A Game-Changing Approach to Whining and Tantrums

Image Credit here.

Disclaimer: This post is anecdotal, about how a different approach to whining has improved the peace and happiness in my household. I do not, however, believe in a one-size-fits-all approach to parenting.

When I look around at my mom friends, we all have totally different parenting styles. And they are all wonderful mothers who are doing an amazing job and probably screwing up their children only minimally. (Because we’re all screwing up at least a little). So follow your heart and your wise mind when it comes to parenting, and I hope this article finds its way to those of you who might find it helpful. The rest of you can read it and laugh at my parenting fails and praise the powers that be that I’ve found an approach that works better for me. 

Also, forgive the cheesy title. I’m just excited.

Most of you know I work as a mental health therapist in addition to my infinite unpaid hours clocked in #momlife. Thus, in school we had to take classes on behaviorism, or essentially, how to “predict and control” human behavior (lol x infinity). Said classes involved training pigeons to peck red dots and turn in circles, but I digress.

They make it sound so simple: to increase the probability of a behavior occurring, reinforce it (preferably at random intervals rather than every time). To decrease the probability of a behavior occurring, the most effective way is to ignore the undesired behavior and continue to reinforce the behavior you do want.

Most parenting articles I’ve read take the behaviorist approach to whining and tantrums. Stay firm, they say. They just want attention, so ignore them. Or alternatively, stay firm and punish whining and tantrums.

And because I most certainly would like to decrease the probability of whining and tantrums for my kids, I have been trying to follow this advice. It has failed miserably, largely due to human error. On my part.

Sees, there’s this thing that we in the social sciences call “extinction bursts.” It’s when you don’t reinforce (read: ignore) a behavior and then the behavior increases temporarily before being eliminated.

Here is a short one-act play to demonstrate:

Warrior Girl: Whining and fussing incoherently and making little cry moans. (Let me remind you, she is 2.5 and can talk quite well).

Me: “Honey, what do you need?”

Warrior Girl: Whining and fussing incoherently and making little cry moans.

Me: “If you need something, you can ask for it nicely. But I don’t like when you use a whiny voice, so I’m not going to listen to you when you talk like that. When you are ready to use a nice voice, I will listen to you.”

Warrior Girl: Whining and fussing incoherently and making little cry moans. Now also saying “Mama…! Mama….! Mama…!”

Me: Walks out of the room. Not reinforcing behavior.

Warrior Girl: Incoherent whining turns to crying.

Warrior Girl: Crying turns to sobbing, “Mooooommmy! Mooooommmmy!”

Me: Reassures self, “It’s okay, it’s just the classic extinction burst.” Takes deep breaths.

Warrior Girl: Follows me into other room. Continues sobbing.

Me: “Honey, it’s okay. You just need to use your words when you need something. I don’t listen to whiny voices.” Blah blah blah etc. etc. Continues trying to reason with someone who is completely beyond reason in that moment.

Warrior Girl: Sobbing increases in intensity and pitch.

Me: Stands helplessly in a stew of anger, guilt, and frustration. 

Grace Girl (2 month old): Starts crying to be fed.

Me: Takes deep breath, picks up Grace Girl and starts breastfeeding.

Warrior Girl: Begins to hyperventilate.

Me: Also on verge of hyperventilating. Fortunately, does not hyperventilate. But comes close. Sits helplessly while never-ending “extinction burst” continues. Eventually does just about whatever is necessary to make. it. stop. Then is frustrated at self for ultimately reinforcing not just whining but full-on hyperventilating tantrum behavior. #parentingfail Then justifies to self that, as a toddler, she doesn’t have the self-regulating abilities of adults and needs me to help her regulate her emotions. 

***

Now, I’m not against behaviorist approaches to many problems. And behaviorism was useful in one sense: it taught me to look at the “function” of the behavior, ie. what purpose it serves.

In the case of my toddler’s whining, it was clear the purpose was most often to get my attention, but at other times it seemed to be about wanting a treat or wanting her tortilla cut into “little tiny pieces.”

But ultimately, this approach was not cutting it for me, largely because I’m just not someone who can continue to ignore it when my daughter appears to be on the verge of a panic attack.

So one night before bed, I prayed to find a better approach, that would work for my personality and that would be better for my feisty Warrior Girl. That night, it so happened that Warrior Girl had an ear infection, and was up much of the night crying in pain.

At 3 am, as I was awake putting drops in her ears and cool washcloths on her forehead, the heavens opened up and I found exactly what I needed via the well-known conduit of divine inspiration, Google.

The basic idea is this: Instead of looking at “bad behavior,” ie. whining and tantruming, as our children being naughty, being difficult, and being unreasonable, we can look at the behavior as important information about how our child feels, and as cries for connection.

When our children feel disconnected from us, their primary attachment figures, their ability to self-regulate and control their behavior disintegrates and they become unreasonable and demanding.

The kiddos might have a backlog of negative emotion built up from many little moments of feeling disconnected, and then something small like us answering the phone or turning away to try to make dinner can trigger them into full-on freak out mode.

So rather than bending over backwards to placate the little tyrants, the article suggests setting limits that allow the child something to direct their negative emotions towards. For example, “Honey, I am not going to pick up your binky. You are a big girl and you can pick it up yourself if you want it.”

Cue screaming and crying.

Then, the idea is to listen non-judgmentally to their big emotions, which may include some tantruming. “You are so frustrated right now. You really want me to pick it up for you. You are very sad and mad.” If they will let you, you can even hold them while they let out all those pent-up feelings.

The point is to convey acceptance, and that you are ready and available to help them feel connected with you again. Continue to hold to the limit or boundary that you set, and allow them to vent their feelings for as long as it takes. (Sometimes a “session” has to be continued at a later time if you run out of time for one reason or another).

Here’s the incredible thing: in this calm, loving environment, they eventually just…calm down.

The folks at Hand in Hand Parenting call it “Listen, Limit, Listen.”

I call it genius.

I do work with kids in therapy at times, and this is essentially how we handle emotional outbursts in therapy as well (minus the holding). We would never try to just shut them down or give them candy to make them stop. Getting those emotions out in a safe, accepting environment is what therapy is.

Warrior Girl has been dealing with some big emotions with adjusting to all the changes around here lately. The first few times I did this with her, I ended up holding and rocking her while she cried for upwards of 30 minutes. I just kept saying, “Mama loves you. Mama will always love you and be here for you. You will always be my baby.”

Now that she has been able to process through a lot of those pent-up emotions, the outbursts are comparatively brief. I believe she feels more secure and connected with me. She has been more cooperative, less jealous, and less prone to whining and tantrums in the first place.

One of the best changes is in myself, though. The intense anger and frustration I was feeling has diminished. Viewing challenging behavior as a cry for connection makes all the difference in my attitude and allows me to respond with compassion rather than anger…more of the time. 😉

Sure love my precious 2-year-old helper girl.