if you adopt a 'playful parenting approach'

[otchayaniye]

interested in what silly games and attempts to connect with your child you do regarding whining and, say, regressive behaviours.

What age child? Mine's approaching 12 and our idea of a silly game is making up a Limerick or stupid words to a song :) Not sure that's what you're looking for

My DS is 14mo. I try playfully to mirror what he is doing in the case of whinging, but am careful because I don't want him to think I am laughing at his feelings IYSWIM. Big sad face, but with a silly Beaker off the Muppets mouth, and exaggerated whingy sounds. If that doesn't make him laugh, I try and morph the sounds so I sound confused, and then I try and look confused and find something silly to be confused about, e.g. my own hand at the end of my arm. (Sounds like a big and rather idiotic performance when you write it out. Takes about 20 seconds though). If he's still not laughing, I take that as a cue his feelings can't be laughed away, and switch to try and offering him comfort. If he does something regressive - he hasn't far to regress at this stage! but sometimes if he's feeling a bit sorry for himself he might crawl around after falling over instead of walking - I become delighted to have a baby, and scoop him up as if he was a baby, with cuddles and delight which generally ends somehow in raspberries on the stomach. I'm usually saying "Oh yes! This is my baby! You can be my baby!" in... an operatic or melodramatic voice. I don't know if he gets what's going on but he usually laughs for a good raspberry session anyway. And tries to escape.

I put on a silly voice while holding ds's toothbrush and tell him that I'd very much like to have a dance in his mouth

I've been enjoying reading Laura markhams positive parenting site www.ahaparenting.com where she gives examples of games to help you connect. I really like her approach. I do therapy to help recover from my own authoritarian upbringing. DS is only four Months old though so all theory for me for now at least. Anyone else like Laura Markham?

I sing a lot to DS (16m) when I change his nappy or clean him up after meals etc, his favourite is the animal fair at the moment. Doesn't work every single time, sometimes he strops anyway but i'd say 90% of the time it's successful.

Also slightly different but he has an inhaler with an air chamber every morning and night which a lot of the time he doesn't want so we pretend it's a trumpet and make funny noises with it. Again, doesn't always work but for the times it does it's worth it.

Only a ten month old here so no help with regressive behaviours, but I am familiar with whining!

Pre-dinner whining: matador routine with bib, heavy on the olés.

Nappy change whining: put his trousers on my head and go through the routine as if it's a race, humming a speedy tune. William Tell overture good for this.

One which works in a lot of situations is pick up, comfort then pretend to drop.

What sparklyboots said about mirroring without taking the mickey is good I think, as is the exaggerated babying, this kind of thing has usually helped with my 5 year old niece when she's been a bit out of sorts.

Should add that while I'm in favour of the approach in principle, I've not read the playful parenting book so don't know what it advocates specifically. Just to be clear that these examples arise from my own natural idiocy and have no scientific endorsement