Who doesn’t love a high pitched request uttered five thousand times over and over again? Correct! No one likes it. Least of all a mom who has heard nothing but whines from sun up till the blessed time that your three year old (or there abouts) goes to bed finally, FINALLY! What is this phenomena all about? I have repeated the mantra about  a thousand times, “Please ask me again in your normal voice.” It helps for a brief period. A few sentences will be uttered in her normal, oh so lovely, tone. Then it’s back to the high pitched whine that the dog down the street thinks is beckoning him.

So being a curious sort myself I decided to check out if there was any research on this blasted occurrence. Of course, this being a world full of information via the web, there is lots & lots of useful and useless information on the topic. I stumbled upon sites that promised for a low low fee you could stop whining forever! With their simple, patented method (hmm no thanks). I found other moms blogging about it, hoping to find other moms that were knee-deep in the whiny trenches (don’t worry we’re all in this together!) I viewed Yahoo.com questions and read some answers that made me shake my achy head.

Then I found the real deal, actual doctors that knew what they were talking about, doctors like Child Psychotherapist, Janet Morrison, who found that whining seems to increase during the times in a child’s life when they feel frustrated with themselves. “It tends to come in periods of a child’s development when they’re a little overwhelmed, when the child is feeling that she’s not coping very well, and when the child has an expectation of failure or disappointment,” explains Morrison. “The child who expects things to go well tends to holler or shout. The child who feels a little defeated or overwhelmed tends to whine.”

Aha! So with all this new found independence there is also a huge heaping tablespoon of frustration for the things left that she/he can’t yet do on their own. I see it now so clearly. My daughter has recently started the “Let me do it/I can do it” phase as well so it makes sense to me now that I see how these two occurrences go hand in hand. Tiny piece of mind inserted.

I read on, excited to learn any new suggestions that they could dish my way for how to eliminate or at the very least curb this brutal barrage of ear splitting vocalization but was slightly disappointed. Not disappointed enough to fork over any cash to some snake oil peddler trying to tell me how to raise my child. They suggested repeating my already familiar mantra, “Ask me again in your normal voice.” or as they worded it, “In your big girl/big boy voice” There was one suggestion that I haven’t tried but I can foresee the results - role playing (which my daughter LOVES) in a calm time, when your child isn’t whining ask them to whine at you (for the love of god why?) then laugh and ask them to speak normally again. This is perhaps to reinforce to your child the difference between the two styles so when you really are in that position of correcting the behavior your child knows exactly what you mean by ‘using your normal voice’. I’m not jumping into that suggestion with open arms just yet but perhaps a reader will find it useful.

One thing I did try that is sort of hilarious to me is the role reversal, I whine back at my daughter and the results? It pisses her off to no end! Similarly when I ask her ‘why?’ a thousand times she has no patience for it and all the other toddler behaviors that I’ve tossed back in her court. She doesn’t appreciate them one bit. I would love to say that this had a positive effect on her, like her eyes lit up at the end of my performance and she said, “Wow, that whining is annoying, I shouldn’t do that.” but sadly the result was having a toddler yell at me, “HEY! I don’t like that.” -Ok honey so how do you think Mama likes it? That’s right! She doesn’t.

Whatever you try (deep breaths, counting to ten, a pint of beer) do remember that these behaviors, annoying as they are - are not only normal and common but also something that will pass.