the wall.Their ages are 7 and 9.
I have an extremely articulate 7 (tomorrow!) year old who is still a champion whiner when she’s tired or sick or thwarted. Tired and sick, it’s not completely her fault. Thwarted, I won’t tolerate the whining. A couple weeks ago she was thwarted, and responded by first whining and then launching a wall-eyed fit of the kind you don’t expect after 3 years old (I mean, a “call a priest, my child is possessed” fit). So I grounded her from TV for one month. Everyone said – you’ll never make it! You can’t keep her from TV for one month! They were wrong.Whining is expected and unavoidable until about 5, I think. All kids do it. After 5, so long as a kid doesn’t have any developmental issues, she is able to think about how she’s behaving and control it. At that point it’s a training issue – they have to be trained not to whine.A few days ago she wrote me a note: mom you are mean a lot but i love you very much anyway.I was touched by both sentiments.
Would telling you just how many years of this you have to look forward to, count as ‘bursting your bubble’?*innocence*
OMG the whinnnning!!!!!!! My three year old whines about EVERYTHING too! Just ridiculous things! And it usually starts right after his brother has happily fallen asleep so that he wakes up screaming. So then there is the whining and the screaming and don’t get me started on the husband! OY!
lol…..my son. Ugh. I pretend not to hear it anymore but oh, how I wish it would end. I tried ignoring it but then it just gets louder.I “heart” you too. =;)
Angie,
As should be clear from all the above comments, Whining at that age is,I think, very common. Kindergarten cuts down on it quite a bit, because they are trained fairly quickly that whining will get them a new task on which to focus. I subbed in my school system and that was the first thing the assistant in the kindergarten class taught me. If they come up whining take them to the filler folder. It was a folder with coloring pages, puzzle pages and various cards with activity ideas written in. It seems to help them learn to find something else to occupy their mind. I will note that it doesn’t work as well around lunch or naptimes. They say that ages 2-6 are when the brain is most receptive to learning.They become bored and dis-satisfied easily. Most are able to be re-directed though. Try file folder games. There is a yahoo group for these. They give you ideas for free. Easy to make,transport,etc.means you can have some everywhere for emergencies. The kids can even help. Let her do any coloring. So what if the coloring is scribble, it will be her work and she will enjoy seeing it later.
Kids seem to re-develop the awful whining stage right before middle school. They aren’t teenagers and they’re not kids. They’re stuck and don’t know how to act. For some reason this causes an exaggerated dip back into childhood whining. It isn’t nearly as easy to deal with.
I hope some of what I said helps. If I was closer I would make up some of the file folder games for you. They were such a blast. I carried the ones I made with me to sub. Even the older kids seemed to enjoy them.
Sorry I was so long winded