You'll have to start by talking to your son. You can't talk about this in the middle of a whining event. Try it at a different time. An 8-year-old is old enough to control his behavior; so as soon as the behavior stops working, he will let it go. Tell him that the whining is too much, that it happens every time he doesn't get what he wants and it's not going to work any longer. Be perfectly clear. Say, "We don't whine any more."
Talk about consequences if the whining continues. For example: When it happens during a family dinner, you can ask him to go to his room. Explain that you're trying to have a good table conversation, and the rest of the people don't want to hear it. You can take it a step further and talk about why certain manners - social standards - are established. If he's whining and crying, it just puts a wet blanket over everyone's conversation and can ruin their dinner.
If you do tell him that there will be consequences, be prepared to follow through. If you tell him that if he continues whining when you're in a car, you'll have to stop the car, then you have to stop the car until the whining stops.
Cindy Post Senning
Title
Expert Section | Expert Section | Expert Section | Expert Section | Expert Section | Expert Section | Expert Section | Expert Section | Expert Section | Expert Section
A straightforward answer I agree with from this site! Amazing.
If you let him whine earlier and get his way, this is why he KNOWS it works now. And you really do have to be firm about it and not let him undermine you by letting him get away with it "sometimes" or "on special occasions." There shouldn't be any special occasion in which whining is acceptable, including if he's tired. (If he's tired, he should be able to walk up to you and declare that without having a total breakdown.) You've also got to get others in on it as well, grandma/grandpa, Dad, the teacher, etc. because it's got to be consistent. If he senses that one of the adults is more susceptible to the behavior than others, he'll use it on that adult. Kids are really that smart. Consistency and just a blanket rule about the whole thing and he should stop in a little while.
He may say something like, But you were talking and I couldn't get your attention. This is another opportunity to teach him how to interrupt an adult conversation to get your attention without whining.
I have an 8 year old who consistently whines when he is asked to do something, like put his shoes away, do his homework, get ready for bed, hang his clothes up - the list goes on!!!! However, having read your suggestions above, I see that I have already been doing the suggested ideas to put a stop to it, sadly with no success. The bigger problem I seem to have is that having explained to him that whining is not acceptable, knowing this he will then determindly do it more because he seems to crave this type of negative attention - when he's told to go to his room, the whining becomes a whole lot worse and I end up saying "are you going to take yourself to your room or am I going to do it for you?" Then I get the "I'm tired", excuses all of which is adding to the amount of negative attention he is getting. He is totally unbribeable save for he doesn't like going to bed early, so I use 10 minutes off bedtime if after being warned to stop doing something, he continues to do it. Only, when he continues the behaviour and I give the punishment, the whining then gets very vocal. This can all take about 5 minutes, so he's then had 10 minutes of negative attention.
I am having another problem with my Son as well, in that he doesn't repect our house at all. He will leave rubbish wherever it falls out of his hands - again I have asked him not to do this by idenfitying the problem, telling him why it is not acceptable and showing him where he should put it. I ask him to repeat back what I've said so I know he's heard me. I ask him if he understands what I & he have said and he always says "yes", and yet, he never does it. Then when I question him about why it's happened again he'll say "I don't know", then when I ask him what the consequences of him doing this would be, he understands that the house will end up looking like a bin, and yet he will still be determined enough to continue the behaviour ongoing, rather than stopping the behaviour. He clearly understands that good behaviour gets rewarded and bad behaviour doesn't. He also understands that it is far better to show his clever side and yet he prefers to show his negative and non-clever side in preference.
I am really running out of ideas as to how to deal with these issues. I am desperate to turn this around as he is a very clever little boy and I would love for him to use his clever positive side and earn rewards and make himself a happier little boy. He agrees that it doesn;t make him happy. Please can anyone help me or give me any advise.
Many thanks.