Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

Please or to access all these features

Behaviour/development

Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.

5yr old whinges constantly

3 replies

ScoobieDoop · 23/03/2018 08:23

Hi, my 5 year old DD constantly whinges. She uses a whining voice 80% of the time, coupled with general impatience and reluctance to do as she's told. Please help!! It's driving me mad.

She's worse when getting dressed - my tights are twisted, my sleeves don't come down far enough, etc, or when asked to do something. Also, bizarrely, any new toys or treats seem to cause arguments (and we don't spoil her - she does not get them often). But generally everything else in between as well.

The problem is that she expects me to drop everything I am doing immediately and come to her to do what she wants. We were told this was an issue for her at nursery as well - she could not wait for things. I come to her if I can straight away, but we've never been the type of parents to give in instantly if in the middle of something.

If I'm busy doing a job or dealing with her brother (2yo), she won't listen to my requests to wait 2 minutes. She whines and whines, louder and louder. It escalates and ends with crying and me telling her off. She gets sent to her room.

Yesterday it was because she could not find number 36 on the board game we were playing. I was trying to find my DS something to watch on YouTube, so he'd leave us to play the game and she would not wait 2 mins for me to come to her.

She now has be get ready by herself in her room because of the whinging. I deal with tights, etc, when she comes out calmly afterwards.

It's the whining tone she speaks to me in (usually demanding things) that I struggle with, which escalates very quickly into crying tantrums.

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
AjasLipstick · 23/03/2018 08:36

Well I think...and this is meant kindly, that you might be expecting too much of her.

She's only 5 and having had two children with the same age gap myself (mine are now 13 and 10) I well remember being quite impatient with my older DD for similar reasons.

Her complaining about twisted tights or uncomfortable sleeves are valid....I'd try to find an alternative to tights, can she wear leggings instead?

Secondly, she probably feels "Oh he always gets all the attention" in cases like the board game incident.

The whining voice I do sympathise with but if you're reacting to it then she will continue.

Use a bit of humour...or just say "Use your own voice please!" which is what I used to say to my DD and she would listen and realise.

ScoobieDoop · 23/03/2018 09:50

I know what you are saying, but I think the fact that nursery picked up on it, and that it's happening so often, is not normal levels for her age.

I have tried remaining calm and asking her to speak nicely, but that does not work. I will ask her over and over again to wait nicely for a minute or two until I've finished something, but she persists. She gets herself so worked up into a state over little things.

OP posts:
AjasLipstick · 23/03/2018 10:50

Is she getting some one to one time with you every day OP? Like completely uninterrupted time spent just with you focused on her?

New posts on this thread. Refresh page