My 5yo DD (youngest of 3), whinges from dawn until dusk and it is starting to drive me to distraction.
She never gains anything from the whinging, we have never given in to any whingey requests, and yet all day everyday is a soundtrack of miserable whining. She is articulate but instead of speaking normally permanently reverts to the wailing tone of an overtired two year old. See also unnecessary quantities of crocodile tears (no physical tears but lots of noise).
She has a good routine, comfortable life, lovely school, gets consistent 1on1 time, positive attention when interacting positively, lots of love and affection. Minor whinging is ignored and/or distracted, more persistent and she’s removed from the room. It doesn’t help. She never stops. I am notoriously patient but 5 years in and it is wearing very, very thin.
Her elder sisters, now 9 and 11, parented in largely the same way, never did this. They had their toddler tantrums and challenging moments (DD9 didn’t sleep for longer than 45 minutes in one go until she was 3.5) but gave up when they realised they never got anything from tantrums, and are and were generally happy, polite children who communicate well. They’re very patient with their younger sister but this is starting to grate on the whole family.
IABU- She’s only five, you’re being unreasonable/ doing a rubbish job at parenting.
IANBU- We should be able to go through life without a constant soundtrack of ‘Errreuuughhhheeeerrwaaa’ by now.
Also, if anyone has any ideas about how to get this under control, please help!