Great Blog Post this Week
Mayim Bialik writes about discovering that her son is color blind. I found reading the post valuable not so much because of the story of her discovery (although I liked that too), but rather because of her description of the parenting moment and the lessons she took away from the experience.The Weekly Parenting Technique I Said I'd Never Use, But Did
Michael has been whining incessantly lately. Well, at least it seems that way. It started before he was sick last week, but then last week I gave in to the whining a lot because he was so pitiful and this week it has been so much worse. I tried not responding to the whining at all. I tried calmly replying, "I can't understand you when you talk that way." Neither technique worked.Finally I began whining back. I didn't do it in anger or frustration or from a desire to make fun of him. I was just desperate. I told him calmly that I didn't like his whining voice. It was not a nice way to ask for things. I told him that from now on, whenever he whined at me I was going to whine back. And then I did. When he whines at me, I reply, "I can't understand you when you talk that way to me." And I do it in an incredibly exaggerated annoying whiny voice. He immediately cues in to the problem and makes a visible effort to reign in his own whining. The technique gets his attention and works every time (so far). So, even though I don't prefer the whole if-your-child-hits-you-hit-them-back method of parenting in general, in this case, whining back at him seems to be working when nothing else did.
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