Moaning child - at a loss on how to deal with it - help?

[trying2bgood]

Any help would be greatly appreciated as am losing my rag over it now.

My dd1 who will be 4 in the New Year has developed a real moany streak. No matter what clothes you put her in, she will start moaning 'I don't like my trousers', you let her change and after 5 minutes it starts again. You explain that she cannot change again and it is ok for 5 minutes and then she starts again. If you ignore her she just starts crying louder about the particular piece of clothing. If you let her take it off, she moves onto the next piece of clothing. I say to her 'ok well take everything off then', she will refuse and then it starts again a minute later. And this is the same pretty much day after day after day. Me and dh are going mad, she does it in the car as well, so yesterday she spent one and half hours, crying and moaning about her top, it was freezing & she has a bad cold so I would not let her take it off.

I don't know what to do to curb this behaviour? Punishments work for a max of 10 mins and then it starts again, and explanation seems to do nothing. HELP!

[SantaGotStuckUpTheGreensleeve]

No help but sympathy. I've got a whinger as well. Sometimes I think about throwing him out of the window

[trying2bgood]

I KNOW!!!!!

[Sugarmagnolia]

I would say forget punishments & explanations. First let her help choose her clothes before she gets dressed. Then, once she is dressed, as hard as it is, you have to completely ignore the moaning and whining if she wants to change. If it's really doing your head in, maybe give her a time out - tell her it's just until she calms down, but DON'T discuss the clothes with her.

MY DS is 3 1/2 and has become quite whiny. Granted,his big sister winds him up deliberately but he soon realised that crying, whining, moaning got him lots of sympathy so now he does it at the drop of a hat. So as soon as he starts I just tell him that I can not understand what he says when he is whining and I will not speak to him until he can talk to me in a nice voice. If he keeps at it I sit him down in another room and tell him to sit there until he is calm then just walk out.

Mind you that would never have worked for my DD, they are so different.

Alternatively, you could make sure she can reach her own clothes and leave her to get herself dressed. Refuse to give her any help at all - at almost 4 she should be capable of it. See if that helps.

[wethreebobkings]

Let her wear what she wants and then ignore the moaning.

I say to ds "gosh that whiny voice really makes me want to have a cup of tea and read some of my really long book" and go to turn the kettle on.

Being ignored is not a good result and so he starts to talk normally, and I reward this by asking him what he would like to play with for 10 minutes with me.

If he can't stop whining at least I get a sit down and a drink while he's doing it.

[juuule]

Would let her pick her own clothes to wear. Not something that I would get in a tizz about. If it was freezing and she'd picked a thin top then I would take along a jacket or jumper for when she realises that she is cold.